Part Eleven

-Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy.

What do you see when you turn out the light?
I can't tell you, but I know it's mine...

-Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven.

“Let’s hope it’s enough.” Kane looked out over the giant reservation, searching the northern horizon for some sign of the approaching flood.

–Christopher Hyde, The Wave.

V. Headache of the Delusional, Conversion, or Hypochondrial States. Headaches of illnesses in which the prevailing clinical disorder is a delusional or conversion reaction and a peripheral pain mechanism are nonexistent. Closely allied are the hypochondrial reactions in which the peripheral disturbances relevant to the headache are minimal. These are called “psychogenic” headaches.

N.B.: The foregoing represent the major clinical disorders dominated by headache–those which are particularly common and in which headache is frequently recurrent and disabling.

–Lawrence R. Boies, Jr., “9–Facial Pain, Headache, and Otalgia,” in Fundamentals of Otolaryngology: A Textbook of Ear, Nose and Throat Diseases, by George L. Adams, Lawrence R. Boies, Jr., and Peter A. Hilger.