Headaches

Warning: this is a little self-indulgent, but it was necessary at the time. 

 

So, disclaimer, things are much better than they were when I drew this comic about a month ago. My doctor had put me on a crazy anti-seizure medicine in hopes it would help with my migraines. Not only did it not help with the headaches, but I had really bad side-effects. I had trouble thinking and focusing, I would forget words all the time which made it very difficult to hold conversations, I was running into things while walking, I lost weight because I would forget to eat for a whole day, my fingers would tingle all the time like my hands were falling asleep, and I was having panic attacks. I was on this for a little over a month and for that month it became really hard to deal with daily life because now I was not only in pain but I felt like my brain was failing me.
It took so much energy just to get through work that I didn't really have energy for anything else so I mostly stopped hanging out with people because it was too hard to hold a conversation. I didn't go right back to my doctor to be taken off of it because I no longer trusted myself and I thought, maybe this is just what I'm always like. The headache specialist I started seeing this month took me off the medicine right away and things got better fast. Now that I'm seeing this specialist I feel much more hopeful that the headaches will pass with hopefully as few unobtrusive medications as possible.
I wasn't going to post this one originally because it just felt too personal, but I also wasn't really talking to people about what I was going through at the time so I will share now.

The woes of chronic migraines.

I've suffered from chronic migraines for 10 or so years. I used to get migraines multiple times a week and now, thanks to lots and lots of dietary restrictions and regular acupuncture, it's only a few times a month. But occasionally I get hit exceptionally hard with a crazy headache, and this was probably the worst I've had in years, if not ever. 

Fun-A-Day Comics

So I'm finally getting motivated and editing my Fun-A-Day comics. This year I decided to do one panel comics in hopes that it would take less time and I'd be more likely to complete all 28 days. Alas, it did take less time - 1 hour a night to last years 2 or 3 was definitely an improvement. However, I still didn't make it all 28 days. For most of the month I'd leave the house at 8am and return home around 9pm and there were too many nights I didn't have the energy to dedicate an hour.

I'm not good at picking reasonable daily projects. Bad Fun-A-Day organizer! I definitely don't set a good example.

In any case, drawing one panel comics was pretty interesting. It ended up being way more different from multi-panel comics than I had expected. In general, when doing diary comics I pick an interesting interaction from the day, but that doesn't work so well for 1 panel. Conversations happen over multiple moments - but I'm only capturing one. So I don't necessarily end up picking a moment that sums up the day as much as picking a single moment that can be a complete story on its own.

It was more difficult than I had expected - but a good challenge.

February 8, 2010