Volume 1: The Migraine Teacher Brain
Dr. ChatGPT and I spent a couple days in intense conversations creating this visual of the Migraine Teacher Brain from my new memoir, How I Became a Cowgirl: One Woman's Journey with Rare Migraine Disease.
Yes, I know.
It is a lot to look at.
It is a lot to take in.
And it is a lot to process.
Well, that has been the reality of my life for almost 20 years as I live with—and teach with—this rare migraine disease.
My new memoir does not simply tell you about this disease. In 44 pages, you get to live inside my migraine brain. You get to experience the organized chaos of a migraine teacher brain because it is written in the second person. In that way, you, the reader, are also on the frontline in the battle with migraine. I write this memoir in broken English, not only to honor my Jamaican heritage, but also to give you the raw and realistic experience of how my migraine teacher brain works.
The truth is teaching with such a rare migraine disease has been both fulfilling and disheartening at the same time. As I reflect at the end of 25 years, I feel proud of what I have accomplished, even as my brain was in constant war with migraine.
I am grateful for the lives I touched, even if I don't remember all the names. Those yearbooks and self-made rosters have allowed my brain to navigate and maintain relationships on days when migraine takes over the brain and my memory is at its mercy.
Yet in those moments, migraines could not take away the wealth of knowledge I have gathered with each passing year. Somehow, my brain is able to build an impenetrable defense to safely secure what I need to teach.
As I reflect in my memoir:
But you still teach. It always confuse you that you forget everything but you don't forget the wealth of knowledge you possess.
Now everything has to be in its place. If it is not, then I become confused. I stutter sometimes while I teach, or I forget a word or two, and sometimes I get stuck on constant repeat. I am grateful for students' patience as I ask the same questions too many times.
I write everything down, and I have a daily to-do list. I spend a lot of time in constant conversation with myself—yes, I ask and answer—as I plan and revise lessons.
I have an old composition book and endless sticky notes with a variety of different colored pens to plan my lessons. Sometimes I talk through the lessons with Jean Luc, my medical alert dog. Over the past seven years, he has been my evaluator and silent critic.
There are days when this migraine does not give me a break.
There is no ceasefire. In the memoir I speak of when:
you write an email to say you working with a migraine but you teaching you life out same way for they don't know your high tolerance for pain ….or the seven months straight you teach with a migraine.
And sometimes, just for a split second, I wonder if someone thinks I am lying. But my brain stops me in my tracks. For one positive that this migraine brain has given me is "don't care."
I don't care what anyone thinks about me, simply because, as you can see, there is just no space left in my brain to do so.
Professional Development days are the most challenging. My migraine teacher brain is used to a daily schedule of teaching, and when that schedule changes to a full or half day of professional development, it creates a serious conflict that always ends in some form of migraine drama.
Over the years, I had to learn strategies to manage this migraine brain. I keep my grandmother's bush tea remedy close. It never fails to calm the brain when I need it most.
I am still learning to manage the stress that comes with disrespect, for I have no tolerance for that.
Thanks to my little brother, Andre, I learned to manage the stress that comes with my passion for student success and their choices:
"The choices are yours, the consequences are not."
That is the motto of my classroom.
Those green stickers are everywhere.
That is the redirect line.
I choose my battles because there is one that is constantly being fought in my brain.
When I did my first interview with Peter from P Literature, he asked me where I get the strength to show up every day.
I told him that is what I am expected to do.
I come from a family of educators.
Teaching is my bloodline.
I am also a Jamaican woman raised by strong Jamaican women. My grandmother was my first teacher, and she always showed up and showed out no matter what.
So that is what I do.
That is what this migraine teacher brain is trained to do.
Show up.
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