When Migraines Attack

I found this headline on Yahoo on Friday, August 20th:

"Viking's Harvin has migraine attack at practice"

I empathize with Percy Harvin, but migraine attacks aren’t really attacks. Like heart attacks, the word “attack” is somewhat misleading. Migraines, however, can feel as though they’re attacking you. I should know. I've been a migraine sufferer for decades.

Sometimes I feel like a red hot fire place poker is being driven into your skull time and again. Just as people enjoying the last of a dying fire will determinedly poke through its ashes hoping to stir up stubborn embers hiding from the light, I get jabs of burning, searing pain above my left eye or just behind my right eye.

Sometimes I feel as though a sharp stick or overgrown nail the size of a railroad spike is being enthusiastically jammed into one or both eyes until it bursts through the other side of your head like a triple-digit rally on the DOW and playfully turns around to wink at you through the veil of agony.

Migraine sufferers or migraineurs are not being attacked, but it certainly can feel that way.