Stupid Hurts

Mostly…..

So I entered into Wonderkat yesterday. I made reference to it a few days back . Aside from a headache I felt amazing. So in an uncharacteristic move for me I popped an Advil and got prepped to raced.
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I was first off the line and carried the pace for the first half mile or so, but was soon forced to drop back and let several people in front of me who actually knew the way we needed to go. I was one of the first three people to the two check points I made it to. Even though I entered the Sopo parking lot on a sprint and off my brakes and over shot my mark. Unfortunately between the Freedom park stop and the High Museum, I don’t what happened. I am confident I had a had a seizure, passed, out and crashed my bicycle. Several people including the checkpoint worker told me they the heard sirens when I spoke to them later on that night. Unfortunately I have no clue when I went down or how long I was out for, but I was unconscious long enough for them to get me to the hospital and get an I.V. in.

When I woke up, I took stock of my situation, I was in a strange hospital……Again. I at least had my wallet and my cell phone, but I didn’t have my glasses. Looking around I could think of several better places to be. Lots of the people on the beds where wearing blue faces masks and so were several nurses. Considering that not everyone was wearing a mask the problem must have still been endemic, but still fairly infectious. So I made sure I could still walk, got up. And then read my name on the wall chart to see where I fell in the triage rotation. When I saw it was fairly fair down I pulled the I.V. and then walked out.

Looking at myself I saw was bleeding from both legs, my shoulder, and face. The large blood stain running down the front of my jersey came from mouth where I split my lip. Placing a few phone calls I was able to track down my bicycle and my glasses. Just the matter of riding the Marta a few miles and the walking a few more miles to pick them up.

Well happy birthday to me. Looks like a few days off my bike while I rest this time.

On a side note. Wonderoot’s grand opening was amazing. I really expect big things from them.

“I am ok. I promise”

Odds are that is going to be the final phrase to cross my lips, and odds are even better I will mean it.[newline]
There are several people whom a simple mention of their name cause a flare of my nervous twitch in some cases followed by a headache. I have been a little curious of what would happen if I ran into one of them, but on the same note, I have been bit afraid. Fortunately only one of them lives in my time zone, so they have all be easy to avoid until now.

Earlier tonight I went to the ticket pre-sale party of the musical “Spam-a-lot” based on Monty Python’s Knights of the Holy Grail at the Workplay theater. I knew some of my friends would be there but I didn’t seriously expect to run into Denise. Most people who know me, know her as a legend. Her reputation sort of precedes her, she was my first girlfriend and she still holds the record for the longest relationship I have ever had part of. So no matter what I hold her in fairly high regards even if I little memory of our time together.

I saw her sit down in the corner with a book in an effort to avoid the crowd like she normally does. I debated leaving or just making an attempt to avoid her, but I figured it would be best to face my fear and speak to her and get it over with. Because if I didn’t I wouldn’t. So I walked up we sat down and talked for a bit. It was nice but my twitch got rather fierce and I found myself explaining that she made me really nervous. We talked for a bit longer before they had to pack up to leave.

I had been twitching most of our conversation, but I tried my best to ignore it because I do it when ever I get stressed. A few moments later while talking to my friend John I had a mild seizure. Luckily I made it to a chair. But I was really afraid for a few minutes that I would be spending the night in the hospital, I couldn’t really move my left side or form a sentence I was just stuck there eyes close drooling and crying. It took a few attempts for me to form a complete sentence to answer the repeated question, “are you ok?” This is the first seizure I can really recall. All my other seizures are in that gap of my memory that is blanked out completely. I seized up a second time at work, but it was no where near as bad as the first

You know what, just bury me where ever I fall off my bike.

This was over the course a month. and is more or less what happened to my memory.

So late June I gave serious mountain biking a few tries before deciding it really wasn’t for me. While out on each excursion one of the things i had to contend with was the massive tick population in Ok. I didn’t think much of it because we don;t have aggressive ticks in Alabama. Anyway a few weeks later I developed a rash but it went away in a few days. Then on Saturday I had to leave work early because my knee really hurt. I got home iced my knee and pretty much passed out there. When I woke up later on that night I felt like hell. I had an insane headache it hurt to move my eyes, and a fever that was quickly ramping up. I figured it was just the flu or something and that I would try to sleep it off. Sunday passed and I still had a fever, Sarah told me she was afraid I was going to burn her.

Monday came and my fever broke that morning after nearly overdosing myself on Aspirin. We went to an unrelated doctors appointment I had already, and then headed back home. On the way home she was speaking with her mom who told her that if my fever was above 103 to take me to the hospital. We stopped got a thermometer and I proceeded to check myself. I got pissed because it read 104. So I went and wasted nearly 3 hours in a clinic for “We don’t know whats wrong with you, it might be ticks take these pills pay the nurse out front, if it gets worse don’t come back to us. go directly to the emergency room.”

And the pills are the best part, you have to take them on an empty stomach or you will throw up, if you eat any dairy product while on them you get severe diarrhea, and they make me too dizzy to ride my bike, not that I had a lot of that planned but it

written by sarah

Many of you know but I’ve been dating a boy named Courtland for the past few months. During the later part of the weekend he develpoed a high fever and had body aches all over. On Monday I took him to the doctor and they told him they didn’t not know what was wrong with him but that his symptoms matched “Tick Exposure.” Last night I had to take him to the E.R. because he had a seizure. While there they ran a cat scan, blood tests and did a spinal tap. They believe that he has a viral infection, possibly caused by West Nile Virus. They are not sure so they are sending him to a Tulsa hospital because they have a better neurologist.They are sending him by ambulance. I’m asking everyone to please pray to whatever God/diety you believe in and keep Courtland in your thoughts. I’m on my way up there right now. I’m not sure how long I will be up there. And there is a good chance that I won’t be near my computer for a day or two. But I will try to post updates as much as possible. You are welcome to call me on Court’s phone (if you don’t have the number let me know and I’ll eventually get it to you) or you can text me on my old number.

As things stand now they aren’t looking good right. Yesterday Court was awake and coherent. He was tired, but he was still able to interact and even seemed like he was getting better.

Last night at 4am he had another seizure. Not as bad as the first two, but still a seizure. They sedated him so he could sleep. About 6am he started to have what one doctor described as “absent seizures.” Basically he opens his eyes, stares blankly, doesn’t respond, chews his tongue and drools. He’s been having these all morning. He goes back to sleep right afterwards. His vitals are fine, no fever.

Here’s what I know so far. It’s not a lot. I saw the regular doctor this morning and the neurologist an hour ago. They don’t think it is a bacterial infection and they don’t really think that it was caused by a tick bite. They think the kind of infection he has is encephalitis. Which is an infection/inflamation of the brain. Most likely causing the seizures. They aren’t sure what is causing this infection. They have a few ideas and are running tests. Right now he is on a seizure preventing medicine, the doxycycline for the tick bites (just in case), and some meds for the encephalitis. The problem with the meds for the encephalitis is they aren’t sure what exactly caused it. They are starting to think it isn’t West Nile Virus (though they are testing for it just in case). They would just start giving him medicine to see what works and eliminate possibilities but his kidneys are failing.

So as of now I’m waiting for the Kidney specialist and the infectious disease specialist. Hopefully they will know more. He is also going to have an MRI performed. His CAT scan and is EEG brain waves are fine (they were performed Friday and yesterday).

If anyone has any questions feel free to call or email me. With him sedated I really have nothing to do but read, crochet, and keep a journal of his activities. I should sleep since I’ve had 6 hours in 2 or so days, but I’m afraid if I do he something will happen.

The not-so-great news: They still don’t know what is causing the seizures. They have a list of options such as viral infection and tick exposure, but nothing guaranteed. We are still waiting on some culture reports. Hopefully they will spread some light on this issue. Right now they have him on two different seizure medicines, a kidney medicine, and the tick exposure medicine and something else that I believe is for a viral infection. Basically they are throwing stuff at him to see what works. Really it just depends on what doctor you talk to. All are unsure, but each has his own opinion.

As for his mental health, he is getting better. He is still missing huge chunks over the last 6 months, but mostly just the last week. But everyday he becomes more like himself and stays awake for longer periods. Once again of you call him I write it down in my private journal so he can check it out late in case he doesn’t remember.

So here’s the report today. Courtland had another seizure today. Actually he had three. He had two absent seizures and one real one. The reason for these recent ones is because they took him off his drip/IV and put him on pills and lowered the dose. Since the seizures they have kept him on pills but upped his dosage. So we shouldn’t see any more of them. The only good thing about this recent round of seizures is they were giving him an EEG (again) when one happened, so they were able to map it. The seizures are accruing on his left side of the brain.

We spoke to the neurologist and all the culture reports came back negative. He doesn’t have Herpes, West Nile, or Tick Exposure. He does/did have a viral infection called encephalitis. The problem is they don’t know which one because there are so many and most don’t have cures. Plus there is a chance that the virus is gone.

What this means basically is they have no clue what caused the encephalitis. They also said that the virus left its mark (that’s the best way I cold explain it). Basically he is going to have to be on seizure medicine for the rest of his life.

So his mother/father is making plans for him to go to Birmingham as soon as he is discharged. They have the one of the best seizure facilities and hopefully can go beyond what the doctors here found and find out what is causing the seizures. Hopefully.

Anyway the doctor did say that his short term memory would eventually come back. I’m just hoping that we can get past the part of where every time he wakes up we have to start from scrath and let him know what is going on, where he is, and how he got here.

Well it had the opposite on him. Since Thursday night he has been hullicinating and acting manic. One moment he will be himself then he gets really hyper and happy then he starts seeing things then he crashes and gets depressed and doesn’t remember anything. This could be because of the seizure medications, the seizures, the fact that they just took him off of three medications he didn’t need anymore (kidney meds, meds for the tick exposure, and meds for the herpes virus) or it could be a combination of all three. So he really isn’t himself. We’ve been trying to monitor him when he is on his computer, but if he gets on AIM or any other website and posts remember he’s not all there at the moment.

I don’t know what his mom is going to do in moving him home. He can’t be on all three meds forever. They have to get his seizures under control then they can start figuring out what combinations to give him. Plus if he really has a virus like they say that could be a while before it gets out of his system.

Court again

made it home home safely to alabama and got moved in with grandmother. i love this women and has an epic force of will. She used to be and high bio teacher so trying to argue anything with her is pointless. My reading and writing and writing and less than perfect still and I still don’t sleep much.

Sarah again

So Court’s been home almost two weeks. His initial dr.’s appt. wasn’t going to happen till August 1st. But the last few days he’s been throwing up and has had a fever. So they took him to the ER and now he is in a great hospital that deals with seizures. They are re-testing him all over again and taking him off his meds so they can start from scratch. Let’s hope they find something!

Court again
god damn my month has sucked. just spent a week in the hostpital in birmingham in case you guys missed it

So late last month I gave serious mountain biking a few tries before deciding it really wasn’t for me. While out on each excursion one of the things i had to contend with was the massive tick population in Ok. I didn’t think much of it because we don;t have aggressive ticks in Alabama. Anyway a few weeks later I developed a rash but it went away in a few days. Then on Saturday I had to leave work early because my knee really hurt. I got home iced my knee and pretty much passed out there. When I woke up later on that night I felt like hell. I had an insane headache it hurt to move my eyes, and a fever that was quickly ramping up. I figured it was just the flu or something and that I would try to sleep it off. Sunday passed and I still had a fever, Sarah told me she was afraid I was going to burn her.

Monday came and my fever broke that morning after near overdosing myself on Aspirin. We went to an unrelated doctors appointment I had, and then headed back home. On the way home she was speaking with her mom who told her that if my fever was above 103 to take me to the hospital. We stopped got thermometer and proceeded to check myself. I got pissed because it read 104. So I went and wasted nearly 3 hours in a clinic for “We don’t know whats wrong with you, it might be ticks take these pills pay the nurse out front, if it gets worse don’t come back to us. go strait to the emergency room.”

And the pills are the best part, you have to take them on an empty stomach or you will throw up, if you eat any dairy product while on them you get severe diarrhea, and they make me too dizzy to ride my bike, not that I had a lot of that planned but it would be nice.

I have a [tag]headache[/tag], my legs hurt, and i can’t hear. The persistent [tag]ringing[/tag] in my ear is probably going to keep me awake for a few more hours yet. But is was worth it. Let’s go back to the beginning.

I spent most of my morning [tag]sewing[/tag] and working on my new [tag]bag[/tag], I feel like I made a great deal of progress with it I may be ready to tackle mating the bottom halves together at some point tomorrow.[newline]
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I took a break from sewing for a bit to watch the [tag]Birmingham[/tag] [tag]Rugby[/tag] team [tag]practice[/tag] before making my weekly vigil to the local bicycle shop where I got sized and got information on a new [tag]bicycle[/tag].

My evening is where things got interesting. First off was the best dinner I have had in ages. We went to a local Thai place not to far from my apartment called[tag]Surin[/tag] West,t I have been horribly wrong in neglecting to visit there before now. The ginger chicken and several rolls of sushi I ate where amazing. Every bite into something new was promptly followed by a “wow!” I wish there has been some left over so I could snack on it now. From there I went with a few friends to my favorite dive bar the [tag]High[/tag] [tag]Note[/tag]. Tonight It seem like I knew about a third of the people from there from various parties I have attended. Lots of hugs, smiles, and hand shaking

After a few hours of watching my friends drink and catching up on current events, Several of us went into the [tag]music[/tag] venue in the back to see the bands that were performing. The last band on made the best impression on me.

The lights in the bar dimmed, and I felt the heat of a bunch of lighters rise around me. A [tag]guitar[/tag] chord rose up from the floor sweeping the room destroying every other sound until it had the crowds full attention. The lights slowly gained power and the band [tag]Mindtrip[/tag] proceeded to put on a massively impressive show for us. I left partially deaf and thoroughly rocked out. It made for an amazing night.