Jennifer Leighton

Have you ever heard of Trigeminal Neuralgia?

Don’t worry. I hadn’t either, until I was diagnosed with it in late-June of 2024.

TN is a neurological disease that affects the three nerves (hence the “tri”) of the face. The good news about TN is that it is not life-threatening. The bad news is it causes some of the most intense and unrelenting pain known in medicine. Seriously, it hurts that much.

I sometimes think back to the first week—when I had absolutely no idea what was wrong with me. I’d been misdiagnosed with a pulled neck muscle. I’d run to the dentist thinking it was either my teeth or a really bad case of TMJ. Steroid shots, pain pills, muscle relaxers—nothing helped.

I was in the shower and the pain was so overwhelming that I felt like I couldn’t breathe. When I got out and looked in the mirror, the vein at my temple was bulging—blue and throbbing. I called out to my husband and we ran to the hospital.

As I sat in the passenger seat of his car, I held my prized Hermès Birkin bag in my lap—my head and arms slumped around it. I thought to myself, “Well, this is it. At least I’m dying with a Birkin.”

Yes, I really thought that. And yes, if I ever write a memoir, that’s going to be the title.

The doctor at the ER finally told me; I wasn’t dying. But, from that moment on, my life became very, very different.

My burgeoning marketing company which had been on its way to netting six-figures in its second year? Slashed. I could only work a fraction of the time. It was heartbreaking.

Heavy doses of medication, most with some very odd side effects? I had to put them on my tongue and swallow.

Endless doctor’s visits, consultations with neurosurgeons, support groups, radiation surgery? Welcome to my new normal.

And the pain? Oh, the pain.

Since I rarely do anything mainstream, my TN is of the “atypical” variety. Whereas “typical” TN is characterized by sudden, electric-shock-like attacks, my pain is constant. I’ve described it as feeling as though you were just punched in the face, even though I can’t speak to what being punched in the face actually feels like, thankfully.

So what did I do after being diagnosed? Well, I tried to relax and give myself some grace. I wasn’t going to be able to do everything I had done before and I had to be okay with that. I worked on my gratitude and tried not to let myself wallow. So many people deal with so much worse.

And I read.

I read a lot. If you’re a thriller writer, I’ve probably read you. I bought books everywhere you could buy books—even from the dollar bin at Walmart.

About a year after that, a small voice began poking at me and wouldn’t go away.

At first, it whispered.

“Hey, you. Remember that book you started to write?”

Yeah, yeah. I’m hurting. I don’t have the energy.

And then a bit louder.

“Hey, Jennifer. Maybe you should write the book instead of just reading other people’s.”

Maybe later. Today’s not a good day.

And, of course, the shouting began.

“Jennifer! Write the damn book!”

So I did. I wrote the damn book.

I started by opening the draft I’d saved on my laptop since 2019. How many times had I come close to deleting it but never did? I’m not sure, but it was a lot.

With about twenty pages and eight thousand words, I began to write again on May 1st of 2026. And it poured out of me. The story and the characters that I’d been building for close to a decade made it out of my head and onto the screen of my laptop. I remembered the joy of writing again—something I’d done since I was a child but along the way, especially after years of writing copy for other people’s businesses, had lost.

The pain didn’t go away as I wrote. I wish I could say that it did, but that’s not what happened. Instead, I wrote through the pain. Think writer’s block is painful? It’s got nothin’ on TN. Maybe that’s why writer’s block didn’t upset me too much. Or maybe I just had a lot of missed time I wanted to make up for.

Either way, I wrote like I often live my life—intensely, passionately, and totally consumed. Within ninety days, I had a completed and revised manuscript and feedback from three beta readers. I found an incredible agent quickly, too, which I consider to be nothing short of a miracle.

Great things can happen in the midst of great pain.

The last week has been rough and I haven’t written as much of my second manuscript as I’d like. I’m trying to be gentle with myself about that, too.

When my body is ready, I know I’ll jump back into the haunting and head-spinning world of my three new main characters. I’ll let them guide me where they want to go, while subtly pushing them into the situations and life-changing events I know they need to experience.

My pain is still here, but my stories are too.