Part A (Brief description of chief complaint):
Migraine with aura is a type of migraine headache characterized by the presence of sensory disturbances, known as an “aura,” preceding or accompanying the headache. The aura typically involves temporary, reversible visual, sensory, or language disturbances that develop gradually over several minutes and usually last for less than an hour.
Part B (Poem):
My eyes open to stark cacophony
Sharpened colors,
Cutting me with their keen vibrancy
Jagged sounds,
As if hitched breaths
Hiding from nearby pursuit
I blink rapidly
Trying to find my place;
A lone straggler
Moored on a lost island
A cloud passes
Rolling past brief farewells
Frosted pearls
Flooding into a conductor’s crescendo
A neighbor glances
Assuming narcissistic attention
Brief windows opening
Caught under heavy fantasy
A babe wails
Fighting confusion with volume
A solo instrument
Caught between fractured arpeggio
I try to stay afloat
flailing with a fool’s futility
Assuming survival
to be adequate reprieve
These blurred lines adjust
as grief tends to do
Moving from pounding beats
unto dull aches
Dragging marionette limbs
Into rehearsed movement
The moment passes
Or perhaps I tell myself it does
Swaying to faint decrescendo
Distraction replacing reality
An easy pivot,
One I have grown accustomed to
Both eyes close once more
Doorways bleeding light
from what they hide behind;
A hopeful illumination
A slight knocking,
as if not to startle beauty awake
I relish my brief ignorance
Into the dread of inevitable beginning
as if sensing a conductor’s crescendo
Building up into a familiar movement
Slowly,
Towards stark cacophony