This post has nothing whatever to do with being an author. Just with being a human being. I get sinus infections which give me sinus headaches which more often than not turn into rampaging migraine headaches. I have been having this issue lately, more serious than usual, and today finally got myself to the doc. She decided to save herself some trouble and gave me a prescription for antibiotics with 6 refills. I do, after all, know better than she does when I have a sinus infection. I actually felt a little better today, after a killer week. When the headache decides to go off on it's own for a while (I wonder what it does?) I talk about it in hushed whispers, afraid it will hear me and come rushing back with a vengeance. It's crazy, but I think of it as a live, malevolent thing that haunts me. I don't say, "I have another headache." I say, "The headache is back." Because I know-I KNOW it's the same one,coming back, over and over. I was just thinking today, I should give it a name. And the moment I had that thought, the headache answered me. "We are called Legion," it said. I looked around for a herd of swine, but no, I couldn't do that. I wouldn't wish this thing on anyone, even though their time of pain would be short, since they would run, in their madness, off the nearest cliff.
A few years ago, I had the sinus surgery, which everyone raved about. I was told I would have no more problems once it was done. Weeeell, you ever see those old sci fi movies from the fifties? You know the ones, where some idiotic greedy miners just dig TOO deep and accidentally unleash some hundred thousand year old behemoth that has been trapped and biding it's time while feeding on man-made radiation? That's what that surgery did for me. I have wondered ever since, "What have I done?" Before that, The Headache was just a thing that bugged me sometimes but wasn't angry with me about anything. It thought he and I were in the same boat. Then I tried to anhiliate and drive it out of it's nice little home. I made an enemy out of it. I have tried to tell it many times, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Doesn't work.
And so, I live in hope that the antibiotics, and the super powerful pain pills and the nasal spray will weaken it and drive it back into it's hole, somewhere in the center of my head. We'll see.