Stopped in my tracks

I was just trying to have a lovely impromptu dinner with the boy tonight when all of a sudden I noticed that I could not see all of the letters in the word on my glass. I thought "uh oh..." and then proceeded to test out my vision by looking around at different details.

The I was missing in Miller.

The O was missing in Sports.

The pepperoni was missing on my pizza.

Then sure enough, I started to see the little lights.

Remember when you used to be able to turn your tv to channel 99 and see nothing but static? Or 'dancing ants' ? Now, it's probably just ESPN7 but you remember what I'm talking about. Well, picture that in bright colors. Now picture it right in the center of your vision, completely erasing what SHOULD be seen.

Now imagine it growing larger and larger within minutes until your entire vision is fuzzy, cloudy, and quite disturbed by the dancing colorful ants.

Welcome to my migraines. If I were an artist, I'd draw a picture to better describe. However, I'm not. So... I google image searched migraine auras. Interesting finds:

This shows the progression of the aura as it grows and then finally recedes. Blah.

Ugh I can't even look at this one.

A lot of people will say that even looking at or imagining the auras will bring tears to their eyes. I think the craziest part is that the aura doesn't bring pain at all. It's just the knowledge of what comes next. Check out this description I found here :

Migraine headaches may be preceded by a visual "aura", lasting for 20 to 30 minutes, and then proceeding to the headache. Some people, however, experience the aura but do not have a headache. This visual aura can be very dramatic. Classically, a small blind spot appears in the central vision with a shimmering, zig-zag light inside of it. This enlarges, and moves to one side or the other of the vision, over a 20 to 30 minute period. When it is large, this crescent shaped blind spot containing this brightly flashing light can be difficult to ignore, and some people fear that they are having a stroke. In reality, it is generally a harmless phenomenon, except in people who subsequently get the headache of migraine. Since migraine originates in the brain, the visual effect typically involves the same side of vision in each eye, although it may seem more prominent in one eye or the other.

Some people get different variations of this phenomenon, with the central vision being involved, or with the visual effect similar to "heat rising off of a car". Some people describe a "kaleidoscope" effect, with pieces of the vision being missing. All of these variations are consistent with ophthalmic migraine.

Yuck.

Pictures found: here , here , here, and here