IN BED

                                   IN BED 

-Joan Didion

'In Bed' is a essay written by Joan Didion which describes the experience of the essayist with Migraine headache. The essayist presents migraine attack as a friend rather than a foe (enemy).

Didion is a migraine patient and she has migraine attack 3-5 times a month. She takes certain drugs to avoid migraine; otherwise she would just be able to work 1 day in 4. When she was 15,16 or even 25, she used to think that she could get rid of migraine simply by neglecting it. Migraine was a shameful secret for her. She thought she had migraine because of chemical defect, her own bad attitudes, unpleasant tempers and wrong think.

She heard of many famous persons who had migraines, even children age as young as 2 years old. She had her first migraine when she was 8. The most important thing that she discovered is that migraine is a complex hereditary disease. There are many other reasons too. However, Hereditary character is the most important cause of migraine. Now Joan Didion is happy she has a migraine not because of chemical defects, bad attitudes, unpleasant tempers, wrong think but because her grandmother had a migraine and her parents both have migraine.

It is not exactly known what is inherited that causes migraine. However, the chemistry of migraine is supposed to be related with a nerve hormone called serotonin, which is found in the brain. Migraine attack is supposed to be triggered by the sharp decrease in amount of serotonin in blood. A drug named Methy Sergide is advised at serious cases as preventive which has side effects. However, There is no cure to Migraine.

When the writer has migraine, she drives through red lights, loses keys, spills whatever she holds, cannot focus her eyes and cannot make meaningful sentences ( aphasia ). Her pain is unbearable. But it is an ambiguous  blessing that nobody dies of migraine. The patients of migraine suffer form popular misconceptions about migraine. Non migraines think that migraine can be cured by taking a couple of aspirin. They charge that migraine patients are willingly refusing to cure themselves with aspirin. Some doctors talk about migraine patients as perfectionist. But Joan Didion has a different personality. Her hair is messy, household work is neglected and she spends most of her week writing, re-writing and not writing a single paragraph. This is her perfectionism.

Nobody can escape the migraine heredity. So, the author has learned to live with her migraine. She has made it her life long friend and has reached a certain understanding with it. It never attacks her when she has major problems like her house is burnt down, her husband has left her, there is violence in the streets,etc. It attacks her  instead when she has minor problems like she is worried about something, she is in household confusions, she has lost her washings,  she has to receive too much telephone,  the wind is coming up, etc.

Now John Didion responds towards her own migraine intellectually ( logically than emotionally ). She no longer fights against it. When the pain begins, she simply lies down in her bed and lets it happen. She concentrates only on the migraine pain as if she is in a yoga practice. The pain leaves her head 10 or 12 hours later and everything goes with it. It means all her worries and resentments (mixture of disappointment, fear and anger ) disappear. Now she is perfectly well, opens the windows and feels the air. She eats gratefully and sleeps well. She appreciates the beauty of nature and thinks how lucky she is .