Me, Michele and Our Migraines
By JUDITH WARNER
NYT
Washington
IS our problem with Representative Michele Bachmann’s migraines that she has them, or that she takes medication for them? Is she a strong stoic who, despite debilitating pain, does what she must to serve her constituents, or a woman who, every so often, when things get to be a little bit too much, has to lie down in the dark, while the world waits outside her closed door?
I too suffer from frequent migraines. Like Mrs. Bachmann, I take preventive medicine and other drugs to tame migraines when they strike, and I have, on occasion, ended up in the hospital. Severe migraines are less headaches than total-body cataclysms; sound and light are unbearable, movement is all but unendurable and blinding pain is accompanied by vomiting that can go on, every five minutes or so, for hours. Yet I do not believe that Mrs. Bachmann’s migraines, in and of themselves, should be viewed as a disqualifier for running for the presidency. Migraines are largely treatable and can be “controlled” through medication — as Mrs. Bachmann said in response to the Daily Caller article that revealed her condition earlier this week.
What Mrs. Bachmann does, however, to control her headaches, how she responds to them, thinks of them, lives with them, is something that voters should pay attention to. While there is much about migraines that will forever elude her control — weather changes, for example, can trigger terrible headaches — managing migraines involves a lot of meaningful decision-making. And those decisions can speak volumes about who she is as a person and how she might deal with the stresses of the presidency.
(More here.)
NYT
Washington
IS our problem with Representative Michele Bachmann’s migraines that she has them, or that she takes medication for them? Is she a strong stoic who, despite debilitating pain, does what she must to serve her constituents, or a woman who, every so often, when things get to be a little bit too much, has to lie down in the dark, while the world waits outside her closed door?
I too suffer from frequent migraines. Like Mrs. Bachmann, I take preventive medicine and other drugs to tame migraines when they strike, and I have, on occasion, ended up in the hospital. Severe migraines are less headaches than total-body cataclysms; sound and light are unbearable, movement is all but unendurable and blinding pain is accompanied by vomiting that can go on, every five minutes or so, for hours. Yet I do not believe that Mrs. Bachmann’s migraines, in and of themselves, should be viewed as a disqualifier for running for the presidency. Migraines are largely treatable and can be “controlled” through medication — as Mrs. Bachmann said in response to the Daily Caller article that revealed her condition earlier this week.
What Mrs. Bachmann does, however, to control her headaches, how she responds to them, thinks of them, lives with them, is something that voters should pay attention to. While there is much about migraines that will forever elude her control — weather changes, for example, can trigger terrible headaches — managing migraines involves a lot of meaningful decision-making. And those decisions can speak volumes about who she is as a person and how she might deal with the stresses of the presidency.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
1 Comments:
I wonder when Ms. Warner's piece was written ... potential Presidentress Bachmann has used the Office of the Attending Physician and to offer a response :
“Dr. Brian Monahan wrote he has extensively evaluated Bachmann, in consultation with a neurologist, and found that she is able to control it with as-needed doses of sumatriptan, which is used to treat migraine pain, and odansetron, an anti-nausea drug… Monahan described Bachmann’s diagnosis as ‘migraine headaches with aura,’ a reference to the minority of migraine sufferers who experience perceptual disturbances, such as visual changes or strange smells, in advance of their attacks.”
Sidenote : The Office of the Attending Physician is taxpayer funded (budgeted at $3,805,000 per year and is not part of the Congresswoman’s health insurance coverage … just an extra perk)
With all the cuts that Republicans are proposing, why are they not closing the Office of the Attending Physician ?
Post a Comment
<< Home