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The Kent State University Press - Kathleen O'Shea

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172 pages

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"English," wrote Virginia Woolf, "which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache. . . . let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry."Despite Woolf's astute observation and the apparent dearth of writings on such subjects, editor Kathleen O'Shea has managed to gather a wide selection of helpful excerpts, chapters, poetry, and even a short play in this anthology-all with a view toward increasing our understanding and ending the stigma attached to migraines and migraine sufferers. Unlike clinical materials, this anthology addresses the feelings and symptoms that the writers have experienced, sometimes daily. These pieces speak freely about the loneliness and helplessness one feels when a migraine comes on. The sufferer faces nausea, pain, sensitivity to light, and having the veracity of all these symptoms doubted by others. O'Shea, a professor of literature and a migraine sufferer herself, also includes an original essay of her own reflections.Offered as an alternative not only to medical writing but also to self-help books and internet blogs, So Much More Than a Headache addresses a real omission in the available works on migraine, provides a resource for those who may have underestimated the depth and range of writing on this subject, and challenges the cultural bias that dismisses migraine as "just a headache."

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Publié par	The Kent State University Press
Date de parution	30 juin 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781631014178
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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SO MUCH MORE THAN A HEADACHE
LITERATURE AND MEDICINE
Michael Blackie, Editor • Carol Donley and Martin Kohn, Founding Editors
  1 Literature and Aging: An Anthology Edited by Martin Kohn, Carol Donley, and Delese Wear
  2 The Tyranny of the Normal: An Anthology · Edited by Carol Donley and Sheryl Buckley
  3 What’s Normal? Narratives of Mental and Emotional Disorders · Edited by Carol Donley and Sheryl Buckley
  4 Recognitions: Doctors and Their Stories Edited by Carol Donley and Martin Kohn
  5 Chekhov’s Doctors: A Collection of Chekhov’s Medical Tales · Edited by Jack Coulehan
  6 Tenderly Lift Me: Nurses Honored, Celebrated, and Remembered Jeanne Bryner
  7 The Poetry of Nursing: Poems and Commentaries of Leading Nurse-Poets Edited by Judy Schaefer
  8 Our Human Hearts: A Medical and Cultural Journey · Albert Howard Carter III
  9 Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers · Jay Baruch
10 Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies · Edited by Sayantani DasGupta and Marsha Hurst
11 Wider than the Sky: Essays and Meditations on the Healing Power of Emily Dickinson · Edited by Cindy Mackenzie and Barbara Dana
12 Lisa’s Story: The Other Shoe Tom Batiuk
13 Bodies and Barriers: Dramas of Dis-Ease · Edited by Angela Belli
14 The Spirit of the Place: A Novel Samuel Shem
15 Return to The House of God: Medical Resident Education 1978–2008 Edited by Martin Kohn and Carol Donley
16 The Heart’s Truth: Essays on the Art of Nursing · Cortney Davis
17 Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease Edited by Holly J. Hughes
18 The Country Doctor Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Reader Edited by Therese Zink
19 The Widows’ Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival Edited by Jacqueline Lapidus and Lise Menn
20 When the Nurse Becomes a Patient: A Story in Words and Images · Cortney Davis
21 What’s Left Out · Jay Baruch
22 Roses in December: An Alzheimer’s Story · Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers
23 Mysterious Medicine: The Doctor-Scientist Tales of Hawthorne and Poe Edited by L. Kerr Dunn
24 Keeping Reflection Fresh: A Practical Guide for Clinical Educators Edited by Allan Peterkin and Pamela Brett-MacLean
25 Human Voices Wake Us · Jerald Winakur
26 Learning to Heal: Reflections on Nursing School in Poetry and Prose Edited by Jeanne Bryner and Cortney Davis
27 From Reading to Healing: Teaching Medical Professionalism through Literature · Edited by Susan Stagno and Michael Blackie
28 The Health Humanities and Camus’s The Plague · Edited by Woods Nash
29 So Much More Than a Headache: Understanding Migraine through Literature · Edited by Kathleen J. O’Shea
So Much More Than a Headache
Understanding Migraine through Literature
Edited by KATHLEEN J. O’SHEA

THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Kent, Ohio
© 2020 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2020000701
ISBN 978-1-60635-403-2
Manufactured in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: O’Shea, Kathleen J., editor.
Title: So much more than a headache : understanding migraine through literature / edited by Kathleen J. O’Shea.
Description: Kent, Ohio : The Kent State University Press, 2020. | Series: Literature and medicine series
Identifiers: LCCN 2020000701 (print) | LCCN 2020000702 (ebook) | ISBN 9781606354032 (paperback) | ISBN 9781631014178 (ebook) | ISBN 9781631014185 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Migraine--Popular works.
Classification: LCC RC392 .S5755 2050 (print) | LCC RC392 (ebook) | DDC 616.8/4912--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000701
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000702
24 23 22 21 20      5 4 3 2 1
For Dr. Joseph Mann, who has always listened, encouraged, and found another way, and who has helped me through the worst and taught me the most—my doctor, mentor, and friend
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
In Bed • Joan Didion
PART I: WHAT IT FEELS LIKE
Introduction
WARNING SIGNS
Migraine • Linda Pastan
Patterns • Oliver Sacks
Down the Rabbit Hole • Paula Kamen
The Almanac Branch • Bradford Morrow
The Woman Lit by Fireflies • Jim Harrison
Sun and Migraine • Muriel Nelson
The Lightning in My Eyes • Jean Hanson
Migraine • Brian Tierney
Migraine: Aura and Aftermath • Claudia Emerson
THE HEADACHE
Headaches • Marilyn Hacker
On a Headache • Jane Austen
The Patient’s Perspective: A Friend Like No Other • Laurie Batitto Bisconti
Red Migraine • Michael Dickman
The Headache • Robert Herrick
Migraine • Evelyn Lau
I Describe a Migraine • Iman Mersal
Migraine • Jesse Patrick Ferguson
The Voice • John Fuller
When Nietzsche Wept • Irvin D. Yalom
THE HANGOVER
On His Heid-ake • William Dunbar
Void and Compensation (Migraine) • Michael Morse
PART II: WHAT PEOPLE DON’T SEE: THE INVISIBILITY OF MIGRAINE
Introduction
The Head-Ache, or an Ode to Health • Jane Cave Winscom
The Hours • Michael Cunningham
Pain Has an Element of Blank • Emily Dickinson
An Uncommon Pain: Living with the Mystery of Headache • Sallie Tisdale
Migraine: The Eternal Return • Jack Sholl
Hoofbeats in the Head • Edward Lowbury
I Know Upon Awakening • Kathleen J. O’Shea
PART III: IT’S JUST A HEADACHE?
Introduction
A General Feeling of Disorder • Oliver Sacks
Migraine • Tobias Wolff
Six Explanations for Migraine • Lisa Gluskin-Stonestreet
Misalliance • Anita Brookner
The Migraine Mafia • Maia Sepp
PART IV: IT’S A LIFELONG, FULL-TIME JOB
Introduction
An Anatomy of Migraine • Amy Clampitt
A Brain Wider Than the Sky • Andrew Levy
Dear Migraine • Gail Mazur
Giving up the Ghost • Hilary Mantel
The Migraine Mafia • Maia Sepp
Written the First Morning of the Author’s Bathing at Teignmouth, for the Head-Ache • Jane Cave Winscom
Rachel’s House of Pain from Claire’s Head • Catherine Bush
Arms at Rest • Siri Hustvedt
PART V: WHEN IT’S GONE …
Introduction
“On Being Ill” • Virginia Woolf
Deliverance • Kevin Crossley-Holland
A Brain Wider Than the Sky • Andrew Levy
The Hours • Michael Cunningham
Morning • Roy Fuller
Night and Sunrise • Alan Brownjohn
The Night-Rider • Gavin Ewart
Half-Skull Days • Anna Leahy
Permissions Acknowledgments
Preface
This collection of imaginative works by fiction writers, poets, and essayists ranging over five centuries, some famous, some not, but most of them migraine sufferers themselves, is directed, first of all, but not solely to, those who suffer migraine. Here, they will find the companionship of other migraine sufferers who can perhaps better express what they have grappled to put into words for themselves and for others.
Those others for whom this anthology is intended include medical practitioners, who may or not be specialists in migraines but also, importantly, those family members and friends who observe their suffering but want and need to understand better this disease.
Those who employ or work with migraine sufferers can benefit from better understanding the full range of the illness, one that, to so many, can appear invisible. In a classroom setting, instructors and students can benefit by reading and discussing any common text but in this case works concentrated on a very specific range of experience that is the literature of illness.
MY PERSPECTIVE AS EDITOR
As a forty-two-year migraineur, I need to take stock. At fifty-six, I find myself in a new, frightening place: my superb headache specialist for years has retired, and I realize now more than ever how much I relied not only on his regular and kind care but on his constant reassurance that new medications and treatment options, now designed specifically for migraine, were on the horizon.
I decided, at a time when migraine had seemingly taken residence (three months) with a day here and there of relief, I needed to do something positive and productive with this significant dimension of my life. Rather than sinking into the pain, dwelling on what I cannot do, feel, or experience, I found myself turning to what always consoles, informs, and guides me—literature.
Many self-help books today make claims, offer solutions, and outline the ways by which migraineurs can eradicate this very mind-set, can take us “out of ourselves,” work to get off all of our medications—often just through more exercise, better eating, and meditation. While these activities are generally good for all of us, what lies within many such texts is an implicit suggestion that what we really need is to shift our attitude that both the “headaches” and the roles they play in our lives are entirely within our control to manage or even cure. Some of these books’ titles alone— You Can Heal Your Life or Mind over Migraine —leave me, at best, shaking my head—more evidence that there remains so much ignorance about this disease. The truth is, most of the general public still see migraine as “only a headache,” rather than the complex brain disease we now know it is.
Many sufferers often seek support and understanding through migraine support groups and, more recently, blogging. The New York Times ran an excellent regular column/blog on migraine in 2008, featuring columns by established writers, including Siri Hustvedt and Paula Kamen. These articles, one of which is included in this anthology, provide patient and expert perspectives on episodic and chronic migraine. These avenues are certainly valuable, but I suggest that literature best captures the essence of pain and suffering, subjectively and imaginatively.
As a professor of literature for thirty-two years, I often work with students who have had little or no experience in reading and appreciating literature. Initially, some ev