The emergence of a wonder drug would be bittersweet for multiple reasons. It would mean that had it come along earlier, I could have been an astronaut. And if the solution is really this simple — your body makes too much of this peptide, so here’s a drug that inhibits it — I’d struggle to understand why it took so long to develop.

But a cure would also be a new burden. Saying I’ve done my best “in spite of my migraines” lets me off the hook for anything I haven’t done, like becoming the first female president. If this migraine drug works, nothing will be stopping me from doing great things — which will also take away my excuse for not doing them.

Then again, what if the migraines actually helped me achieve what I have so far? Scott Sonenshein, a professor at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, argues that we can accomplish more when our resources (in my case, health) are scarce than when they’re unlimited. “Constraints can motivate us to be resourceful, act in more creative ways, and solve problems better,” he writes in his book “Stretch.”

It’s true that migraines have taught me valuable skills. I’ve learned to get my work done well ahead of deadlines, lest a migraine derail me at the last minute. I’ve learned how to push through pain when I have to — and to be kinder to myself the rest of the time. I’ve learned how to ask for help when I need it. Will a headache-free me be less responsible, less diligent? Or will I push myself harder, knowing that I’ll no longer end up in disabling pain from overexertion? I have so many questions for this possible future version of myself. (And one for NASA: How old is too old for astronaut training?)

Of course, if an identity crisis is the price I have to pay to end the debilitating brain pain, I’ll gladly pay it. I’ve spent decades dreaming of a cure, often while lying in a dark room with a bag of frozen peas pressed to my face. The surprise is that I’d feel any nostalgia for those days at all. But I realize now that if Barferina goes, part of me will miss her.

Jennifer Latson is an editor at Rice Business and the author of “The Boy Who Loved Too Much,” a nonfiction book about a genetic disorder sometimes called the opposite of autism.