An unfortunate inheritance

When I finally graduated college, got a job and moved out on my own, my parents went sort of crazy.

These two very frugal – some would say cheap – people suddenly started spending money like they were Congressmen. Every time I’d come home to see them there’d be something new – a car, a truck, a TV set, a motor home. They would just laugh and say they were spending my inheritance.

I was the youngest child, so when I was out of their hair, their financial obligations to their children were over. I figured that I had been given enough by them over the years, and I’ve never really planned on inheriting anything, at least monetarily. But they both left me with me something.

What I got from my dad, who is 81 and still going strong, was mostly things to help me get through life, things I learned just from watching him and paying attention. My dad didn’t give me a lot of lectures. We didn’t have Ward Cleaver moments where he would sit me down and say, “Son, I hope you learned a valuable lesson today.”

No, I just observed him and figured out that there were certain things a man needed to know – that you should work hard, and provide for your family, and don’t go around whining and complaining all the time. I also learned that a man should always cut the grass, drive the car and control the TV. And I picked up some key manly skills from him, like how to blow your nose when you’re outside and don’t have a Kleenex (you just close one nostril and blow hard through the other one. And make sure you’re not against the wind when you do it.)

But while I learned a lot from my dad, most of the things I inherited came from my late mother. I have her sense of humor, her love of reading, and her sharp wit, also known as a “smart mouth.” I also inherited many of her ailments, the worst of which is a propensity for headaches.

I don’t mean those little nagging headaches that make it hard to concentrate. I mean the ones that make you feel like your head is being jackhammered from the minute you wake up. Ones that feel like you are being stabbed in the head from the inside. Ones that make it impossible for you to see straight, walk straight or think straight.

My mother called them “those old sick headaches.” She had them most of her life, though they stopped when she had a brain tumor removed in her ’70s. That’s comforting.

I went to a doctor who had me try some “preventive” drugs for a while. The first was some sort of anti-seizure drug that had shown some success preventing migraines. It made me insane. My mind raced 100 miles per hour, my hands and feet tingled, I slept about 4 hours a night and food tasted different. On the bright side, I dropped about 10 pounds in a month. But it didn’t stop the headaches.

Then, he put me on an older anti-depressant. It also didn’t stop headaches, but it made me hungry and sleepy. I would eat breakfast, and then eat something in the car on the way to work, then hit the vending machine as soon as I got in. I put back on the 10 pounds I’d lost, plus about 10 more, in a month. The silver lining was, I wasn’t depressed. I was truly fat and happy.

Recently, he had me try some medicine that they give to people with high blood pressure. I don’t have high blood pressure, but he swore that this drug has been an effective headache preventer. I’m starting to suspect that he just has some drugs stockpiled and he’s trying to get rid of them, because all this stuff did was sap what little energy I had left.

Oh, well. There are worse things to have to live with. I need to just buck up and stop complaining. I’m giving myself a headache.