It’s not wrong to say that I have always held a suspicion that I have secret spider blood running through my veins. Not because I crawl walls and fight crimes, but because I’ve never really known my doctor’s name. I count my lucky and obviously spider-enhanced genes that I tend to be of sturdy German stock health-wise. I won’t pretend that I’ve loved everything about the female form I occupy, we’ve had our ups and downs. I am a woman in America, yes? But the yearly boob squish, the icky clamp ride, a baby here, some bronchitis there, overall it’s been a pretty good go with the lady bod. Of course, this mentality did me no favors when everything changed in 2021.
What a year, what a fucking year. I bought a house, moved the final baby across the country, buried three men, became an Omi, and oh yeah, turned 50. And yeah, what they say is true, at least for me: your body changes more in your 50’s than it has since you were in your teens.
I can pinpoint the moment that I realized I was in for a new ride. It was on my deck under a cobalt blue sky in September.
Have you ever had an aural migraine? The first time I had one was in my forties, with the youngest at Chipotle. While standing in line I suddenly couldn’t focus on the cheese because there was a weird jaggy bright spot in the middle of my vision. I hadn’t been staring into a light, had I? As we moved through the line and I waited to pay, I realized the bright spot was … moving? What fresh hell? I tried not to panic, and kept chatty pre-teen kid in the dark as I drove the 2 miles home on backroads. By the time I was in our driveway, I could not believe the Beetlejuice looking squiggle that was moving across my vision. Stroke, I assumed. I told the kid to go in the house and eat, I was just going to call my mom for a chat. She wasn’t home.
This is the best example on the internets for what I saw.
On all other accounts, I felt fine. I dialed up the nurse line before I hit the 911, because it didn’t feel like an emergency. As I was on hold: everything passed. My vision was restored, I felt totally normal (besides the growing WTF in my head). Aural migraine they said. Super common they said. Not a stroke. Nothing to worry about, just take it easy when one comes on. I had never been a migraine person and that one didn’t come with the throbbing head that I associated with migraines. My youngest, sadly, battles migraines. He’s a puking machine who needs a dark room on some days, as he has since the days he was strapped in a car seat. But me, no. After that first one, I had only maybe two or three more over the following decade.
As of that day in September of 2021, I had been having them every week. In fact, it was a Sunday and I had had one on Friday, and one on Saturday, so when it started I moved right to the deck and sat on the lounge until it passed. They were annoying, and I chalked it up to the stress of the year, but I also knew that I needed to make an appointment with someone to ask questions and figure it out. But spider-enhanced humans tend to put things like this off.
My phone rang and it was the new college Freshman. We chatted easily about his new life, and I asked him a question about his dorm and the campus, did his dorm key work in all the buildings. But instead of asking “does your key work in all doors” it came out “does your kleesh work in doorts” … He laughed and asked, “what did you say?”
I tried again: Does your kleesh work in doorts? Your kleesh, you know your kleesh.
At this point, I realized that my brain was saying the word key, but my mouth was not. The kid assumed it was some joke or a wonky connection and laughed it off, moving on to another story. I was hot with panic. This was stroke, I thought. What do I do now? But as his story finished, I found I could say: ok kid talk to you later, call me this week sometime. No problem. Did I just imagine that? Was it really a thing or was I just a mushmouth because I missed my kid and my brain was working too fast (per usual). I hung up the phone and sat quite still for a moment deciding what to do. Do I take aspirin or is that for a heart attack?
Then, I felt a little stinging pain in my left arm. It started at the top near my bicep and moved down my arm. Into my hand. I immediately called my mom. Dammit she was not home, again. So I called the nurse line and told them the whole story. Again, besides these elements, I felt fine. And I was more than a little mad at my body for freaking me out.
I did go to the ER that night, as advised by the nurse, and they did a whole panel of tests to conclude that I did not have a stroke. But I was to see a neurologist the next day. She was very cool. She asked me about the sequence of events the night before, and then gave the advice that I hold on to and try to share when I can:
Did the symptoms happen all at once or in a marching order? For me it was aural first, then time passed before the speech thingy, and more time passed before the arm pain which marched down my arm. She said that if all those things happened at once, it would be a stroke, but because they marched in order it was a migraine.
S = Simultaneous = Stroke. M = Marching = Migraine.
The second thing she said was: get off the pill.
I had been on the pill (because life was so much easier when you only get your period every three months) for the 18 years following the baby. I didn’t really need to be on it anymore, I knew, but it was just the habit.
I stopped that day. The next day I had the last period of my life.
I did not mourn that moment, I was READY for the menopause chapter (it’s not a pause, yo). Let’s go! Spidey senses on overdrive, I was feeling free from all that muckity muck that the female body churns out for 36 years. What a privilege to have lived through something so powerful and so gross. Plus, I was an empty nester ready to get back some of the time I had invested in building the life around me.
And there was something else. I felt ready to be fully invested in the journey with my stacked pile of flesh and bones and blood. When you’re going through teenage puberty, you are but an emotional zygote in the world. How on earth are you supposed to process and understand the body clock as it ticks forward into adulthood?
But this time, I’m here. I know who I am. I am unafraid of change. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that I can’t be thrown, but I have built this mind to be an active partner to this body. We sally forth together.
And yet. Something happened last week which brought me back to examining that pact. Stay tuned for Part 2 next Monday. And be good to your blood and bones while you wait.
“an emotional zygote in the world” 😂 Getting older sucks AND is the best.