Migraines and Sports

I’ve had migraines since I was young. I don’t remember when they began, I just remember how my Mum solved them. I remember she made a furtive call to whom I didn’t know. Then she would take me on a drive, across town, out on the old freeway, down the road opposite my first primary school, down a dirt road that was a driveway, and after parking next to a building, we entered from the back into a waiting room. it had plywood panels on the walls with long coloured ribbons hanging around most of the wall space. 

Apparently, my osteo was also a bull breeder that had awards, not your average osteo. He had a rather Dutch name. Upon entering a buzzer alerted the Doctor his patient had arrived and he would come in before we even sat down. 

I remember the last time I went to see him; my dad had offered to take me as he had come home from work and as my Mum had been busy making dinner he volunteered to take me. He didn’t know where it was so with my migraine I directed him. I have to say, he did not trust the location for this “hocus pocus” form of medicine. I remember going inside and how uncomfortable he was. The Doctor arrived and I had to remove my T-Shirt, never does a 12-year-old girl feel so uncomfortable. a towel draped over my non-existent boobies, adjustments, massage and stretching and a payment made then back home again for the magic to settle the pain.

Forty years later, I still see a chiropractor and yesterday I told her I’d had a weeklong Walking/Talking migraine which is my regular these days, it’s just enough to annoy me but not enough to cripple me so I can ignore adulting and responsibilities and just go to bed.

She asked what parts of my face was I feeling it? Because I can usually narrow it down. Left eye, right eye, the thing, the thing or the other thing, this time, while lying on my back I used my hand to wave over my face. “My face! my whole fucking face! like I’ve been hit in the face with a basketball!” I’m really glad people can find humour in my pain.

I do sometimes wonder what happened to that Osteo who breeds bulls and I did about 15 years ago see someone down in Geelong that turned out to be the nephew with the same surname. What a tiny world we live in. It does weirdly help.