I woke up one day with a different kind of headache from what I was used to. It was 1999/2000 and I was around 16 years old. The pain stayed permantly in my head, just above my eyes. And it had bigger "pound, pound, pound" than I got from the usual headache. Sometimes I could not tell if it was my eye that the pain was coming from or my brain.
Anyway, I went to school and came back believing that the pain would just take care of itself eventually. When it was evening I joined some of my friends playing football on the pitch. Then I began to notice something that looked like dark clouds obstructing my vision as we were kicking the round leather. I kept on playing, not wanting to worry until we all decided to rest a little. I sat on the floor talking to one of my mates who was standing over me and I noticed that I could not see part of his head.
When we resumed play, my sight had so deteriorated that I decided to sign out. It was only 5pm but it took a lot of effort for me to find my way to the house and sit down in one of the chairs in the living room.
My elder sister came back from work and I told her what I was experiencing. It was then that she told me I had migraine headache. "Go lie down and try to sleep. You will feel better when you wake up," she said. I obeyed her and it worked.
After about an hour of resting, my vision was back to normal and the migraine was gone. That was when I opened my Webster Ninth Collegiate Dictionary and saw the word for the first time.
Till today, I cannot think of the word 'Migraine' without remembering that day.