never Miss a beat

“The D, the I, the D, the Diddy, the Y, the Diddy, the… OH MY LORD MY FUCKING EYE JEEZ WOT’S GOING ON?”…  I was cruising the bus home on Monday night, scrolling through Twitter and checking out the news (TMZ), when I was struck with a sudden urge to helicopter Migralieve to Hollywood: Diddy was having a migraine. A MIGRAINE! The migraine was so extreme he was HOSPITALISED. Shut the front door. According to XXL Magazine, “there’s no telling what exactly caused the migraine”. There never is with a “migraine”. Ha! Migraine! Nothing but a hypochondriac’s headache! Nothing but a bit of mild pain for PUSSIES!

What caused his migraine? Diddy couldn’t handle his own brand of Ciroc vodka. Poor Diddy, throwing a post-Grammy party at the Playboy Mansion, getting all drunk and womanizey and being a rich asshole with cars and jetplanes and Benjamins (that’s Diddy talk for money) and lots of different names for his Empire-sized ego. When Diddy (actual name Sean Coombes) comes to, he’ll probably change his identity again he’s so embarrassed. Poor little Diddy/Daddy/Puffy/P-Puff-Dizzle-Stick. What exactly caused the migraine?, the world asks. Just check out the millionaire’s Twitter feed from the night before…

Exhibit A: “At my Playboy Mansion party…. Shit is crazy!!”

Exhibit B: “Sending photo updates! STAY TUNED!!!”

And Exhibit C, suckers: “This is actually one of the HOTTEST parties I’ve ever thrown!! Right now at the Playboy Mansion!!!! Let’s goooooooo!!!!”

Ha! You’re busted, Diddy. “Bad Boy For Life” how you like me now? The internet was having a party. “How will the doctors determine where his migraine ends and he begins?” commented one Huffington Post reader. Ehtiopia1a: “P Diddy gives me a headache too!” High-five, good one! Big Orange said, “He went to the hospital for a hangover? #SOFT”. Yeah, hashtagging the crap out of the Diddymachine! Some suggested how to help, such as OldPirate, “Just stroke the fuzzy wall, it’ll be ok” (anyone?), and DungBeetle, “Take a bath. You’ll be fine.”

Well, hopefully…

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Actually, the recommendation that Diddy take a bath in this scenario is ill-advised. A bath would be a messy affair. Diddy might throw up in the bath. He might lose balance and/or control of his limbs. Diddy could potentially die if he takes a bath while having a migraine. A migraine is a very serious problem. I’ve lived with migraines for 15 years. You think that’s a bit outlandish, don’t you? “Lived with”. It’s not.

I remember the first one. After having some lunch one day, I malfunctioned like Ash the Android in Alien over the course of nine hours.

The GP in the house (my dad’s a GP and he’s in the house) decided “Eve, you have exhibited CLASSIC MIGRAINE symptoms.” “What’s a meebrain?” thought the 9-year-old me. “Classic?” Isn’t that a word to describe things I like; such as Rugrats, Mariokart marathons, or (to impress the adults) The Sound Of Music? What had gone down in my skull was not Julie Andrews putting on a yodeling puppet show with an anthropomorphic goatherd. I was so confused. I was also petrified it might happen again. It was torturous. Like having the intro for Animaniacs (“we’re ANIMANEY, totally INSANEY” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA0TS9l_nJE) stomping all over my head for hours. My mum would say: “If I could have all your migraines for you, I would.”

Migraines are the Taliban of the human physique; afflictions that grow beyond control, an undetectable, highly resistant, little understood terror you have to accept and monitor, an invisible gremlin in your forehead with no foolproof solutions. You should try to fight it, else you might find yourself eternally holed up in a blacked-out room with a sick bucket by your side and a towel on your head like a lonely vampire. Never let your fear of having an “episode” run the show. Never give up on beating the shit out of your migraines’ attempts to exercise a reign of terror over your life plans. Keep sitting those exams, keep going on holiday, keep eating Curly-Wurlys (or don’t if you’ve determined chocolate is the source).  

I did the No Chocolate diet for 6 months, I did the No Cheese diet for 6 months, I did the No Chocolate And No Cheese diet for another 6 months (I think I just ate potato between the ages of 10 and 11)… Nothing determined anything. I’ve woken up with a migraine, I’ve gone through periods of heightened stress without so much as a single pang, I’ve had migraines while relaxing on holiday, I’ve even had “phantom” migraines (AKA acting a nervous wreck for hours thinking you’re “about to get a migraine”). I once had a phantom migraine for a month and had to get a CT scan, just in case.

Like Diddy, nobody knows what causes my migraines. I like to think it’s payback for my impeccable music and film tastes and oneness with the universe. “Yoda must have had many migraines,” I’d tell myself. I tend not to use the “migraine” card when I’m having an episode because it’s still a swearword. I honestly find it easier to feign a hangover. That’s right. I’d rather feign a hangover than tell someone I have a medical condition because people don’t take migraines seriously. This needs to stop now. Before doubters do any more doubting, I offer they join me down a twisted, nightmarish rabbit hole… Here is a seven-stage guide (helpfully signposted by highlights in Diddy’s career) to Having A Migraine. 

1. I Need A Pill (acted out to I Need A Girl Part One, featuring Usher)

Migraines run in the family. My aunt gives herself injections when under attack, which makes her as brave as Xena: Warrior Princess. Legend speaks of my great grandmother who had more alternative ideas. She’d strap a cloth soaked in vinegar across her head and go about her business. We reckoned the NHS probably could do better than that now, so went to the doctors. 

I had to keep food diaries, activity diaries and diaries of the migraines that read like World’s Worst Hangover stories, except by a 9-year-old. I learned what the word nausea meant, but not how to spell it. “Date 02/05/1995: Hour 1 – can’t see, naoseia, can’t tell mum to turn Tina Turner down; Hour 2 – was sick twice, yuck; Hour 3 – left arm flop, shaking, was sick again twice; Hour 4 – leg dead, sick again x 3, more nauseeai; etc etc etc.” They prescribed many different pills and eventually one worked.

Now I am in control (most of the time). I’m keeping a beta-blocker called Propranolol in business. Propranolol is the first thing I do every day and the last thing I do every night. I never forget. It’s supposed to prevent me from getting migraines full stop. If Propranolol was a person I’d marry him right now with the NHS as my Maid of Honour. 

2. Let’s Get Ill (featuring Kelis)

It starts with the eyes. This is called the “aura” (again nothing paranormal, though it feels like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers storming your immune system). “Your aura is tunnel vision”, the doctor would say. No it’s not. “Then you have stars in your eyes.” No I do NOT have stars in my eyes. “The patient’s eyes get spazzed”, would be far more accurate. If I look at my hands and half my fingers are missing I know I’m on a one-way trip to M Town.

3. I Need A Pill (acted out to I Need A Girl Part Two, featuring Ginuwine)

Propranolol is the pill I take as a preventative measure. We never concluded what medicine had maximum effect during the “attack”. There’s a nasal spray I carry with me that can be successful only if used the instant I get the aura. After a 5-minute window it’s game over. And I always miss the window because my mind has started wreaking havoc. “This is really happening?” I will ask of the migraine nervously, like Thom Yorke in Idioteque on the verge of an apocalyptic nightmare. The nasal spray is nothing but a way of feeling like I’ve tried to engage in a Just War with my migraine.

4. Coming Home (featuring Dirty Money)

PANIC STATIONS!!!! There is never a good place to have a migraine. What ensues now is a race against time. I have to get home before:

a) I lose all feeling in my left side (leg, hand, face) and start looking like Jackie Stallone having a stroke IN PUBLIC.

b) I get mild aphasia and can’t communicate things such as, “Basin! I NEED A BLOODY BASIN!”

c) My head starts pounding, crushing my skull and erasing at least five short term memories, including Ryan Gosling shirtless in Crazy Stupid Love, last night’s episode of EastEnders and… where I actually live.

d) I vomit.

Over the years I have built up a resistance that delays stages a)-d). I had to because school matrons can be precious about letting a child suddenly skip school when they don’t look physically ill… yet.

I once came down to London on the train from Glasgow to interview for a job and started spazz-eyeing between Glasgow and Carlisle. I got off at Carlisle, changed platforms, encouraged a train manager to let me on without a ticket and made it back to Glasgow just in time. When you have a migraine this is the equivalent of Frodo battling through Mordor, fending off Gollum and throwing the ring into the fires at the summit of Mount Doom. I smashed it that day.

5. Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down

The only good thing about vomiting is that it does lessen the severity of the headache. Briefly.

The headache is a pressure – your cranium realised it’s too small for your face and has started to cave in on itself, doing so in throbbing waves. Aphex Twin is having a rave in your temples, using your neurons to power the soundsystem. The experience has made me empathise with the inside bits of subwoofers. Over the course of 8 hours the headache will be alleviated for 15 minute periods every time you vomit. The only way forward is to sleep – not easy when your brain is punishing you for being alive.

6. Victory

A whimpering, silent victory at that, but a victory nonetheless, usually coming after finally drifting off to a land of blissfully ignorant slumber. Traditionally I’d celebrate a victory by sipping (SLOWLY) on Orange & Pineapple Robinsons and nibbling (SLOWLY) on tea finger biscuits. Now that I’m a grown-up I celebrate by doing these two things as fast as possible and then wishing the migraine had killed me before I’d had the chance.

7. Been Around The World (featuring Mase and Notorious B.I.G.)

After the migraine has passed you won’t feel right for days. This is the stage most akin to a “hangover”, albeit a 48-hour one. 

And there you have it. This, of course, is only my experience. It’s NOTHING compared to some stories I’ve heard. Tim commented of Diddy’s migraine: “I wish his big fat head would explode.” That’s great, Tim. I bet Diddy wished his head would explode during certain stages of the attack. I get why people take a stab at Diddy; he talks about his vodka all day, he calls women’s bums “tailfeathers”, he is obscenely flashy… Maybe his migraine was self-induced. Who knows?

I do know that Diddy didn’t go to the hospital because he was “hungover”. I do know that the solution for migraine sufferers isn’t to just “take a bath”. These comments about migraines are ones I’m all too familiar with. I’m hoping this self-indulgent tale (I’m sorry, by the way - congratulations for reading) about my head’s funtimes will help those fortunate enough never to have experienced a migraine UNDERSTAND that it’s not a get-out card when you can’t be bothered showing for work or going to someone’s birthday party. I defy anyone who doesn’t take a migraine seriously. And as for preventing the cretins themselves? Well, we won’t stop. Cos we can’t stop.

(Follow @iamdiddy on Twitter - he’s well funny)