About

Welcome! My name is Laurie and I’m glad that you are here. The fact that you are here means that you or perhaps someone you know and love battles migraines. They have robbed you or your loved one of more days, more experiences than you can count. They have aged you beyond your years. They have left you tired, angry, depleted, isolated, even hopeless. They have affected everyone around you to a point where you feel tremendous guilt, though it is not your fault. Louder for the people in the back...it is NOT your fault.

A little about me...I have suffered my entire life with migraines. My parents believe the onset may have been infancy. By the time I was two I could communicate that my head hurt. By age three it was already accompanied by vomiting. My paternal grandparents recognized the signs and said these ran in our family. They called them “sick headaches.” By age eight it was so frequent and severe that it greatly interfered with my ability to attend school and we sought care from the first of many neurologists and specialists. I was officially diagnosed with migraines.

The 30+ years since have been a journey full of pain, doctors, medications, side effects, surgeries, alternative therapies, diets, vitamins, anything I could try in pursuit of the goal. Migraines have no cure, so for me that goal is simply to have the good days outnumber the bad. RELIEF.

The need feels greater now more than ever because I am a wife to an amazingly supportive husband and a mom to two outrageously awesome children. They need me. Every attack that takes me down affects them. Our life is unpredictable, stressful and often a chaotic scramble to cover all the bases when I can’t function.

So why am I doing this? Honestly, it began as a much needed outlet for everything I hold inside, a diary of this season of life that could one day grow into a collection of stories that my kids might read. Something that could help them better understand their mom. As the ideas started flowing through me, I felt that as uncomfortable as sending it out into the world feels to me, I want to be more open. I want to help bring more awareness to an invisible disease that we hate to talk about. Why do we hate to talk about it? Bottom line for me, explaining feels too much like complaining. Migraines are still very poorly understood and highly stigmatized. Because it is such a spectrum disease, we often feel isolated even in the company of millions of other sufferers. We need to change the conversation. My goal is to create a space where I can share some stories, foster hope and maybe even make you laugh once and awhile.

I know you’re out there. The moms with chronic migraines. You look normal with this invisible disease so no one really knows what life is like inside your personal neurological firestorm. You push through WAY too much pain just to survive the day and keep things running. You cross that threshold into no longer being ABLE to function and scramble to piece together care while you crawl into your dark cave and fight alone, angry that another day of making memories with your children was stolen. You never stop fighting through attacks of unbearable pain, because the good days you get with your babies are so sweet. You need HOPE. You need to know that there is someone else out there who knows what you are going through, sees your struggle, walks it with you and wishes she could give you a big hug and tell you that you are a superhero. I know you’re out there because I need the same things. I want to relate to people who understand. I don’t want to feel alone. So let’s do this together. Let’s TALK about it.

Whether you have migraines and you’re like

or you know someone with migraines and you want to better understand their existence, I want to let you in. One story at a time.

Are you ready?