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Hello, this is the Migraine Heroes podcast, a podcast where we share real stories from
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real people suffering and battling with migraine disease.
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In this podcast, we seek to provide support, hope, holistic health, advocacy, and inspiration
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for those who suffer from migraine disease.
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So welcome to the Migraine Heroes podcast, a podcast where we uncover the incredible
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yet hidden journeys of those battling migraine disease, learning how they cope while giving
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back to their community.
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We are welcoming here today, Patrick.
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Patrick is the husband of Wendy.
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Wendy, thank you so much, Patrick, for being here.
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I'm happy to be here, hope I can help.
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So if you haven't listened to Wendy's podcast yet, I very strongly encourage you to listen
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to her podcast, incredible podcast, where she takes us through her entire life battling
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with migraines with her twins and her family.
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And today we are welcoming Patrick, who he's her husband and has been with her alongside
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her throughout that journey.
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And when Wendy and I finished that podcast, Patrick was mentioned a couple of times in
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these key moments where, you know, help would be needed with the twins and how you came
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to the rescue and was such an incredible supporter for Wendy.
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And we thought we wanted to hear from your perspective what was going on in your mind
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all of those years.
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And so if we could start really back in time where, you know, Wendy had her first migraine
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attack and you were a young couple, how did that unfold for you from your perspective?
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To be honest, I can't tell you the first one because I don't know if she always disclosed
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that she was having a migraine.
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The one that I recall was when I got home, I saw the look on her face and I thought something
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I didn't know what was going on, but she just said, well, I have a headache.
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She didn't use the term migraine and I don't think she used that for the next couple of
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And then when she did tell me, I honestly had no conception of what a migraine was except
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the bad headache, nor did I know the complexity or the continuation that would occur from
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And it was it was startling to watch.
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And, you know, I've never seen a person who suffers from it, so I have very little empathy.
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I mean, I am empathetic to her now.
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But you don't know what it feels like, is what you mean.
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You can't understand where it hurts to tear a knee up or something like that unless you
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So, yeah, it was it was quite eye opening, because we've been together for we've known
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each other for 30 years, been together 20 years of marriage in April, and they started
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and they just progressed and there appeared to be no end in sight.
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It's it's devastating to watch your loved one have to spend hours and hours in a bed
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And then even when they're over, they're not old.
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I mean, the after effects carry on for days.
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Never was it a strain on the marriage is that there was never a question or we were strong
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Christians who we love each other and we'll get through whatever it is.
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That's what Wendy blames is twins for the migraine.
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Because it did get worse after the kids after I gave birth to the kids is when it really
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Yeah, I can understand that.
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I mean, you've got two screaming kids, but there was a lot to do and she's an awesome
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I'll tell you that.
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I mean, she's out there at 10 o'clock last night watching her play basketball in the
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So in those years where we go from sort of headaches and stuff to mentioning to you noticing,
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how do you little by little acquire that knowledge?
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Like how do you learn?
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Do you remember some people educating you on that or you learning about it or searching
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I didn't really explore it or probably till they started getting back to where it became
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a weekly occurrence almost.
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And then I talked to our family physician about to better understand it.
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He's an awesome guy and he explained how it is a debilitating situation to have this.
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And I know as a man, I probably get curled up in the corner.
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You know, it shocked me.
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And then we just started discussing what can you do when she takes medicine?
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She's not one to pop pills and I know she doesn't like taking it and I know she was
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having to go to the pharmacy to get a pill or two to get through to our next prescription.
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Just the severity of it began to settle in with me.
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And I pushed her to see doctors for me, whatever, whatever.
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I'm a believer in medicine can do amazing things.
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I will tell you this, that I had quite an awakening over the last four months.
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So seeing a change in her.
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So it did, it got to be a challenge.
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And we went through a lot of doctors and tests and different things and frankly, it got worse.
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When we saw pain management, we both agreed that I needed pain management before we understood
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that we could help the migraines holistically.
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And when I did that, that's when I ended up in the ER.
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It was just big rebound headaches, extreme.
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And then you threw COVID in there in the midst of it and working so long with two screaming
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No, no, I mean, no, I mean, when I got COVID, that was just August 2023, yeah.
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That was after I saw the pain management, we both, I just had to stop all the medication.
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But then I felt so helpless because then we're like, now what do we do, you know?
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And that's when God opened my eyes to you and your program, you know, and to more holistic.
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And so as we go through that, like, can you a little bit talk about, it's a funny term,
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but about like emotions, what are the different things?
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Wendy talked about hers, which was a sense of guilt because of you, because she was relying
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on you when you were at work to be sort of on call and available to come and watch the
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twins if she was feeling extremely unwell to the point that the twins would no longer
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What sort of emotions were you feeling at the same time?
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Quite a few emotions, probably the strangest is guilt as well, when she would get these
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Obviously, the best thing for her was to rest in darkness.
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So two kids are a lot of work.
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I didn't realize how much work they were doing.
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And you know, it was hard for me to pick everything up and run with it from the dishes to the
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kids to the dogs, you name it.
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I say she is an awesome mom and she's taking a big load with the kids, especially at the
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So there was a little bit of frustration, to be honest, a little bit of selfishness.
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When she would have these headaches, it would be a matter of days before she'd recover.
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I mean, got back to herself.
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So you know, that was days where we wouldn't be husband and wife the way we would like
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Or really even a family, because I would be hiding out while he I would try to come out
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and then he would send me back because he could just see, you know, because I would
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try to pretend that I was OK and I wasn't.
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He would see that and he would say, you need to go back and lay down.
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You still are not better.
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So it was just it was a sad time, you know, as hard as we wanted to be together as a family.
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I was so I had such an intense headache during some of those times that I wasn't capable,
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but I wanted to be.
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I would pull myself out to the kitchen and try to sit down with them.
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And then I couldn't even eat sometimes because, you know, you're nauseous.
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And so it was it was tough, but he never showed me his frustration.
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He was always very kind and loving and supportive and good dishwasher.
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And I guess it was hard on the boys, too, because they would come in and they would
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see me and they made me cry.
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They'd be like, Mom, can't you come out?
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You know, so it's like you want to, but you're suffering so bad during those major
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And you you feel a little hopeless because you want to do all those things and you keep
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telling yourself, just get up.
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You know, we prayed a lot.
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Well, that was me telling you to just get up.
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No, you never did.
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So it's just it was just really tough because we didn't really have any answers.
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And we did pray together a lot as husband and wife and we weren't getting answers.
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It took a while for us to to get to the point where God opened our eyes to that.
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It took me time to be ready for you, too, Wendy, you know, I don't think you were not
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I just want to add that that's sweet.
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We actually one of the doctors she saw was pain.
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His whole goal in life was to help keep people off narcotic painkillers.
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That's what he told us.
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That's what he told us.
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And I actually was in an executive association with him.
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He just said he served in Mayo Clinic for 10 years, bright guy, super educated.
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And all we all he did is throw drugs at him and we went backwards.
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So it's just got to be a pretty bleak time when when that didn't work.
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And but what I guess he a piece of the story from him, which started making us think that
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maybe there's something else is he was finally honest with me at one of the appointments
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and said, you know, because he's from another country.
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He said, people in America, for whatever reason, we just want a quick fix.
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We want to throw medicine and get better.
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And he said, I don't I think that you're one of those people that doesn't do what he finally
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said doesn't do well with medicine.
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And you would probably, how did he put it?
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Do better with traditional Chinese?
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Like how do you say that?
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Try Chinese medicine.
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But I had no idea what that was or what that meant.
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And and he did give me like one some was a cream cannabis cream and he gave me a prescription
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for a supplement that had like magnesium in it with high levels of magnesium.
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And so he did at least finally become honest with me.
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And then I started trying some of those things and they started helping.
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And then so that was like one piece that kept leading me to more holistic way of life.
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I guess that was important that I went through that because if I didn't, I may not have realized
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I might not have thought I might have thought there was still another medicine out there
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You know what I mean?
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So I guess it's an important piece and I appreciate that he was finally honest with me.
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And I think, you know, sometimes I mean, women, they've tried so many things at some point.
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The body is profoundly broken in ways that are really hard to to address.
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So what really struck me in what you said, actually, was also that sense of guilt.
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This is not an emotion I was expecting.
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I hear it a ton from women.
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I mean, neither I don't know.
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Well, the selfishness is part of it, you know, enjoy my time with my wife.
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Yeah, I guess he sacrificed time with me and and that was hard.
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I guess I didn't realize that.
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It's always time to make up.
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With migraine disease, we only have each other to make a difference.
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If you know of someone suffering from migraine attacks, share this podcast with them.
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And so frustration, were you also like, were you noticing like the pattern of the more
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my wife is taking medication, the more she's unwell, were you were you sort of seeing that
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movie or not so much?
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I would say I don't know how long the stretch was where she was going through her medicine
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at an abnormally high rate, but I want to say it was a year at least.
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And I was hiding it, which is crazy.
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Like I was embarrassed that I couldn't get better.
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So I would tell him until it was so bad that I could not function.
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And so I was like, I would get up and like put a pill somewhere, which is so ridiculous
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And I think about it so that he wouldn't see that I was taking another medication.
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I mean, he sees that I was embarrassed that I am.
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And then, you know, you start to think, what's wrong with me?
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Like I have to keep taking this medicine and I, I would not leave my house without
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Like I would get, I would start to get anxiety if I forgot it, I would have to go home and
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get it because I was so scared.
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What if I need it?
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I cannot function because it did take the edge off.
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It just didn't heal me.
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And so you, Patrick, you, you, you saw the fact that she wouldn't leave the house without
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It was, uh, you know, we were an outdoors family.
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We would go to the woods for a week and, uh, camp out with the kids and by God, we
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had to have that medicine and, uh, and I understand it.
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I'll never understand it to the degree that somebody who suffers from will, but I know
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that it was a security blanket for her that she had to have.
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And of course I'm totally fine with it.
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It's my way to live your life.
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Well, then I started running out and probably realized too, because I would start to run
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out of my prescription, you know, and your insurance will only give so much.
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So I would go to the pharmacy and say, Hey, can I buy a couple of pills to get through?
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I mean, then you feel like you're a drunk addict, you know, and they would allow me
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They would say, they'd say, well, just be careful.
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You know, um, you don't want to take, cause that was the tryptin, the somatryptin.
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Um, it is hard on your heart and, um, but I mean, I couldn't function, you know, it
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And so I would, I would take it, but you did and you're here and the kids are alive.
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And I'm still with her, so things are looking better.
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Things are looking great.
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So we have some guilt.
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We have some frustration, some hiding, some, you know, stress or question marks like taking
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these medication and, and then, and then can you describe a little bit, so let's imagine
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you're in bed for a couple of days and the twins are there and you, Patrick, you take
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on the workload of the house, how, how, how do you explain that to your coworkers or how
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is that conversation going on?
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Well, fortunately we, we own our own company, so we have the latitude to, uh, to take time
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In fact, we were fairly generous company.
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We, we give people time they need for whatever.
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And, um, that was just time that I needed.
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You wouldn't tell them though.
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You wouldn't tell them.
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Well, everybody knows.
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You, you, you would come to work and look beaten, physically beaten if ever, so.
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I think I told you it was a lot in my eyes, you know, so they would just get so, what
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Definitely puffy and still be able to sleep.
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It was, uh, you know, it wasn't easy to, uh, to fill her shoes because she raised those
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kids as a stay at home mom.
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They love their mom.
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They like to dad to do things with, but on a day to day basis, they don't want their
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And, um, and they didn't understand in young age, um, thankfully they weren't as bad as
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So it could have been a worse, but it's been a, been a wild ride to be honest with you.
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It does feel wise because so you're in, you're in bed, you're doing all of the dishes and
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You're frustrated.
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The kids are sort of happy of your presence, but also not understanding your presence.
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Um, they may be also want to share the more, the emotional stuff that goes on at school.
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And then there's just all of that void and that silence of mom has a migraine again and
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we don't really know.
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Is that dangerous?
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Maybe, maybe not, but we don't know why.
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And, and it's there again and we again has to just do that thing that we do as a plan
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B and it's just, it's just really, um, sad.
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And it's sad for mom, mom doesn't get to do, she actually loves those kids.
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I love the kids too.
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There's that bond there and they miss that.
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I'm sure there was some challenging times.
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And so did you have any, um, code or way to communicate or way to name them or, you know,
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how would you, how would you talk about the migraine sometimes without naming them?
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Did you have, for example, when, when, when, when do you needed Patrick to come back home
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How would you, how would you sort of soft ask?
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By this time it would be so bad.
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So I'd be crying and, um, just tell him that it's gotten to the point where I can't function
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and I would hardly be able to talk.
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There were several times where we contemplated the ER and didn't go, but there's times that
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Cause I would have been fighting all day trying to, you know, with a medication and so multiple,
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I would have taken some sumatropin, Tylenol, high dose of ibuprofen.
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So by that time I am beaten down and I'm not letting him know until it's so bad that I
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Well she says she wouldn't let me know, but when I saw her and it's, it's evident, you
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can't hide the impact it has on her physically.
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So the bad ones, the really bad ones, the ones that aren't bad, you can't see, but the
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really bad attacks.
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It just kept getting worse.
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And so, um, I mean, when you, when you reflect on life, like you said, you stayed married,
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you have two amazing, you know, sons, um, you still managed to continue to work.
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So a lot of things went really right along the way.
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And so in that, with that perspective, you know, how, sort of what advice would you have
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for all the partners out there who have a spouse at home who has migraines?
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What would be the practical things, um, or verbal things that they can do on a daily
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basis to help their spouse?
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Number one is lift them up in prayer.
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I'll tell you what, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for God's grace and, um, we wouldn't
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be working with you if it wasn't for God's grace and, you know what, there's nothing
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you can do to physically help your partner.
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You can emotionally support them.
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You can be there to physically touch them or help them or pick up the slack.
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But the job I had, um, sucked as much as the headaches, I mean, the, uh, watching your
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spouse picking up the extra things that need to be done.
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Not that that's a hassle, but it's, um, it's difficult because I'm doing it because she's
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hurting and just, it's a, uh, it became a vicious cycle.
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It's hard, it's hard to describe how bad it got and, um, never give up hope.
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I mean, if you're watching your spouse, you know what, what we're experiencing now is
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You know, I did, did tell her to stop, uh, losing weight.
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She looked like a waifu for a while.
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She looks absolutely amazing now and, uh, aside from the dishes that we have from all
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this fresh food that, that I can't really describe, it's, uh,
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we're in a good place.
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Oh, that's wonderful to hear.
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I usually tell a woman, we're going to bring you back in time a couple of years.
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So yeah, I think Wendy's ready to go back to the gym.
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Like just a young, I'm very young woman.
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Every day I hear that.
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Like I got to get back to the gym.
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Well, uh, wonderful.
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Have you picked up, like, I don't know, new hobbies or a new way to celebrate or, you
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know, has there anything that changed aside of the joy of living the day-to-day, uh, in
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the last few months?
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Well, we're coming up on our 20th anniversary, we're going to dump the kids somewhere.
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We're going to a small little town up in the forest.
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We're going to spend two nights and three days together and celebrate our 20th.
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Without headaches.
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Oh, that is really, really special.
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And I don't have fear.
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I don't have fear.
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Like I know I'm going to be able to go and enjoy myself, you know, I would say the only
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fear I have is when I'm up, when I'm set with a setting where I don't know what the food's
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You let me know the dates.
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I'll be, I'll be there.
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I always tell them like, uh oh, how am I going to, what am I going to do tonight?
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It's always, it's always worked out.
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I'm always able to have something.
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Yeah, I lost six pounds over Chai already.
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Uh, look, I mean, look, thank you so much for, um, for sharing all of this, Patrick.
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I think it's going to make a lot of families feel maybe more normal than what they think
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they are and, um, give them maybe regain sense of faith, um, and sense of, uh, patience and
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sense of love and, uh, and all of these good intents that everyone puts, um, you know,
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in the, in those really, really hard, uh, times.
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Well, you're more than welcome.
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I just like to say one last thing and that's, it's amazing to see where my wife is at.
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Oh, he's going to cry.
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I mean, she's, uh, day-to-day her joy level is back and it just gets better and we celebrate
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the days, the weeks without the headaches and being in bed all day.
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Thank you for what you've done.
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Look, with so much pleasure, um, you know, oftentimes when women start, I said, you know,
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you aren't going to notice the difference, but your loved ones are going to notice the
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difference and physically and emotionally in the way you radiate.
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And many of, I find, you know, Wendy has always had this beautiful personality that she's
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Um, for some women, they, they, they, you know, like the anger it takes over, the frustration
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Uh, the fatigue is just massively there and, um, and I meet them the first time when they're
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You know, as I literally, like for me, it's a complete shock because it's the, the person
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that they truly are.
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And so it's beautiful to see you in that light and you know, you just being you, you know,
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like, is this, you know, I wanted to be, but I said, I have crazy energy.
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That was the biggest surprise.
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The first clue was when you were vacuuming underneath my feet while I was watching the
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golf game and you just did it yesterday.
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It was a surprise.
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I wasn't expecting the energy.
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I guess I've always had it.
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I just wasn't able to, you know, so that was really, that's been really cool.
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And that's a massive change.
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Just a lot of energy.
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The beauty also shining.
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I suspect that your wife is even more beautiful, but you know, it's all of that joy, those
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positive emotions, but also the absence of pain, which, you know, you know, it gives
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Well, thank you both so much for your help towards other couples and other families.
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The content in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered
[25:02]
a substitute for medical professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
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Always consult with your healthcare provider for any health related concerns.
[25:13]
And remember, everyone and every situation is unique.
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Remember, sharing is caring.
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Share your story with me.
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Take my free test and let's connect to help you gain a deeper understanding of your migraine
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Learn about the underlying imbalances that could be contributing to your genetic predisposition
[25:37]
Join our community of migraine heroes.
[25:40]
All the links in the description below.
