To: Ash
From: Crecente
Re: Ban Monday, New MacBook Pro

I'm sure you know by know that I'm am subject to the not so infrequent migraine. No, I'm not talking about really bad headaches, I'm talking about medical migraines, the kind that make my vision blur and, occasionally, I throw-up. I blame it on my incredibly tiny brain. For some reason they appear to be coming more frequently nowadays. Fortunately, I can feel when they're about to land and if I knock-back migraine medicine and take it easy they usually pass me by. Today was one of those days. I ended up ditching my daily posting regime for a bit of a sleep and lots of meds. When I was younger it wasn't as much migraine (though I got those) as it was stomach problems. They were so frequent that I often just didn't eat more than once or twice a day. The stomach problems were a side effect of doctors cutting me open, completely open, and digging around in search of hunks of spleen which they deftly removed when I was five or so.

While I was living in Thailand as a child, doctors diagnosed me with ITP, a disease that essentially meant that my spleen thought all of my white blood cells needed to be destroyed. So they decided to do an exploratory splenectomy. They were sure that it was ITP after they performed a bone marrow tap on me. I remember lying down on a table for that and all of these people rushing into the room and pinning me down. Then someone holding my head, as I screamed and kicked, trying to prevent me from seeing that needle, that really big needle. I saw it anyway.

Later when they decided what it was, they doctors broke the news to me. I still remember standing in the doctor's office with my parents when I was five or so, and the doctor telling me that I needed to have a surgery or I would die. And that there was a fifty percent chance of dying on the table. He explained that it was like flipping a coin. Before I was brought in for the procedure my parents had a priest give me my last rites, just in case. To try and take the edge off it they turned it into a party, invited my friends even had a little cake.

My parents stayed with me as they wheeled me to the operating room, but had to stay outside the final destination, because they told me at the time, they would turn into pumpkins if they followed. I remember the mask lowering and counting back from ten, perhaps to nine before I fell blissfully asleep.

The days following the surgery were worse then those leading up to it. I couldn't move or sit up in bed without getting tremendous stomach cramps, like a charlie horse that felt like it would rip me in two. Over time I worked to sitting and then to using the bathroom, a not entirely pleasant accomplishment. Finally, weeks later I removed the tape, ever so slowly, from my belly wound. Afraid that if I pulled it too quickly the scar would open like a zipper and I would be floating in a tub of Brian guts.

Funny thing, the scar which once stretched horizontally across my stomach from one edge to the other is now sort of a diagonal that runs from my left side to only about half way across. What the hell is that about?

While I survived, it left me with a laundry list of minor issues like stomach problems, headaches and a fatal reaction to pneumonia. But more importantly it left me with a renewed sense of the importance of life. When I was young, still recovering from the after effects, I used to think I was given a 1Up. I still do. So headaches, stomach problems, whatever, at least I'm still around to whine about them. Captain Tangent signing off.

What you missed:
Playing and streaming that tourney live tonight
Live playthrough of Mario Strikers Charged
The Guild: Episode One
Tattoos and crane games
Sit and spin..lean, rather

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