…on our last episode.

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In retrospect, any single one the things that I had described in the previous posts about migraines over the course of a lifetime would be innocuous:

• chronic persistence of worsening migraines
• some occasional, mild discomfort with abdominal exertion
• occasional remarks from various practitioners over the past two decades that my WBC was on the higher end of average
• significant injury (in 2016) that presented as a rib fracture, but no bruising observed and Xray revealed nothing
• infection — demonstrable, evidential

We still don’t understand what the exact cause of the infection was. It’s not resolved until we’re certain of the vector itself. So, the big question would be: how was it contracted? When? How long did I have it? Was it something that I’d had since the 1980s? Did I live through Basic Training in 1989 with it? Was it worsened from the 2016 injury? And did that lead to the fall in 2017?

Sure, it’s been identified and treated. Mitigated, perhaps. But not eliminated.

Yet, I find myself wondering whether the infection itself, and the periodic brief episodes of light-headedness — not quite a syncope episode, but brief periods (fleeting, much like PVCs) of a half-second or less experienced in October, November, and December of that year — perhaps in a light-headed moment when I was atop the ladder, I fell.

Apart from the fall itself, any one of the issues above, by themselves, would be insignificant. Yet, together, over a lifetime, they would combine to lead to a realization which ultimately stopped the migraines with which I was contending.

From one perspective, I suppose that it could be said that I had to nearly die in order to accidentally stumble into a cure for the life-long migraines.

⌨️