An Ecstatic End of Summer

Hurricane Season, Abba, and a trick for migraines

I live year round in a remote summer tourist destination.  Growing up here, the rhythm of the seasons are not only deeply ingrained in our bodies but elevated to an almost camp level.  In Winter, we practice hibernation. Our social circles shrink to Covid-era pods. We self-sustain and self-medicate with copious teas, wines or whiskies depending on where we all are on our substance journeys.

In heavy contrast, Summer barrels in, no little cat feet.  No matter your profession, if you live here you are deeply impacted by the flood of people, culture, money, opportunities, and traffic. And for those of us who do work in Summer-focused industries, we prepare for summer like it’s hurricane season (more on this later).

- This part is about Summer work -

A little over a year ago I transitioned from a social services job to a summer-focused admin role. Having spent my teens working in service industries, I had sworn off summer-facing work many times.  But my current position, administrative assistant to a dance presenter, was too good a fit for me to pass up.  And for the first time, I have actually enjoyed riding the wave of summer work: the overtime, the staff bonding, the marathon-pacing of energy, and the incredible range of new creative people I’ve met.

For Summer workers and visitors alike, there are nuances to the season. I won’t detail them now, but I will provide a little descriptive ramp from which to launch what I really want to talk about which is End of Summer.  By the last day of June everyone at my work was experiencing burn out. Everyone at every job I talked to was experiencing burnout. Understaffing, full stop. And the work had only just begun.  July is where we do that middle portion of the marathon: the one where you’re sweating and your muscles hurt, but this is what you’ve trained for.  August is an absolute emergency the whole way through. There’s nothing to do but fling yourself into it. “August rage” is a term used here to describe the feeling of having your place of living completely overrun by ants, cicadas, and humans who don’t believe in road safety. 

- This part is about hurricane season -

And then comes Labor Day and blessed hurricane season. I sit on a mountain of privilege when I say this: I love hurricane season (in the North).  I love it for two reasons: 1. It scares the tourists away. 2. It marks an end to the frenetic hosting of family, grocery store parking lot nightmares, and attempts to spend meaningful time with your 6 friends who all return for the same 4 day period which is also your busiest work week. What allows me to love hurricane season is that I live in the North-East United States. Here we rarely experience severe hurricane weather, and housing codes require some amount of hardiness in our buildings. Frankly, when I think about losing power and water for a couple days, I imagine the simplicity of tuna for every meal with delicious surrender. A lot of people right now are worrying about housing and food here. And I want to acknowledge that, and appreciate the combination of 25 years of work, savviness, and pure luck that has placed my family in security for now.

But beyond the hurricane warnings, my favorite thing about this “shoulder season” is the period of about 2-3 weeks when the locals come out to play. We go to the beach for the 2nd time all summer. We go to the restaurants we have been hearing wonderful things about, but avoiding at all costs. And we reunite in a kind of last-ditch effort to savor a Summer that is nearly gone.

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As a sick person, I spend time navigating the ways I must shape my life differently than most of my peers.  But this week, I’ve launched myself in just like the rest of them.  I’ve been dealing with nausea, migraines, and brain glitches since late July. Historically, I’ve tried to keep my symptoms at home and bring my “best self” to work. But this summer, when the vertigo hit or I felt a barf coming on, I was often at work (either working, or resting before driving myself home from work).  I brought my sick self out in a way I never had before. And I found that I was accepted and also supported. It was a new blending of worlds for me.

My first 3 years of treatment, the mantra that bubbled up in my mind most days was: happiness is the absence of nausea.  But lately I’ve been co-mingling the two, happiness and nausea, an experiment. It’s a sign that I am getting better.  Yes I have a half hour more capacity per week than last summer. But I also have learned to tolerate symptoms like pain, slurring of words, forgetfulness, and yes nausea both within myself and out in public. The perfectionist in me wants to share only my best, most present self with my friends and the world. But it turns out, they accept me scrambling my sentences or laying down on the floor just the same.

- Music and migraines -

Last night I went to an outdoor restaurant with a dear old friend - a composer, to see our other dear old friend sing live. It was a slower night, a good sign, and the locals were out!  I talked to a performer friend from high school who took me under her wing during those years. My singer friend blew me away a sultry piano cover of Dancing Queen at 103 BPM that had my arms in the air. And my composer friend filled me up with memory after memory that we had shared, and I had forgotten. Memories the spirochetes had painted over were joyfully unlocked. 

And a migraine crept in. About an hour in, she approached with gentle confidence, the way you might walk into a warm pool (the warm pool of my skull - yucky). Unlike other symptoms, my migraines are predictable and consistent.  They start as a low grade headache, present most days, but especially Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. By Friday, the pain patiently,  increases with incremental precision. Drop by drop, I experience a steady escalation of nausea, light and sound sensitivity, and a dull ache in the noggin. 

I felt her approaching, in her Lady of the Lake gown, from the back of the pool, the base of my skull.  But I was not afraid. I was having too much fun!  And, I seem to be at a stage where I know which symptoms can be tolerated and which are wild cards.  Nausea and vertigo, if I sense those two wild things coming, I know to lay down immediately.  They are no calm water enchantress. They swoop in like a flying squirrel to the head. But these migraines are different, they exist in a linear world of up and down, better and worse, and I trust them. 

Three quarters into the night, I started to apologize to my future self. I’ve been practicing dissociation from a young age and I am really good at deciding to focus on the fun I’m having despite any discomfort. But I could feel the Lady waiting for me when I got home and no longer had friends and music around to distract me. I drove home feeling a little cross-eyed, but that’s another skill I’ve developed. Two emotions: - gratitude and pity - accompanied me on that drive home. Gratitude for the people I love and the experiences I just had. Pity, for myself. Again, still operating from outside my body, I felt bad for her that she always has to pay for her fun. Socializing, work, being awake and alive in the world costs her, and she always pays in pain (or nausea, or hives, or fatigue).  But!  She’s good at it.

- A tip to help pain -

I am good at it.  I got home and ate some yogurt to coat and settle my stomach. I took my evening pills and added 600 mg of Ibuprofen.  I skipped the shower, ran a toothbrush over my teeth, and put the heating pillow in the microwave.  Now I’ll tell you about a new technique I’ve learned using Castor Oil. Picture a lasagna: the first layer is my belly, right under my belly button.  Then goes a cotton rag doused in castor oil. Next comes a piece of plastic wrap, a towel, and finally a bracing hot pillow as the sprinkle of parmesan on top. 

This was recommended by my Nurse Practitioner/Naturopath. Castor oil contains small amounts of ricin - seriously poison to humans. This minuscule amount of ricin on the skin encourages a little inflammatory / immune response that can help clear things out.  (Things = in my case, dead microbes).  That’s as far as I understand it. But what happens is great. About 5 minutes in I get a wave of nausea and a surge of restlessness in my limbs. It lasts about a minute. After that, I feel a baby surge of energy that is less like something was added and more like some great sand-bag weight was taken off me. It’s subtle. (I’ve also spoken to people who have tried this and experienced nothing but a hot greasy belly. Fair.)

Last night after the castor oil lasagna sat on my belly for a while, my head was roiling like the hurricanes that never hit us, and I decided to try the castor oil pack on my forehead. The pressure and the heat were divine. I was scared that bringing more blood to my skull would cause more pain, but somehow it was the opposite.  The Ibuprofen kicked in around the same time, and my migraine enchantress receded to an infinitely more tolerable distance. Ok so maybe happiness is the absence of pain or nausea.  But, I’m learning, happiness is also being with your people, despite your pain and nausea. 

And today you may wonder?  Where is my Lady?  She’s back to her throne at the base of my skull, a dull ache, a slow memory, a kind of gray helmet over my brain. But Wednesdays are my day off and I slept in. I need more rest than I have time for.  I have a colonoscopy/endoscopy - my first ever - one week from today.  I’m nervous about barfing after the anesthesia, and I’m worried about how bad my headache will be after fasting for 30 hrs. And this morning, I’m also happy.