When I was a young kid, I loved to play sports with all my brothers and neighborhood. I really didn't have a natural talent for playing, but I loved the outdoors and participating in whatever they were playing. We had neighborhood football games (my favorite), baseball games, running matches and kickball. My mother always said I was a tomboy because I enjoyed playing outside with the kids.



Although I loved to play neighborhood games, when it came to competition, I wasn't the best. Our school had track meets and I always wanted to participate, but for some reason that a twelve-year-old boy couldn't understand, I could just not win. I remember one relay race in junior high where I felt confident and excited and when the whistle blew, and we all started out together. I was in the lead, but I shortly starting falling back from leaders in the pack.

I loved to run but for some reason that I wouldn't understand for 40 years, I didn't have endurance. When I ran, I'd get headaches. Many times during my school years, I would feel really sick from the headaches and any kind of physical activity would make my head pulsate even worse. Those problems kept me from being a sports superstar but I continued to participate whenever I could.

In college, I began to have really severe headaches. It was determined that I had migraines and the stress from working 2 jobs and going to school full time was making them worse. My paternal grandmother, I'd been told, had "sick headaches" that'd put her in bed for few days, so I figured I'd inherited them. When the doctor talked to me about the headaches, I began to realize that I'd had them as long as I could remember.

My earliest recollection of severe headaches was when I was about 3. I was lying on the sofa, watching the 'Wizard of Oz" with my brothers while my mother was frying chicken. My head hurt so bad it felt like it was going to split. The smell of food cooking was making me very nauseous and before the end of the show, I had a full blown migraine (although it would be another 15 years before I got the name of what I was experiencing).

I learned to live with the migraines and adapt my life around the times I'd been in so much pain. I believe that I had an angel watching over me every time I was so sick and felt like I could die and did almost die. The years that I could not perform daily activities were offset by miracles of my angel always with me.

My angel was with me when I was 52 years old and having a severe headache. It was a Friday in February. It was a miracle that my son was home from college and he'd just taken a life saving course. My son and angel were with me that Friday afternoon when I had a stroke. Because of the stroke, the miracles were going to be obvious in my life. In "Strokes and Miracles", I'll share details of my stroke and how miracles kept me alive and at peace during that scary time.

Migraine can be very troublesome. It can be debilitating for anyone. As there is no cureas yet for Migraine, we have to depend upon pain relieving pills. These pills may also caiuse side effects. Migraines do come suddenly but we get a warning before the headache gets bad. At that time take care to relax and sleep in closed room with no noise. That may stop the migraine from getting out of hand.