A year ago this week, my life changed irrevocably.
Andy and I had scheduled an Academic Adventure Summer - we’d decided to pack a fair bit in, since we were adopting a dog in August and figured that would keep us closer to home for a while. And so I participated in a week-long seminar in San Diego while Andy presented a paper at a workshop in Copenhagen, and then we met up in London and visited friends before taking the train out to Exeter and giving papers and hanging out with friends at the university there; then we stopped through Cambridge for a few days before heading up to Edinburgh for a week, finally coming back to London for the workshop that was paying for my flight.
Little did we know, as we happily snapped photos of Exeter Cathedral, that what would actually keep us close to home for the foreseeable future was not a puppy but Something Else. Something that would turn my face from its usual smile into a close cousin of one of the gargoyles lining the walls:
The Something was shingles. IN. MY. EYE. (And whole upper half of my forehead and scalp - I’m actually quite grateful that most of my blisters were in my hair where they weren’t visible). And the varicella-zoster virus of the shingles passed from the ‘ophthalmic division’ of my trigeminal nerve to the meninges that cover my brain and spinal cord, giving me viral meningitis, and that was the beginning of the journey I am still very much on.
At the time, of course we had no idea what was happening, much less what the consequences would be. We were living the Professorial Good Life! I had a bit of a headache, sure, but with Andy fresh from Copenhagen and me working hard to overcome my California jet lag, we were too busy geeking out over medieval things to think too much about it. The Exeter Cathedral, for instance, contains all sorts of goodies dating from the twelfth century onward. (If you don’t like Old Stone Things, feel free to skip ahead for more gory medical details.)
The Exeter Cathedral is both remarkably extant and has the longest uninterrupted stone vault ceiling of any medieval cathedral in the WHOLE WORLD. (They are pardonably proud of this, and want to make sure you appreciate what you’re seeing).
The cathedral also boasts a cat-flap on one of its ancient wooden doors and a cool astronomical clock from the late 1400’s:
We also explored some wonderful smaller churches, including the lovely St. Winifred in Devon, with its fully-intact Norman tower! (OooooOOOOOoooo, you say? That’s what I thought.)
Medically, things only got interesting in Cambridge. We were being hosted by a medieval scholar who’s a fellow at Trinity College, and so Andy and I had the delightful opportunity to stay ‘in college’ there. Anyone who’s been to Cambridge and wandered among the colleges will recognize Trinity by the distinctive fountain in its central courtyard, pictured here. But the real reason for this photo is to show you where our room was - tucked up on the third floor, where you see the rampart and little gables.
If you’ve stayed in enough college guest rooms in Oxbridge (yes, that is pretentious shorthand for ‘Oxford and Cambridge’, and you should feel free to use it), you know that the size, quality, location, and everything else about the rooms can vary widely, not just from college to college but within colleges. Which room you get is highly contingent on timing and luck - if you’re coming at a popular time (say, late June) and only confirmed with your host a week or so in advance, you’re likely to end up with a more spartan room in a less central location. And, since that was our situation, we did. (When Andy came back to Trinity in January for a workshop, by contrast, he had a suite of rooms that included a private bathroom, accessed via secret panel.)
To be clear, our room was perfectly fine, and I would happily stay there again - anytime the weather’s under 80 degrees. England was suffering through a massive heat wave, however, with temperatures in the mid-to-upper 90’s and enough humidity to keep it from cooling off significantly at night. On the third floor, right under the roof, with no cross-ventilation and no fan, it was absolutely stifling. We asked about a fan, but the porter just put a possessive hand on the one working overtime next to him and told us to check local hardware stores. (We would have bought one, too, and bequeathed it to our host when we left, but this being England in a heatwave, the hardware stores were completely sold out.) Since we were only staying two nights, we shrugged, wet down some towels, promised in advance to forgive each other for anything we said in heat-induced irritability, and ran with the ‘evaporation’ method of surviving the heat; these things are just part of Academic Adventure Summers. (Andy and I once sweat our way through three nights in a similar room in Paris, with mosquitos so thick I ended up looking like I had chickenpox. When I asked the front desk if they had any fans, the hotel concierge just looked at me and shrugged. “It is very hot, yes. And indeed there is no air-conditioning. But what can be done?” I had to bite my tongue to refrain from replying, in the ‘orrible accent of the French peas from Veggietales: “Perhaps you could PURCHASE A FEW FANS??”)
It was at this point, however, that my quiet little headache began to take on a life of its own. I’d never been much of a headache person until I went through early menopause (ah, lovely, lovely menopause! I will take HRT and midriff weight gain over a menstrual cycle and its attendant worries and pains any day), and then I started getting migraines triggered by significant changes in barometric pressure and/or heat. Since “heat” definitely applied to the current situation, I took my migraine medication and told myself that I’d be fine once we got to Edinburgh, where the upper temperatures were supposed to be in the 70’s.
The weather in Edinburgh was, indeed, delightfully cool in comparison. Our friend Ruthie met up with us there, and we did all the classic touristy things, like Greyfriar’s Kirkyard, wearing coats and sweaters:
Unfortunately, even though I took an entire day to rest once we got to Scotland, my headache did not. Instead, it began to concentrate itself in a triangle from my left temple to the inside corner of my left eye to a spot above and a little to the left of my eyebrow. Basically, if you put your left thumb against your left temple and your ring finger on the inside of your nose right by your eye, your pointer and middle fingers should naturally press the right spot on your forehead AND you will be in the position I assumed for much of the next month.
It was like no headache I’d ever experienced before. In addition to the sort of sharp, shabby pain I associate more with ear infections, there was a certain ferocity about it. It was angry, and it would not be appeased. I gave it the rest of my migraine tablets, but it was not impressed. I gave it all the aspirin Andy and I had taken with us, and it was not amused. We bought extra-strength whatever-they-call-it-in-the-UK (what is paracetamol anyway?) and I gave it that, but it told me it was bored and continued to bore into my skull - and, increasingly, my eye.
I didn’t want to be a wet blanket, so I did a lot of walking around and doing things toward the beginning of the week. I’m glad I did, too, because Ruthie had two main things she wanted to do with us before she met up with other friends: see Rosslyn Chapel, which was amazing (definitely worth going to even if you haven’t read the DaVinci Code, which neither Andy nor I had) and have dinner at Heron, which is almost certainly the best meal I’ve ever eaten and may just be the best meal I’ll ever have. (OMG the vegetarian tasting menu OMG)
Starting Thursday, however, I was increasingly unable to rally, and the next big outing I managed was on Saturday, to find an ophthalmologist who’d see me on an emergency basis. By now, it didn’t just feel like I had red-hot needles being shoved into my temple towards my nose and out my forehead - it also felt like there were baby spiders eggs in and behind my eye. I say ‘baby spider’ eggs because there was this horrible persistent sensation not just of excruciating pain and Something-Being-In-My-Eye-Get-It-Out but of faint squiggly movement. I seriously started to wonder if there was something back there, although I couldn’t imagine what. The first eye clinic we tried was closing at noon and couldn’t fit me in, but the receptionist there directed us to a clinic on Queen Street that was open later, and they were able to fit me in a few hours later. Andy and I killed the time before the appointment at the National Portrait Gallery, and so my photos from July 1, 2023 are a mixture of the sublime:
and the ridiculous:
The ophthalmologist did a full examination but couldn’t see anything. She told me it might be a cluster headache and patted me sympathetically on the shoulder as I left, since it was clear I was in pretty rough shape.
And so Andy and I had breakfast with friends in Edinburgh the next day - me on the strongest pain medication we could find at the pharmacy (which was not strong at all - 1 out of 10, would not recommend) and telling myself it was ‘just’ a cluster headache - and went to Waverley to catch the train back to London.
Except we missed it. Because I had been too blasé about how early to get there. I accept full responsibility for this - I’ve taken trains out of that station a number of times, but never from this particular platform, which turned out to be over the river and through the woods and up an extremely slow elevator and across a walkway and then down another even slower elevator. Also, I had made Andy (who has strongly Germanic feelings about arriving at things on time, by which he means ‘early’) stop to take this entirely unremarkable photo, so I am darn well going to include it here:
Fortunately, we were able to rebook on a train that left just an hour later, so no real harm done. (Right Andy? Right? [nervous laughter])
The five hour trip to London was miserable. In fact, I’ve done a lot of difficult things, including twenty-five hours of childbirth, and this is the only time in my life I can remember thinking: “I don’t know if I can do this.” Usually the rhythmic movement of a train doesn’t bother me at all, but this time every bump and jostle, every sway and bounce was sheer agony. I couldn’t read to distract myself because my eye hurt too much, and so I sat there with my eyes closed, hand pressed to my head, listening to The DaVinci Code (Rosslyn Chapel had made me curious!) and pretending I didn’t exist. By the time we reached our hotel room near NYU London, in Bedford Square Gardens, I was ready to collapse. And so I did.
At the time, this all seemed dramatic enough - but the real drama was yet to come.
To be continued…
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END OF PART THE FIRST!
In Part Two, I navigate and NHS and Things Get Worse. (Spoiler, in case you’re worried: I don’t die.)
My favorite part is the part where you don’t die. But holy cow what a terrible journey with mostly wonderful photos.
I can't believe how long you continued to rally. Excruciating! But great overview of medieval must-sees. Thanks!