Calm down, brain....

Yesterday morning, I awoke with a splitting headache. I first took two ibuprofen. Four hours later, I took one maximum strength acetaminophen, which cut through some of the pain for about an hour. Seven hours later, I took two(!) Aleve, which did nothing for the pain--in fact, it seemed to enhance it.

Through the night, my headache reached into my slumber. I awoke at least four times, wincing and sometimes crying out.

This morning, my companion was still right there with me. I told my father, and we resolved to go to the hospital. However, this being a huge, conglomerate structure, we decided, after waiting for over three hours, that we could find help elsewhere. We made an appointment for me with a general practitioner for later this week.

In the meantime, I bought more acetaminophen. I don't quite understand why that and none of the other painkillers could dampen the pain so much. But mine is not to wonder why.

F says he's worried. He says that, coupled with my vision-related HPPD symptoms, what I'm exhibiting now may be indications of a brain tumor. I shrugged and said that that was an idea I'd entertained several months ago; he was telling me nothing new.

The funny thing was, I went downstairs to speak with my father (who'd heard nothing of this private conversation), and he proceeded to tell me about a friend of his who had been complaining about headaches and soon ended up dead--the cause of death, a brain tumor. The fact that two independent sources used that phrase seems more than a coincidence to me. But as much as I think God speaks to us through ordinary channels, I know I can't chalk anything up as fact until I see a physician.

You never know what a good thing health is until you lose it.

Just a quick update.

As I mentioned in my comments of the previous entry, my headache has reduced itself tremendously. I still have the skeleton of a headache, but for the most part it is a phantom.

I finally cracked open Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, originally written in the 1500s. The edition I have is annotated, which makes the reading oh so much more accessible. It's way more interesting than I would have thought. Book II, the section I'm starting with, is all about numbers and their relation to magic; he speaks a lot about the Pythagoreans and of Plato, and also places a lot of emphasis on the kabalah. Of course, I loved the section devoted to the number four.

I admit, I know very little about what "the occult" is supposed to be. When I was a teenager attending a Free Methodist church, I read a book that said that automatic writing, visualization techniques, and other such activities were of the occult. (It was on this definition that I gave a confession to the entire church during a Sunday service, where I described being involved in the occult and making a conscious decision to turn away from it now since I was in the church. Mind you, I was 16.) I know that my aunt Anna was most likely into the occult; I nabbed a couple of magazines that sold "occult" paraphrenalia (oils, incense, candles, athames, books, even robes). But other than that, all I'm running on right now is conjecture--and this book I have beside me. Hopefully, I'll come away with a better understanding.

My friend Dan is encouraging me to run a Mage campaign. I think I have more of a grip of what it may take, being a GM; however, there are some skills I still feel I do not have and that may be essential. I don't think things up on the fly very well. But Dan, himself a GM, managed to explain some things (trade secrets?) to me, and I think I understand the idea of likelihoods a little better now. His advice was helpful.

So... a Mage campaign. I've only been preparing for this for four years. Like I told him, I'm not working right now... what else do I have to do with my time? The thing I'll have to restrain from most is making my primary NPC a Cultist of Ecstasy. I might want to pick something not so rock-the-boatish.