Last year, when I was a freshmen in college, I was walking out of the music building on campus. I remember vividly that as the light outside hit my eyes that I suddenly had, what I assumed was just a bad headache. I went to my room and took a couple ibuprofen and tried to go about my day but I felt sick and my head pounded hard. The weekend carried on in the same manner. By Sunday, I felt so sick that I was unable to volunteer at this music class I was supposed to teach.

I remember thinking that maybe I had some bad chicken on campus and that is why I felt so sick. But the pain would not go away. Instead, that whole week, the pain increased.

I could not keep any food down. Bright lights and loud sounds made my head pound and made me throw up. I would run out of ensemble, a number of different music classes, and during my own practices, to try to make it to the bathroom.

After the first week I decided to go to the health center where they concluded I was probably having migraines. They said I should go see a neurologist and they prescribed me a concoction of pain pills to ease the pain. Nothing worked. So I started taking Excedrin extra strength after the medication from the health center ran out. That did not work either. I was missing classes because I could not get up out of bed because the pain was so terrible and nothing was working. I could barely keep down any food. I had to lay in my room with the lights off for most of the day and if I could make it to class, I had to keep my head down in my hands because the lights were too bright and I could not participate much at all.

We decided to go to the family physician who recommended that I get an M.R.I, just in case, she said. We want to rule out every other possibility, she claimed. So that is what we did. A few days later my mom called me. They found something on the scans and were referring me to a neurosurgeon. As scared as I was I thought, at least there were answers.

The neurosurgeon took one look at my scans and told me it was an arachnoid cyst, something I was probably born with, and something that was probably not causing my migraines. Probably. He said he did not want to cut open my head if he was not absolutely sure.

I cried.

It had been three months since the start of this nonstop migraine and it seemed like it would never end.

We then went to a neurologist who promised to help me. He said that we would find a fix to this.

He said that some people just get migraines and we do not know why.

He said I would probably have migraines for the rest of my life.

I tried to continue to play my instruments but every time I tried, the pain would be so bad that most times I would wake up after passing out on the practice room floor.

My neurologist wrote me a note saying I was not allowed to play for a while.

I still wanted to play. I wanted to teach music. But after not being able to play my instrument for so long, and after so much pain, I had to reconsider my options.

I decided to switch majors completely. What was the point of suffering through these migraines when I was not even allowed to play my instrument at all? I did not even know when this instrument ban would be lifted anyway. I loved reading and language arts, so I decided to switch to language arts education.

This year I found out that the cold causes migraines.

I cannot go outside if the temperature drops below about thirty degrees.

If the wind hits my face, I get a migraine.

It feels like someone is squishing my head with their hands but they have knives in both.

In short, it hurts.

But I try to do what I need to do to take care of myself. I take the medication I am given. When I get a migraine I turn the lights off and take a nap. Even if everyone is going outside and doing something, I know if it is too cold, I will be miserable if I join them. And while it sometimes sucks, I know that I am doing what I need to do.