I Was Chewing Gum for Something to Do.

"A headache is to a migraine like a bruised thigh is to a compound fracture of the femur."
-Me, talking to my mom.

I have been reluctant to discuss the migraine issue on my blog. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I work in a medical office and grow weary of discussing anything medical in nature. Added to that was my mostly insane idea that I was so tough that I could ignore them and they would go away. They didn't.

Once, my senior year of high school I had a single migraine that ended with me in the emergency room and lots of Demerol. After that incident I went over a decade without another, in fact I only very rarely had any headaches at all even the more benign versions. Then a year ago I had another. The migraines came sporadically at first then with alarming regularity. Then came what what diagnosed as "cluster migraines", meaning for a week I'd have them every day at the same time of day.

I saw my doctor and we set out a plan. I've been taking an old anti-depressant, amitriptyline, for six weeks now to combat "neurological pain". It works. I've had a couple very minor migraines but none of the debilitating, nausea inducing ones. I've become cautiously optimistic. I feel like a normal person again.

Well...as normal as I've ever been.

Teeth? Who needs teeth?

"Ice hockey is a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept."
-Doug Larson

I have, for the last two years, become engrossed in the NHL play-offs. Perhaps the same blood-lust that makes me a football fan is probably what makes watching enormous men slam each other into plexi-glass wall fun.

"A puck is a hard rubber disk that hockey players strike when they can't hit one another."
-Jimmy Cannon

NHL hockey is shown only on a little know sports channel called Versus...they also show the Americas Cup and PBR bull riding. To be fair, I believe they also show Saturday afternoon games on NBC, but the point is it's not easily accessible to someone living in Arkansas. As much as I'd like to pick a team and follow it throughout the regular season, the irregular broadcasts seem to prohibit this. So I root for the Canadians in the play-offs.

"Hockey is figure skating in a war zone."
-unknown

This year, I am firmly for the Ottawa Senators. Why Canada? Because, I'm boycotting being an American until the socio-political atmosphere finds a way to end it's steady and demoralizing decay into greed and church-run stupidity.

"High sticking, tripping, slashing, spearing, charging, hooking, fighting, unsportsmanlike conduct, interference, roughing...everything else is just figure skating."
-unknown

In the case (as happened last year) that my Canadians don't make it to the Stanley Cup finals, then I'm for Buffalo. Don't ask why, that pick is arbitrary.