Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 articles
    • Obituary notices
  • Authors & Reviewers
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
    • Patient engagement
  • Physicians & Subscribers
    • Benefits for Canadian physicians
    • CPD Credits for CMA Members
    • Subscribe to CMAJ Print
    • Subscription prices
    • Obituary notices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2023
    • Avis de décès
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN

User menu

Search

  • Advanced search
CMAJ
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN
CMAJ

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 articles
    • Obituary notices
  • Authors & Reviewers
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
    • Patient engagement
  • Physicians & Subscribers
    • Benefits for Canadian physicians
    • CPD Credits for CMA Members
    • Subscribe to CMAJ Print
    • Subscription prices
    • Obituary notices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2023
    • Avis de décès
  • Visit CMAJ on Facebook
  • Follow CMAJ on Twitter
  • Follow CMAJ on Pinterest
  • Follow CMAJ on Youtube
  • Follow CMAJ on Instagram
Essay

Writing in migraine mode

Maureen Rappaport
CMAJ May 16, 2000 162 (10) 1459;
Maureen Rappaport
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Squatting on a rock, meditating, searching for a metaphor, a medicine for my migraine. I look up to the sky. Sun shards pierce my eye and trigger my muse. My migraine. Her thoughts swell my brain; her feelings flood my blood. As her anvil presses down on my right optic nerve, words squeeze and splat out of my eye onto the paper. Turds of clay.

She tightens my occiput, stretches my scalp inward, sideways and out again like a moustached fat lady in black chiffon and strong B.O., heaving as she moans, while rolling pizza dough, scraping pointing fingernails along my right earlobe, midwife coaching at that gaping hole.

She burns my neural pathways, slashes and burns through neurofibrillary tangles and webs. Forgotten pain lashes out of blazing woods and brews in the oceans of soup steaming in me.

I ride her vertiginous waves, up and down, through crest and trough, as plots climax then drop, over and over, my stomach turning inside out until I fear my head will pop from all this conflict and tension she creates.

When I cannot bear the aches she releases, I try pills, tinctures, balms and elixirs. She then recedes, painting landscapes blue and red; horn and fiddles dancing horas around my mother's bed; drunken dybbuks whispering ditties in my head.

Migraine, I would like to banish you forever! But without your passion, hair falls limply onto the page, rootless without stories. How can I give up such fervour?

PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

CMAJ
Vol. 162, Issue 10
16 May 2000
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author

Article tools

Respond to this article
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
To sign up for email alerts or to access your current email alerts, enter your email address below:
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on CMAJ.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Writing in migraine mode
(Your Name) has sent you a message from CMAJ
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the CMAJ web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Writing in migraine mode
Maureen Rappaport
CMAJ May 2000, 162 (10) 1459;

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
‍ Request Permissions
Share
Writing in migraine mode
Maureen Rappaport
CMAJ May 2000, 162 (10) 1459;
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like

Jump to section

  • Article
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • 4 Main
  • The Olivieri story, take three
  • Disease as idea
Show more Essay

Similar Articles

 

View Latest Classified Ads

Content

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Collections
  • Sections
  • Blog
  • Podcasts
  • Alerts
  • RSS
  • Early releases

Information for

  • Advertisers
  • Authors
  • Reviewers
  • CMA Members
  • CPD credits
  • Media
  • Reprint requests
  • Subscribers

About

  • General Information
  • Journal staff
  • Editorial Board
  • Advisory Panels
  • Governance Council
  • Journal Oversight
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright and Permissions
CMAJ Group

Copyright 2023, CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved. ISSN 1488-2329 (e) 0820-3946 (p)

All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association or its subsidiaries.

To receive any of these resources in an accessible format, please contact us at CMAJ Group, 500-1410 Blair Towers Place, Ottawa ON, K1J 9B9; p: 1-888-855-2555; e: cmajgroup@cmaj.ca

CMA Civility, Accessibility, Privacy

 

Powered by HighWire