My first close-up experience with migraine came when my 6 year old son became ill with a severe headache.  He came home from school, climbed into bed, and covered his head with his blanket.  Before the headache had ended, he had spent most of the night lying on the bathroom floor in the dark asking me please not to turn the light on.   The doctor thought it was a bug.

After the first 3 or 4 headaches, the doctor said it was just school stress.  We didn't believe this, but had no way to counter it.  They said he'd outgrow it.  He didn't.

Almost 20 years later our fourth son came home from school with stomach pain and nausea.  We thought it was just the bug that was going around until the pain didn't go away.  An ER visit assured us it wasn't appendicitis.   The pain and nausea were completely debilitating.  He curled up on the couch under a blanket - couldn't eat or move without making it worse.  His skin was so sensitive he couldn't even tolerate a gentle hug.  

Doctors (several over the next months - pediatric gastroenterologists and others) treated him for a 'possible' kidney infection, giardia (just in case), constipation (although he wasn't). He was tested for everything they could think of including endoscopy, ct and a variety of scans and blood tests.  When none of this had an effect, he was told he probably had IBS and would have to live with it.  

By this point, he'd been out of school for 3 months, was losing weight he could scarcely afford to lose and was in constant, severe pain both day and night.  This from an active kid who just a couple of months before had carried his weight, quite literally, on a 2 week high adventure wilderness canoe trip in Canada.

There are few things more humbling, challenging, frustrating or emotionally draining than watching your child in severe pain and having no way to help him or change the situation.   After I would leave their rooms, child finally sleeping a bit, I would go to my own room - listening for the moans I knew would come when he woke from the pain - and cried my own tears.

Many, many nights I sat up and read 'to the end of the internet' looking for answers.  Possibilities.  Understanding.  Some suggestion for how we might get through the next day.

The good news is that we did survive.  Travis, the older, is 30 now.  A successful 3D artist and outdoorsman.  And J, the younger, is 16, back in school and fully active.  He even completed a 90 mile mountain backpacking trip last summer!  Unbelievable!

They still have challenges with migraine - but they also have developed coping skills and treatment strategies that give them the tools to make life good.  

I'll try to come back to this journal frequently to share things we learned and how it's going.   It was very difficult for me to find information to help me to help my kids and even to know how to know what questions to ask - and who to ask them of.