Posted by drummer on May 15, 1999 at 12:18:09:

OK, since I have gotten to know you people over the course of the past several months, I think I can now open up and bare my soul to you; so to speak. I trust you guys. Anyone who doesn’t suffer from cluster headaches or supports someone who has clusters; please close this window right away.

Okee Dokee. Now that we are alone, I shall bare my soul. I’ll start at the end of my story, then jump to the beginning and then work my way to the end again. I am trusting that none of you will laugh, make fun or talk about me behind my back. I trust that you will keep this, “our little secret”.

My wife has just purchased me a cluster headache “safety kit”. (This is the end of the story). The kit contains, one pair of safety eye goggles, a jock strap with cup and a small flashlight.

Now. The beginning of my story. Like some of you, I have been getting my cluster attacks at 3:00am. This is a bad time for me because usually I am sound asleep. My mental sharpness is somewhat dull at this time in the morning.

My normal procedure for dealing with a cluster headache is to simply swallow two Ercaf pills, then turn my Oxygen tank to the “on” position. I then take the Oxygen mask, which I keep hanging on the tank for easy accessibility, and place it on my face and breathe, rock my body and quietly moan while sitting on the sofa in our living room. The Oxygen mask is fitted with a convenient elastic band to hold the mask in place on my face. This leaves my hands and arms free to flail about and hit my head and bang on the coffee table. I have performed this simple routine approximately, 8,286 times in the past 15 years.

Well, the other day at 3:00am, this simple routine took a turn for the worse. I was rudely awakened by the Demon in my head. This caused me to jump from the bed, naked, and run down the stairs to my Ercaf and Oxygen. Swallowing the Ercaf did not pose a problem. It was my fight with the Oxygen tank and mask that was quite unsettling. You see, I had no problem turning the Oxygen on. But, I had some difficulty grabbing the mask from the tank.

It seems that the elastic band on the mask got stuck on the handle of the Oxygen tank. I don’t know what it’s like at 3:00am where you live, but where I live it’s really, really dark. I couldn’t see and I really didn’t have time to fully assess the situation with my stuck Oxygen mask. I couldn’t figure out why the mask didn’t want to be placed on my face. So, I just pulled as hard as I could. I now realize that this was a mistake. The elastic band, rather quickly, came unstuck from the Oxygen tank. The elastic band rebounded off the tank and snapped “Mr. Winky”. This is the name I have given to my “you-know-what”.

I’ve found that whenever “Mr. Winky” is injured it causes me to double over fairly fast. Doubling over on this particular day caused me to poke my eye on the Oxygen tank’s handle. The pulling of the mask also made the little plastic tube that joins the tank with the mask break free from the mask. The mask had now become useless. Being rather resourceful, I immediately shoved the tube into my left nostril and found my favorite place to sit on our sofa. My hands that are normally free to flail about were now used to hold “Mr. Winky” and my right eye.

I guess I made quite a commotion. My wife, who knows not to visit me during a cluster headache, now, paid me a visit. Seeing me naked on the sofa with an Oxygen tube in my nose and holding “Mr. Winky” with one hand and my eye with the other, caused her to ask me, “What are you doing”? Still suffering the cluster headache, I had just enough energy to lift my head and politely grunt. The next day my wife purchased me the Cluster Headache Safety Kit. I think I now deserve to be a member of O.U.C.H.

Yeah...Elaine and Margi were good for a laugh, that's for sure, and Jayne Salters  could make you spit out whatever you were sipping on at the time.  Jayne has a boyfriend now, so I know that asking her to re-run some of her...um, adventures would probably not do.

  Another story I can laugh about NOW, is:  My front door opened onto my kitchen.  I was alone and it was night-time so I had lights on.  I get hit and it was bad I opened up my freezer door and was there breathing hard into the freezer when a UPS came to the door delivering a package.  He took one look at me, dropped the package and ran to his truck like he'd walked into a really bad place.  Never even asked me to sign for it.  Wonder what he told his wife that night when he got home.