(and What the ER, Migraine Pain, and One Small Ice Cream Taught Me About Being Held)
No one really prepares you for the hardship of not feeling well.
Physically unwell, I mean.
Not the kind of sickness we all know how to explain. Not the flu that arrives with a fever, a cough, a blanket, and a few days of disappearing from the world before slowly coming back to yourself.
That kind of sickness has a familiar shape.
You get sick.
You cancel plans.
You stay home.
You drink tea.
You wait for it to pass.
And usually, it does.
The seasons change, the fever breaks, your body slowly returns to being something you can trust again, and life continues.
But there is another kind of not feeling well.
A stranger kind.
The kind that does not leave after five days.
The kind that does not fit neatly into sick leave.
The kind that follows you into work, into conversations, into relationships, into your sleep, into your attempts to be normal.
The kind that makes you realize how fragile normal actually is.
Most of us learned something about that during Covid. I had Covid during the first wave in Israel, before vaccines, before we really understood what this thing was going to become. That was frightening in its own way, of course. But even then, it had a name. It had a timeline. It had a collective story around it.
This was different.
This was my body becoming unfamiliar to me.
The First Time It Happened
A year and a half ago, I had my first migraine attack.
It came out of nowhere.
Not quietly.
Not gradually.
Suddenly.
First there were flashes in my vision, strange bright interruptions that made it hard to see for about ten minutes. It felt like my eyes were open, but the world had been disturbed from the inside. Like my brain had decided, without asking me, to change the rules of reality for a while.
And then came the pain.
A huge, heavy ache in my head.
The kind that makes everything feel too bright, too loud, too much.
That same day, I had two attacks.
Two.
As if my body wanted to make sure I understood this was not just a random headache.
And from that point on, migraines became part of my life.
Apparently, for my 30th birthday, along with all the emotional symbolism of entering a new decade, life decided to give me migraines too.
A very thoughtful gift, I know.
At first, I tried the usual route. Painkillers. Acute medications. Waiting. Hoping. Convincing myself that maybe this would calm down if I just found the right pill.
But migraines have their own stubborn language.
And eventually, I understood that this was bigger than something I could manage alone.
So I activated my private health insurance and started seeing senior neurologists.
I saw two over the past year.
Both were excellent at what they do.
Professionally, I trusted them.
Emotionally, not so much.
There is something very strange about sitting in front of a doctor with a problem that is taking over your life and feeling that they understand the medical case, but not the person sitting inside it.
They knew migraines.
But I did not always feel that they saw me.
Trying to Function Through Pain
The last month became especially hard.
The migraines became stronger.
The dizziness became constant.
There were days when walking felt difficult, when my body felt unstable, when I went to work in pain because some part of me still believed that if I acted normal enough, maybe I could convince reality to become normal too.
I would sit there, trying to function, trying to answer messages, trying to appear like myself, while inside I felt like I was fighting a private battle no one could fully see.
That is one of the loneliest things about invisible pain.
You can look fine.
You can put on clothes.
You can answer emails.
You can smile.
You can participate in a meeting.
And still, your body can be screaming.
By then, I had already tried two different monthly biological injections, Ajovy and Aimovig. Both were supposed to help. Both gave me hope in different moments. But neither became the answer I needed. One of them even seemed to make the dizziness worse.
After another week of trying to survive, I finally surrendered.
That is the word that feels most accurate.
Surrendered.
Not in a peaceful way.
Not in a graceful way.
More like collapsing after a long, stubborn performance of being okay.
I stayed home.
And for the first time in a while, I admitted that I could not continue pretending this was manageable.
Finding a Doctor Who Saw Me
I decided to look for another neurologist.
Someone different.
Someone who would not only know what to prescribe, but would also understand what it feels like to live inside a body that keeps interrupting your life.
I found someone highly experienced in his field, who also works at the Pain Center at Sheba Medical Center.
That already felt like a good sign.
When my boyfriend and I sat in his office, I felt almost immediately that something was different.
Not because he promised a miracle.
He didn’t.
But because he listened.
Really listened.
There was empathy in the room. There was patience. There was a kind of seriousness that did not feel cold. He spoke to me like someone who understood that I was not just asking for treatment.
I was asking for relief.
He decided to change the monthly injections to a daily preventive pill called Qulipta, which works through a different migraine-related pathway in the brain.
But beyond that, he also offered something more immediate.
He said that if I agreed, he could send me to the ER at Sheba so they could try to break the migraine cycle with a proper migraine protocol.
And even though I was suffering, I still needed time to think.
That sounds ridiculous, maybe.
But it is funny how bad you can feel and still not give your pain enough space.
As if admitting how bad it is makes it more real.
As if going to the ER means you have failed at handling it.
As if maybe, if you ignore it just a little longer, it will disappear.
Internal gaslighting.
That is what some people call it.
And honestly, that is exactly what it felt like.
The First ER Visit
The next day, we went to the ER at Sheba.
I had been to the ER for migraines before, in the south, and the experience was completely different. Back then, when I said I had a bad migraine, I felt the nurses looking at me almost as if to say:
Okay, and?
Why are you here?
At Sheba, it felt different from the beginning.
The space itself felt more organized, more modern, more human. There were waiting areas with grey sofas, softer lighting, wide hallways, signs above treatment rooms, glass doors, nurses moving from place to place with purpose. It still had the unmistakable feeling of a hospital, of course — the smell, the fluorescent lights, the quiet tension of people waiting for answers — but it did not feel hostile.
It felt like a place that knew what it was doing.
Things moved quickly.
Blood tests.
A neurologist.
A treatment plan.
A chair.
An IV.
Before I fully understood what was happening, medicine was already entering my veins.
They gave me fluids, magnesium, strong pain relief, and medication for nausea.
One of the nausea medications made me feel awful in a different way. Restless. Jumpy. Impatient inside my own skin. Like I wanted to crawl out of myself but couldn’t.
I remember asking ChatGPT if that reaction could happen, and seeing that yes, it could.
Somehow, even that helped.
Not because it made the feeling pleasant.
But because it made it less frightening.
A named feeling is always slightly less terrifying than an unnamed one.
After a while, I felt some relief.
Not complete relief.
But enough to go home.
And when you have been in pain for long enough, even a small reduction can feel like a window opening.
The problem was that it did not last.
That is something I learned quickly about migraines in the ER.
They can try to break the attack.
They can weaken it.
They can interrupt the cycle.
But there is no guarantee.
And two days later, I was back.
The Night That Became Morning
The second ER visit was on a Friday night.
Everything felt more chaotic that time.
Hospitals have a different energy at night. The lights feel harsher. The waiting feels longer. People look more exhausted. Time becomes strange, stretched between plastic chairs, wristbands, monitors, doors opening and closing, doctors passing quickly, families waiting with that particular hospital silence on their faces.
We arrived around 9 p.m.
We left at 6 a.m.
An entire night.
My neurologist knew we were coming and made sure to update the neurologist on call, which made me feel held in a way I really needed.
This time, the medications were stronger.
A strong painkiller through the vein.
Two medications for nausea.
Magnesium.
Steroids.
My body reacted intensely.
I was shivering.
There were sudden, unwanted jumps in my body that I could not predict, painful and frightening, as if my nervous system had become too tired to stay calm anymore.
I felt exhausted in a way that was hard to describe.
Not only tired from not sleeping.
Tired from being a body.
Tired from being a patient.
Tired from needing help.
And then the neurologist offered something new: an occipital nerve block.
A treatment targeting the nerves at the back of the head and neck that can be involved in migraine pain.
At that point, the word “new” itself felt like hope.
Because when you have been suffering for long enough, trying something different can feel like someone opening a door in a room you thought had no exits.
The treatment was quick.
A few injections around the back of the head and neck.
Not pleasant, exactly, but manageable.
And I remember feeling relieved that we were doing something that felt active. Something that was not only another pill, another infusion, another wait-and-see.
Something targeted.
Something that might help.
And for one gracious day, it did.
Our Anniversary, After the ER
The timing was almost absurd.
That same day was our one-year anniversary.
I had been nervous about it before, because I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted us to celebrate properly. I wanted the day to feel romantic and meaningful and not swallowed by hospitals and migraines and exhaustion.
But life, as usual, had other plans.
Instead of sleeping peacefully before our anniversary, we spent the night in the ER.
Instead of waking up fresh and excited, we came home at sunrise and collapsed into sleep.
And yet, somehow, the day became meaningful in a way I could not have planned.
My boyfriend was truly amazing through all of it.
There are moments in relationships where love stops being an idea and becomes something practical.
A hand held for hours.
A person sitting beside you when there is nothing fun or easy about it.
Someone staying awake in an ER chair while you shake from medication.
Someone seeing you at your worst and not making you feel like a burden.
He stayed with me the entire night.
No sleep.
No complaints.
Just presence.
And I felt, in a very real way, that we had passed some kind of test.
Not the kind anyone wants.
But the kind life sometimes gives you anyway.
After we slept for about six hours, he took me to the beach because he knew how important it was for me to leave the house that day.
And that moment became everything.
Just the two of us, sitting in a hidden spot, watching the sunset.
The sun lowering slowly.
The sea breathing in front of us.
My body, for once, not screaming.
It had been so long since my body had stopped aching that I felt almost emotional just sitting there.
I could breathe.
Really breathe.
Later that evening, we went for ice cream.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing fancy.
Just ice cream.
But it was exactly what I needed.
And I remember realizing that celebrations do not have to be big to be important.
Sometimes the smallest celebration means more because of what it survived.
We did not celebrate our first year the way I imagined.
We celebrated it our way.
After the ER.
After fear.
After pain.
After a night that showed me what his love looks like when things are not pretty.
And somehow, that made it feel even stronger.
The Pain Clinic
The next week was still difficult.
The migraine did not disappear completely.
The pain came and went as it pleased.
The dizziness stayed.
And after another week of suffering, I went to the Pain Center at Sheba for a more precise occipital nerve block treatment under ultrasound guidance.
The clinic had a different atmosphere from the ER.
The ER is urgent. Moving. Noisy in its own way. Full of people arriving in crisis.
The Pain Center felt quieter.
More organized.
More focused.
Almost calmer.
But there was something heavy about it too.
Everyone sitting there was carrying pain.
Different kinds of pain, different stories, different bodies, but the same quiet hope: maybe today something will ease.
That is a very specific kind of waiting room.
People do not talk much.
They sit with forms, bracelets, medical papers, tired eyes, and small private wishes.
I remember looking around and thinking that chronic pain creates a strange kind of community. Not one you choose. Not one you want. But one you understand immediately when you see it.
The nurse told me that this treatment has very good results for many migraine patients, and I felt hopeful.
Cautiously hopeful.
The kind of hope you allow yourself only a little, because you are scared of being disappointed again.
The Treatment
I already knew the general idea because I had gone through a version of it in the ER, but this time it was more precise.
The treatment was done under ultrasound guidance.
That means the doctor uses imaging during the procedure to see the structures in real time and guide the needle to the exact area near the nerve. The goal is to inject medication, usually a local anesthetic and sometimes a steroid, close to the nerve involved in the pain. Because the doctor can see what he is doing while he does it, the injection can be more accurate and the risk of irritating or injuring nearby tissues is lower.
I found that strangely comforting.
There is something reassuring about precision when your body has felt so unpredictable.
My boyfriend came with me, of course.
By then, that “of course” had started to mean a lot.
The procedure itself took about ten minutes.
Ten minutes, after weeks of pain.
It is strange how something so short can carry so much hope.
The plan now is to see what happens.
If it helps, then maybe we have found a useful path. Maybe we can continue with a series of similar treatments and slowly reduce the pain.
If it does not help, then the technique may need to change. Maybe lower in the neck. Maybe targeting different nerves.
Nothing is certain yet.
That is the hard part.
Medicine is not always a straight line.
Sometimes it is a process of trying, waiting, adjusting, hoping, and trying again.
The Ice Cream After
After we finished, my boyfriend bought me ice cream.
Not because it fixed anything.
Not because it made the dizziness disappear.
But because he wanted to mark my strength somehow.
And honestly, I needed that.
Sometimes after medical procedures, people expect you to feel relieved immediately. But often, the body is still confused. You are tired. Dizzy. Emotional. Wondering if it worked. Wondering if you are allowed to hope.
So the ice cream felt like a tiny ceremony.
A small reward for surviving another appointment.
Another procedure.
Another waiting room.
Another attempt to find relief.
It was simple.
But simple things have started to mean more lately.
What This Month Taught Me
I am still dizzy.
I am still waiting to see if something changes.
I am still learning how to live inside uncertainty without letting it swallow me completely.
And maybe that is the hardest part of this whole migraine journey.
Not only the pain itself.
But the uncertainty around it.
Will today be better?
Will tomorrow be worse?
Will this treatment work?
Will this medication help?
Will I feel like myself again?
There are no immediate answers.
Only small signs.
A doctor who finally listens.
A treatment that gives one good day.
A boyfriend who stays beside me through the night.
A sunset after the ER.
An ice cream after a nerve block.
A tiny moment of relief that reminds me my body is still capable of peace, even if only for a while.
I wish I could end this post by saying that everything is solved.
That the migraine is gone.
That the dizziness disappeared.
That I found the perfect treatment and now I am back to myself completely.
But that would not be true.
The truth is quieter than that.
I am still in it.
Still searching.
Still trying.
Still learning how to take my pain seriously without letting it become my whole identity.
And maybe that is a kind of strength too.
Not the dramatic kind.
Not the kind that looks beautiful from the outside.
But the kind that gets up and goes to the next appointment.
The kind that says yes to another treatment.
The kind that lets someone hold your hand when you are scared.
The kind that accepts ice cream after a hard day because even small softness counts.
Maybe healing is not always a big breakthrough.
Maybe sometimes healing begins with being believed.
With being treated gently.
With finally finding a doctor who listens.
With realizing that your pain is real, even when it cannot be seen.
And with allowing yourself, after all the trying and waiting and hurting, to hope again.
Carefully.
Softly.
One breath at a time.
