Bless her heart, for after 15 years of secrecy and shame, this headline in The Huffington Post: "Cindy McCain Reveals Migraine Suffering, Compares It To Husband's Torture."

Now that's one comparison Jane Fonda couldn't get away with making to a former POW and widely acclaimed Vietnam War hero ...

And bless this change of heart — from the Cindy McCain of a year ago on the presidential campaign who suggested that she was more patriotic than Michelle Obama as in, "I have [been] and will always be proud of my country" — to an activist, dare one say "a community organizer" who is committed to health care reform in at least one area of our country that evidently needs much work:

"I'm going to put together an action committee to go door-to-door in Congress, particularly the Senate, to make them understand ... to make them understand how little research there is, the huge number of people (30 million) impacted ... to make them understand what the economic problems caused by migraine are, too. We need to testify in front of Congress."

It's ironic that one of the elite most equipped to take advantage of what her husband's party often refers to as "the best health care system in the world" and alternately "the best health care system money can buy" has fared so poorly. But there is no satisfaction or schadenfreude here in knowing that even someone with such an amazing fortune, enough to help fund her husband's political campaigns and to provide him with more vacation homes than he can remember, could not escape the debilitating tragedy of migraine.

This McCain is not a perfect poster child for migraine disease. Serena Williams, unfortunately after her recent dreadful tirade at the U.S. Open, is not the most effective "goodwill" ambassador for menstrual migraine either. The New Yorker cartoon caricature that accompanies Cindy McCain's "Talk of the Town" interview emphasizes the spooky vacuous quality of her very light-colored eyes (most likely enhanced by the combination of migraine plus meds) surrounded by thick dark mascara like a raccoon's mask. She's an easy target, or subject, for all the comedians, with her past addiction to pain killers and her current willingness/eagerness to undergo a clinical trial with Botox.

But she's also one spokesperson who doesn't need to worry about her insurance company denying coverage for a pre-existing condition.

And while her comparison of migraine to torture may backfire with many, there appear to be a number of parallels with the experiences of combat veterans — and the unacknowledged and the untreated trauma of those who may not technically have been physically tortured behind enemy lines — which I've observed as the daughter of an Army veteran of combat zones in Korea followed by two tours of Vietnam.

So I wish Cindy McCain the very best in her efforts, but I also hope that others with greater health care security and less-debilitating forms of this disease — Joan Didion, Oliver Sacks, for example — will join forces to help remove the stigma and needless suffering of millions from our not so "simple twist" of DNA fate.

Mary Ann Crowe was an exhibiting artist and writer until being incapacitated by migraine. She lives in Santa Fe.