Dealt with It

I still play on some team sports when I can. Not in any competitive leagues any longer, but the teams in these leagues still like to win. I like to jokingly call them old ladies leagues, but some of the younger folks take a smiling offense to that terminology. It's one of the few ways I get my exercise in.

I had a blast this year on my new team. I switched teams after I was having problems with some smoking going on where we were competing. When I mentioned something to our person in charge, I was told to 'deal with it' and she's not even a smoker. You see, smoking is a Migraine trigger for me. I have enough environmental triggers around that I don't need other people's bad habits around triggering a Migraine.

I originally tried taking the upper road and decided to try to communicate with my team leader about what Migraines are since she may not have had any experience with them, but she completely shut me out.

Not too many people know this, but I actually dealt with this in two ways. The first way I dealt with it was that I switched teams. We (some friends moved with me) ended up having so much more fun on our new team than we had on our previous team even before I was told I needed to deal with it.

The other way I dealt with it? I wrote several emails to our township parks and recreation director about banning smoking in our parks. It has taken almost a year and a half, but it is scheduled to come up for a vote before the end of the year. Honestly, I couldn't believe that smoking was still allowed in public parks where kids are running all over the place.

I never used to be so bold or at least on this level. In some ways, I think realizing I have Migraine disease and learning that I have to take matters into my own hands has helped me deal with things in other areas as well. I think once you learn to take doctors head on (pun intended), that you learn you have to take control of other areas too; not to mention that hopefully this will help eliminate another area that I am faced with a Migraine trigger where with any luck I won't be forced to chose between something I enjoy doing and ignorant people doing something they enjoy doing which infringes on the health of people in the parks.

Let's just hope the vote passes.