Migraine Awareness Week 2013 - Les Miserables: “I Dreamed a Dream”

Today's musical inspiration comes from Les Miserables (a good one to thing to watch if you're feeling terrible as it reminds you things could be worse!!) with the iconic song 'I Dreamed a Dream'.

Today's Prompt is: Les Miserables: “I Dreamed a Dream”

Today, for the last blog post of Migraine Awareness Week 2013, Victoria has asked us what our fantasy dream, migraine-free day would be; a day with no limits as a perfectly healthy person.

Believe it or not, this is actually the hardest blog post of the whole week for me.  Trying to think about what I would want to do on a dream day as a perfectly healthy person is just so far outside of the realms of things I'm normally thinking about, so far outside of the box so to speak, that I've been finding it really hard to think of what I would want to do.

I think first off, the perfect day would have to include a lie-in.  I don't get to have a lie-in, even at weekends as I have to maintain my sleep routine very strictly to minimise my migraines normally, so having a consequence-free lie-in would be wonderful.  Followed by a cup of tea and breakfast in bed of course.

The thing I find I'm least able to do with my migraines normally is anything very physically active, so if I was perfectly healthy, and the world is my oyster, then what I would ideally be doing would be playing a game which is physically demanding in London like The Go Game or Zombie LARP.

I'd then gorge myself on masses of cheese and chocolate for lunch, not caring about eating the classic migraine trigger foods only in moderation and I'd have a slice of lemon in my earl grey like I used to but as citrus fruits are a common migraine trigger I don't anymore.

I'd then love to go shopping with unlimited money (we said fantasy, right), something which I usually find very exhausting and migraine triggering.  I'd have someone else there to carry all the shopping of course, but I'd buy my fill of board games, comics, figurines, crafting supplies and even some clothes too!  And I wouldn't be worrying about keeping myself mega-hydrated the whole time too.

I'd then love to spend the evening with lots of friends, getting drunk (as I can't drink alcohol at all as it's a major trigger for me) and dancing the night away, staying up late (something I can't normally do) and dancing to all my favourite music the whole night, ideally at a roller disco (yes I can still skate whilst drunk as I've proven at roller discos before I had migraines).

Yep, that sounds like a pretty incredibly amazing day to me!

Thinking about the ideal day and all the things I'd love to do that I just can't because of the curse of migraine just ends up making me sad though.
Instead, I like to think about things I'd love to do which are more realistic and make the plans, contingencies and take all the measures needed to be able to do them, like I did for LeakyCon last month.


So that brings an end to Migraine Awareness Week.  If you want to find out more about migraines and headaches, The Migraine Trust are a fantastic resource and The National Migraine Centre don't require a doctor's referral to book an appointment with and they also have some fabulous resources.

Migraine Awareness Week is 1-7 September and is dedicated to trying to educate people that Migraine is more than just a headache and to try and raise money for Migraine research.

The Migraine Trust are funding a dedicated migraine research programme - the only programme of its kind in the UK.  They need £130,000 to fully fund their new line of research and one hour of research can be funded by a donation of £35.63.  Please donate to The Migraine Trust if you are able to and hopefully this research could bring us all closer to a cure.