“I Wonder What Would Happen If I Shot My Own Head?”

Abreu was not a fisherman content to just sit in a boat and hold a pole in one hand and a beer in the other. Oh, no. He actually got into the water and chased his prey with a deep sea fishing spear gun that fires six inch spears.

Abreu claims that during his fateful watery outing, the spear richoched off of a rock and propelled into his head just above his left eye. The spear dug in so deeply that almost all of the six inches of spear lodged itself into his head.

Since there are no witnesses (or else they are still too busy laughing to contradict Abreu), all we can assume is that Abreu is telling the truth. (Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a sad outcome to a drinking game gone awry.)

MSNBC reports that initial reports that a friend shot Abreu are false. (Of course. What kind of a freind would shot you in the head with a speargun? A real friend would use a bullet to make sure you’re dead.)

Frantic Surgery

Non-American press can be very snide about medical facilities outside of the country, but in an incredible feat of five hour sugery, doctors removed the spear and Abreu is mostly fine. The spear did not hit any major brain areas.

Well … he’s as fine as you can be after a spear went into your head.

Guess Who’s Contagious

The big problem with doctor’s office waiting rooms is that a lot of sick people truck in and out and you don’t know what they have. Well, with this game you can guess who’s contagious. The winners win a chance of not dying. Losers wind up getting hooked to IVs and being rolled around on hospital gurneys. There are no rules to this game. You let your instinct take over. Cheaters actually write down the names of patients and check the obituary section of the local paper for the next few weeks.

Toss The Offensive Literature

Despite the best efforts of nurses and office staff, many pieces of offensive literature are slipped into the magazine piles or into the magazines themselves. These can include anything from anti-birth control crap to pro-Nazi crap (and its hard to tell the differnce, sometimes.) The office staff and nurses have so much to worry about already. Do them a favor and don’t complain to them. Just throw the crap out. Extra points if you can get it into a covered wastebasket.

The gist of the game is to do this when nobody is looking. You don’t know if that guy hawking and spitting into a hanky in the corner was the fella who put the offensive metrail there in the first place.

Good luck!

Yet Another Reason to Hate GSK

Treximet is made by GlaxoSmithKlien (nee: SmithKline Beecham). I have family who used to work at GSK and that’s one reason why I hate Big Phrama so much — because I got to see firsthand how they waste money in order to justify jacking up prices.

Case in point — the Treximet sample cases. I don’t know for sure if the Marquis deSade has any decnedants, but if he does, this has got to be the person who designed this prurple plastic torture device.

What’s So Bad About It?

I’m glad you asked. Just imagine yourself with a migraine — you’re shaking, you can barely see because the slightest bit of light feels like staring into the heart of the sun and you are this < --> close to throwing up.

But AHH, you have the Treximet. Hope, for one shining moment, gleams with the promise of a rainbow after a storm.

And then you try to open the case.

First off, you have to squeeze the sides. Not just any sides — two specific places on the sides. If you’re off by a millimeter, you’re screwed. Then, after you’re squeezing, the case is suppossed to pop open. Except it only pops open a centimeter. You then have to pry a hyperdermic needle (or something similar) under the ridge and push up.

Needless to say, I have had a migraine since getting the Treximet and I could not actually get to the Treximet because I could not open the freaking case.

I hate you, GSK.

WARNING: The Following is Kinda Gross

One of the doo-hickeys that secretes normal body oil is clogged up for some reason. But the sebaceous gland is still producing oil at a normal rate, even though it can’t get onto the skin where it belongs. So, it’s producing a backwash (his term) under the skin, which is generally harmless.

And then he added, “The body oil turns into stuff that looks like the white filling in cheesecake.”

What is it with doctors and comparing body problems to food? First, I got turned off of raisins for life after getting my first ear-cleaning due to psoriasis narrowing my ear canals, and now I’m right off cheesecake. Not that I can afford cheesecake, anyway, but that’s not the point.

So, What Happens Now?

The doctor gave me two options about what to do about my cheesecake cyst. First was to leave it alone and bother with it only if it starts bothering me. Second, to get it surgically removed in possibly an out-paitent procedure. Guess which option I chose?

That’s right — I voted for the first option. Now, what could happen if I left it alone? There are four possibilities:

• The lump will go away on it’s own
• The lump will turn into a boil and need lancing to remove cheesecake-like filing
• I’ll have the lump all of my life and will die with it (which will make my corpse more easy to identify)
• It’ll get infected and then I’ll need it surgically removed.

Isn’t going to the doctor fun?

Say Hello to LY2590443

This will be the usual double blind study, so nobody knows what drug you get. The choices could be the mystery new drug, sumatriptan, a placebo pill or a placebo injection. I do not know if this new migraine drug will be in a pill form or an injectable form.

You need to be between the ages of 18 - 65 and have been diagnosed with migraines and get from between 2 - 8 migraines a month. You need to have had migraines (with or without aura) for at least one year. All sexes are welcome.

For more information about joining the cinical study, call 1-877-CTLILLY or 1-317-615-4559.

Don’t Apply If

Eli Lilly has listed some exclusions that can keep you from becoming a human guinea pig. These include:

• Being a drug addict or alcoholic
• Being pregnant
• Recently donating blood of 500ml or more
• Suffering from a “major psychiatric disease” (I do not know if depression would be included in that category).
• Being otherwise unhealthy or having some sort of chronic medical condition

The study also prefers people fluent in English and are willing to keep a diary about their experinces with the new migraine drug. There are several medical centers participating in the clinical trial all over America.

And the best part is that this time around there are no actual guinea pigs being used.

Colic

Horses and ponies, for example, can’t vomit. They can drool or foam at the mouth which may seem a bit like vomit, but it’s not. When horses eat somethign they shouldn’t, there’s only one way the offensive material can come out — and not by the mouth.

This can lead to a common and potentially lethal condition known as colic. This is far more dangerous than what cranky human babies get. Being over-full or having an intestinal blockage can shut off blood supply to parts of the intestine — which then die. No critter can live too long with dead guts inside of them. The only way to save the horse (if dead intestine is the case) is by emergency surgery.

Scrubs You Clean

Other problems horses get because they can’t vomit is that if they get a bacterial infection, they can’t toss up mucus or any of the bad bacteria. It pretty much has to go all the way through the digestive system in order to get out.

So, regurgitation is quite an efficient means to promptly remove from the stomach anything that shouldn’t be in it. COnsidering that people do not instinctively know what is not so good to put in their mouths, this is a good thing.

Otherwise, perhaps horses would now be riding us. Which, come to think of it, may not be such a bad thing.

Deep Breathing

This is inhaling for three seconds, holding it and exhaling for three seconds. If you can only do two seconds or one second, fine. Do wahat you can. This works in three ways:

• Deep breathing helps bring in oxygen which can help you calm down
• Deep breathign can help your muscles relax
• If all esle fails, one really deep breath will cause you to throw up and feel better

Herbal Tea

This is my favorite way of dealing with mild nausea, even from a concussion. It doesn’t work too well with stomach flu. It sometimes works for me with nausea from migraines, sometimes not. It’s best if you can get someone else to make the tea, but making the tea can give you something else to concentrate on other than your misery.

Flavors recommended are peppermint, mint blends, chamomile or ginger. (Next best thing to ginger tea is ginger ale). Parsely tea is supposed to help, too, but I’ve never tried it.

Aromatherapy

Some smells can trigger your subsconscious to relax muscles. For me, aromatherapy works best on nausea caused by motion sickness or migraines. You can just sniff the bottle, a few drops on a tissue or massage blended poils on your temples. Only lavender is gentle enough to be used full strength.

Good scents to try and relax to include lavender, peppermint, majoram and rosemary.

Hope this helps.

Where Is It?
It’s on my back, seems to be on a rib, about where a bra strap would go. I haven’t worn a bra in ages because (quite frankly) what’s the point?

I had Mom look at it and all she said was, “That’s no blind pimple.” It kinda reminded me of that line from Jaws : “This was no boating accident!”

Family Health History

I come from two families that for some reason like to grow weird lumps, keloids and skin tabs on various parts of the bodies. I wonder if it has to do with hormones or age or just crappy genes. It could be that I inheretied this lump gene and now it’s going for broke.

Unfortunately, no other lump-growers in the family have had a lump on their back rib. Hey, I’m an original!

Could It Be Cancer?

I can’t help but think the worst about a weird lump. Not that cancer is a big party, but if I did discover that it was cancer, there’s not a whole heck of a lot I can do about it. That’s because of my health insurance rates. They’ve gone up this month and I’m sure they would cover cancer meds or tests.

And you always find out these things on a weekend when the doctor’s office is closed. Sod’s law.

YouTube’s fun, isn’t it? You just put in random word combinations into the Search function and hilarity results. Being me, I decided to put in the search phrase “hole in head”. The results included this clip and the NIN hit “Head Like A Hole”.

Warning: BIG WARNING: I’M NOT KIDDING THIS MEANS YOU WARNING:

This clip is really gross. Even for those of us who are big Stephen King fans, who merrily eat popcorn during the chest-bursting scene in Alien, this will be really hard to watch. However, the man does not seem to be in any pain whatsoever and he’s even joking about it.

So, don’t email me and say the clip was really gross because I’m telling you up front that the clip is really gross. (Let’s see how many folks do that anyway.) Why is it gross? Because the guy has a hole in his head. His eye and part of his cheekbone was completely removed.

I’m afraid I couldn’t find out just why he had to have such a radical surgery. I think it’s because he had cancer, but I’m not sure. Guesses on YouTube comments include a gunshot wound and a place to hide his weed.

Although really gross, it’s also kind of inspiring. The fellow seems to be in good humor and has adapted to a radical chance in his body. Maybe this shows how well the human body can adapt to most any kind of radical chellenge.

That and I really wonder what meds he’s on. I want to ask for them.

Although the official cause of death hasn’t been released, speculation is that her initial concussion caused a lot more damage than initially suspected. This highlights the importance of getting your head checked out after it gets clonked, even if you feel fine. The pain and problems start an hour or even a day after the initial clonk on the head.

Clonks On The Head That Need Checking Out

Granted, going to the emergency room (A & E for those in the UK) is no party. It’s a long, boring, nerve-wracking time that can last for a day sitting under bright lights and uncomfortable chairs, surrounded by sick people. But, it can save your life.

Suspiscious clonks on the head that need checking out include:

• Anything that happened on the workplace. At least your employer will pay for the ememrgency room care.
• Banging your head into a metal or wood shelf
• Any time you become unconscious
• Getting kicked in the head by a horse (trust me on this one. I didn’t get my head checked after a mare reared up and clonked me with her forehoof and it’s a wonder I’m still alive.)
• Sports concussions, helmet or no helmet
• Falling on concrete
• Falling out of a tree — even if you wore a helmet
• Anytime it takes you longer than three minutes to decide if you should go to the emergency room. If you’re unsure — go.

And Rememeber

It is safe to take a nap when you have a concussion. Just do it in the emergency room.