Posted by Kathi (152.163.201.214) on August 20, 2000 at 06:59:52:
I wanted to relay an interesting story.
I have a younger sister who is now 33. PK is the "baby" of our family and quite beautiful. Her and her boyfriend...now her husband...lived with me for a few years while they finished college. My daughter was about 3-4 at the time and my clusters were probably at their peak of pain and frequency. My husband had gone from making $100K a year to unemployment and us being typical yuppie scum, we had no money put away. I was supporting all of us, in a Manhattan suburb, on $28,000 a year (poverty level for NY) My husband couldn't BUY a job and fell into a three year depression.
My sister would come home from classes and see me crying and banging my head into walls. I can remember her, quite frequently, telling me to pick myself up, take an aspirin and stop behaving like a lunatic.
Fast forward to ten years later. My sister is an executive with a major Japanese electronics company, making triple what I make. Her husband is a partner in a very successful business. They just bought their dream house. These two are REALLY living the american dream. My sister calls me about a month ago. Her husband is out of town, she has this awful pain in her head and is at the emergency room. After three weeks of specialists, MRI's, cat scans and near constant pain..the diagnosis is CH.
I went to see her yesterday. She seems to be under control with Imitrex. As we walked outside, she gave me a gift...a gift of words. All she said was "Now...I realize what you were going through" No apologies were neeeded, I knew what she was trying to say. And it saddens me that this curse now affects someone I love and admire so much.