Creating a Safe Space in Your Bedroom

I opened my eyes just enough to text my husband “help.”

I rolled over in agony as a glimmer of light hit my eyes. It felt like pointed shards of glass scattered all through the front of my forehead with each ray of light. My stomach groaned as another wave of nausea hit my body.

I hadn’t left my bedroom in about five days. My husband quietly opened my bedroom door, walked to my side of the bed, gently placed an ice pack next to my head, and opened up my nightstand table to put together my emergency medicine in a dixie cup.

I shrank back under the covers as each pill clinked into the bottom of the cup. He motioned for me to sit up a bit and handed me the pills and a cup of water. I swallowed, praying they would stay down, and followed with another sip.

Without having to say a word, he glanced at me and then glanced at my phone. I gave him a silent nod. He picked up the phone from the nightstand and stepped out of the room to call my manager.

I was in the midst of yet another migraine. It had been roughly eighty days now of unrelenting pain, nausea, sensitivity to light and noise.

I suffer from what is known as rebound migraines. A rebound migraine is exactly what it sounds like. I would have a migraine attack, take all of my abortive medications, and they would work. Then suddenly the migraine would come back and usually much stronger than the original attack.

Often the only way I can get out of one of these cycles is to not take my abortive medications at all and just ride the migraine out. With rebound migraines, the cure can end up being worse than the disease. They come with their own set of side effects and issues.

At this point in this particular migraine attack, I had already spent multiple weekends in the ER. I also completed several rounds of infusions at the outpatient infusion center. I couldn’t find any relief and nothing was working.

As you can imagine during a migraine attack sometimes all I wanted to do was just pull the covers over my head and pray that the pain would end. All of the medicinal side effects and the migraine triggers made it very complicated to function as a normal human being.

Making a plan

I felt like I was living a half-life. This led to bouts of depression and a lot of anger. In order to find my way past this I decided I wanted to focus on the things that I could control instead of the things, I couldn’t control. This was when my system for creating a safe space for myself in my bedroom started to form.

When you are in the middle of an attack it’s extremely hard to maintain mental clarity. Often in the middle of an episode, I would reach for my medication on my nightstand and take the wrong one. This, as you can imagine, can cause really bad problems in itself. I had to be able to find a way to be able to take care of myself.

During a brief period of a few attack-free days, I decided to sit down and try to think of what I could do to make things easier for me (and for my husband) during an attack. I made a list of the issues that I was experiencing and then thought of different things I could do to make each item easier.

Prepping my nightstand drawer

What do they say, “Sometimes you have to make a bit of a mess to make things better?” So next, I cleaned out my nightstand drawer. I have learned that this helps especially when it comes to organizing. After pulling everything out of my drawer I laid all of my medication out on the bed. Doing this helps to give a good visual of everything that you might need to re-organize your drawer.

First I needed to figure out how to organize my medications. I organized my pill bottles into three piles; morning, evening, and just in case.

Making a few purchases

Now that I had a better visual of what I would need for my project I purchased three items.

1. Utensil Organizer
2. Pill Tray
3. Sharpie Marker

I had recently bought a few silverware drawer organizers at a yard sale. I noticed that the tray is perfect for organizing my pill bottles. The pill tray organizer I purchased has three rows. Here is an example of what I purchased on Amazon. You can get one of these organizers for around $30. I like this one below because it can expand depending on how many items you need to organize and the size of your drawer.

(note none of my links are affiliate links)

Next, I purchased a pill tray organizer on amazon. The pill tray I purchased is a seven-day organizer. It has two sides, one for the day and one for the night. I filled the tray accordingly with the proper medication. So now, I had the exact dosages I needed for my daily medication in an easy-to-grab tray. I placed this next to the organizer tray in my drawer. Below is a link to the organizer I purchased on Amazon. I was able to purchase this for around $5.99

(note none of my links are affiliate links)

Next, I bought a sharpie marker to keep in my medicine drawer. I’m a huge fan of the retractable clicky markers that sharpie makes like the ones below.

(note none of my links are affiliate links)

I use the sharpie to carefully label the top of each pill bottle with the name of the medications.

Some medicines can have super complicated long names, so instead of labeling the bottle with the name, I use emoticons like a heart for my heart medication or a smiley face for my antidepressants. The organizer will also provide enough space to keep the sharpie handy as well so that next time you have your prescriptions filled you can easily repeat the labeling process.

Putting it all together

After labeling each bottle I organized them in the tray according to importance. I placed all medicines that I take in the morning in the first row. I organized all the medicines that I take in the evening in a second row. Then all of my ‘just in case’ medicine is on the third row.

Next, I placed the organizer in the empty nightstand drawer. I placed a few dixie cups, some water, and crackers next to the tray in the drawer.

Dixie cups are for placing your abortive medication in to take and helps prevent you from spilling medication on the floor or in the bed which I have done hundreds of times!

Water is always good to have around. Having it next to the bed helps prevent the pain of trying to make your way to the bathroom or kitchen in the middle of the night just for a small sip to take your medications with.

Crackers are another item to keep in your drawer. I deal a lot with nausea and crackers are super helpful. Also when I am having an attack that has lasted more than a few days and am having a hard time getting from my bed to the kitchen having crackers by the bed keeps me from feeling like I’m starving.

Enjoy your safe space

Whew! Take a breath. You did it!

Now when laying in bed and rolling over during an attack you will be able to easily glance into your nightstand drawer and clearly see your medications. No more stumbling trips to the bathroom and kitchen mid-attack!

Keep checking in I have more great tips for dealing with chronic migraines coming soon!!