You ever see that old episode of the Twilight Zone? The one where this guy can never find any time to read his favourite books, then the H-bomb hits and then he has all the time in the world to read his books? But then he breaks his glasses and can’t read his books?
I’ve been out of work for a year now, and I haven’t been able to get a job again due to the severe migraines I get. These migraines are part of Migraine Associated Vertigo, so the headache pain that most people think of when you mention migraines isn’t even the main problem for me. When I get a migraine, I’m mostly affected by confusion and dizziness, with a lot of nausea thrown in. Some days are so bad that I can’t even stand up without passing out.
While I was working, I accumulated a nice collection of console video games, but I never ever had time to play them. I got some really kickass Saturn, PlayStation, Dreamcast, PS2 and Xbox games just waiting to be enjoyed. If you take a look at some of the older posts on this blog, you’ll notice that lots of them amount to little more than me complaining about how I never had time to myself, and that all I ever did was work, sleep, and work.
Well, I seemingly have all the time I could ever want to enjoy my video game collection. And I have spent a lot of time doing just that over the past year. My Golfyssey and Video Carnage reviews could have never been done while I was employed.
But more often than not, I can’t even play video games thanks to my migraines. When I’m dizzy and nauseous from a migraine, any kind of movement on a TV screen only makes things worse. To quote Burgess Meredith from the old Twilight Zone episode, “That’s not fair!”
This also explains the slow progression my reviews are taking now. I started my racing game reviews back in August, and I figured I would be done by the end of October. I didn’t count on having to spend so many days just sitting or lying down and doing absolutely nothing – days where the most productive thing I accomplish is playing my guitar.
I’m optimistic about all this though. I’m on a waiting list to see a neurologist (Calgary has a whole lot of migraine sufferers thanks to our schizophrenic weather) and I will eventually be able to get Botox injections into my head that might lessen the frequency and severity of my migraines. Turns out Botox has actual medicinal uses besides cosmetic surgery.
I’m also at the age where migraine severity is at its peak for most people, and I’m pretty sure that they can’t get any worse for me. From here, things should only get better. To be extremely optimistic, 40 years from now I might not even get them at all!