Stupid Hurts

Fortunately I have managed to get one of several doctors appointments for the week out of the way. Now I just have the two more on Friday to deal with.

Unfortunately I called my lawyer to get several questions answered only to find out she was no longer employed by the company, and no one thought to inform me of this. While talking to a different lawyer she was able to answer several questions I had, but she also told me the expected turn around time on a disability case was 12-15 months, which is surprising considering it got denied originally in less than 3 weeks.

I thought my medical bills were only somewhere in the 30k range. My mom was nice enough to politely correct that notion last night. My expenses surpassed 100k so long ago we have since forgotten what it looked like as it whizzed past to become a dark smudge on the horizon.

I feel bad putting this kind of stress of mom, because even though she has not said much I know she has worked extremely hard in en effort to maintain some sort of quality of living for the both of us. I tried to help when I worked at the Yatch Club Feeding myself and what not. Even though it resulted in several smaller seizures at work. I am not sure what to do next. It just all feels really heavy all of a sudden.

I had just gotten my [tag]lucky[/tag] [tag]socks[/tag] on and was tossing stuff into my [tag]backpack[/tag] in an effort to get ready for [tag]work[/tag], and I thought to myself, “I haven’t taken my [tag]camera[/tag] anywhere in a bit.” Well, tonight I am glad I did. (And before anyone even bothers to ask, I really do have a pair of lucky socks, I wonder if my life would be different had I taken them to [tag]Oklahoma[/tag] with me?)
I decided to head into work early. Partly because of the fact I am sick and I wasn’t sure if I was physically capable or getting to work or staying at work, and partly because I wasn’t sure if I even had a job anymore.

Friday night I choose to start celebrating [tag]Halloween[/tag] a little early and went to the 4th annual Witches ball instead of going to work. A bunch of my friends went with me and we even managed to talk my mom into going and having a little fun.[newline]
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I got to see a lot of interesting costumes and well thought out costumes, and a lot of people who were well..just running around half [tag]naked[/tag].
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It was really worth skipping out of work for.

So I went into work tonight and found out due to a scandal that had nothing to do with me directly. No one noticed that I didn’t show up to fill my post last night. I decided there was no real reason for me to point that fact out for anyone.

On the note of upgrading Stupidhurts.org I decided it was best to let well enough be. I looked over the documentation and over the back end code. As my buddy Jake pointed out to me a bit back, this site is held together by spit and love. So if it ain’t broke I really shouldn’t be trying to fix it. Plus I would lose several rarely used but very awesome features like the Stupidhurts map and voicecasting.

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

I was told today that I seemed way too efficient for someone who has just gone through as many major events in a short period of time as I have . According to her I should be depressed and crying in a corner somewhere. She said I should not be trying to get furniture for my apartment, out running errands, or helping my friends with their issues. I tried to explain to her that I am extremely depressed, but I need to get stuff done more so than I need to hide in a corner and cry.

But there is my near total lack of catharsis. I don’t have a lot of ways to unwind really. Plus I have only been let out of the house once to see my friends since I have been back in Alabama, and I have been lectured several times for being on the telephone to often even though it is my personal cell phone. I now understand why tigers pace in their cages. I have been reading and doing push-ups to kill the time. I am up to 150+ push-ups for the day.

Fortunately I am a little closer to getting my bicycle back, so then I will be able to get out ride and relax some. Maybe even have some time to myself alone to think and clear my head. My mom also said she will loosen up on the whole “constant supervision thing” once I get my bicycle. She agreed to let me out during the day by myself.

A lot of people who deal with me on a regular basis have pointed out that personality has been in constant flux since I got out the hospital. Since then there have been break downs, panic attacks, and crying fits among other fun things to deal with. Several of my friends told my mom they have never seen me that vulnerable or needy before, and it made them really uncomfortable. What’s worse is several people have decided they like it when I am warm and emotional.

But, recently my normal personality (cold, distant , emotionally unavailable) resurfaced as my memory has been getting better. Arguably that is a good thing. Because now I am mentally stable again, no panic attacks, crying fits, and most of my manic depressive tendencies are gone now. But the people who need some sort of emotional display from me are left in the dark. So now I am left at an impasse. Do I risk my lucidity in an attempt to make someone else happy. Or do I remain distant and mentally stable.

My Grandmother is still in denial about my partial amnesia, and I am being stressed out from all sides. This is starting to get a little ridiculous in all honesty. Instead of getting the time I need to deal with my own issues and feelings. I have to bench them and try to be there for everyone else to help them with their issues instead. One of the big ones is the fact my Mom is having to deal with the fact she can’t afford to eat and buy my medicine at the same time. My medicine runs in excess of 200 dollars a WEEK! So we have the option of me risking another seizure and eating. Or me staying not killing over, and going hungry. So soon I need to figure out how to get a job without them find out I am insane, or I need to find a semi-legal way to get funding. Mom has expressed the fact she would rather me not work 1) because she wants me to take time to heal and 2) because of the whole Dr’s orders thing.
But we all know I have never been one to take things lying down very well.

And then there is my Grandmother, her way of dealing with stress is being critical about every small thing. I have been lectured for the way I tie my shoes. She has called from the other side of the house to lecture for leaving a light on. I get lectured on everything everyday. Plus she doesn’t like people to visit her house which means I don’t get to see my friends. That will change once I move out I hope.

Part of my Strength came from the fact I was emotionally unavailable, cold, and distant. I feel like it was a coping reaction. At the end of last year I had lost contact with my family and was basically alone in the world. And at that point I essentially unstoppable ready to tackle anything that anyone could throw at me. I think it was said perfectly in the movie Fight Club. “Once you lose everything, you are free to do anything.” The stress from the past few days had started to drive me back into that shell and a few people have noticed it. I am trying my best to not get cold and unavailable again, but it is impossible to deal with your issues when you have no choice but to help the important people in your life with theirs. They may say they don’t want your help, but as long as they have a problem, I can’t help but to try my best to help. It’s just one of my quirks.

I think I am done ranting for now.

Irony. One of my favorite movies is Memento it is about a guy who can’t form new memories, and can only remember things for five minutes at a time. Since I got out of the hospital last week my memory from the past several years has been thoroughly scrambled. Friends have been nice enough to spark old memories, or tell me of previous exploits. But it kills me how many things that I used to do all the time or how many songs on my computer seem completely new. One of the worst parts is I remember some things, but I am missing details, like names of buildings but not what they look like.

It is taking some getting used to being insane. When my blood sugar is high I am confident to most people I seem fairly normal maybe just a little high strung. It is when I let myself get hungry things get weird. According to my mom I get visibly manic depressive. I feel weird that much is for sure. When my blood sugar drops things just get progressively worse, first I get more and more high strung to the point I start having panic attacks and little things set me off. I usually can recompose myself pretty quickly, I guess years or repressing my feelings as practice helped. If it keeps going I get to the point I can’t talk properly I stutter and what not so I just don’t say much. Then I start to twitch the way someone with schizophrenia does. I also can’t form new memories if the hunger gets to be to much, so I have gotten in the habit of toting a snack bar in my backpack.

On this note Stupidhurts has officially gone active again. Look for more stuff later.

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 been putting off adding an entry to my [tag]website[/tag] lately because aside from recovering from my recent trip, life has been blissfully dull lately. I have been spending my idle time trying to plan my next adventure, but I am really starting to wonder if there is a point to a life where all I do is roam from one thrill to the next. I have had a few pleasant offers to settle down, but I don’t realistically see myself taking any of them. I think I thrive on the excitement.

Someone did manage to trick me into speaking to my [tag]mom[/tag] for the third time since she kicked me out last [tag]New Year’s[/tag]. That was interesting but I don’t feel like any real good came from it. I also managed to get tapped to help host a [tag]New[/tag] Year’s party for the first time ever in my life. I originally planned on spending the night with the same guys I spent it with last year, just because I have never managed to spend New Year’s in the same place twice in a row. Plus this is the first year in a very long time without some sort of personal disaster happening during the holidays. I guess this is to make up for the chaos of last year. Of course it is a little early to be certain, but it does seem like this year will end on a uncommonly high note.

I recently came into a [tag]Ipod[/tag] even though I said I never ever would own one. But someone gave me their old 20 gig unit since they replaced it with a newer model. Now I just need a firewire cable, then that will mean no more low capacity cell phone [tag]mp3[/tag] player.

I also added a few of my older pics to the Stupid Hurts Gallery

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So I have a theory as to why chain restaurants are typically successful. Consistency is key. I know for a fact I can go to a MacDonald’s anywhere in the world and without looking at the menu order a number one, and the person behind the counter will hand me a Big Mac and a soda. There is no risk in getting something unfamiliar or “strange” because I know the one in Seattle Washington serves the exact same thing as the one in Taipei Taiwan.
So I went to Checkers yesterday and ordered a new burger they had on their menu. It was awesome. I think I sat there for nearly an hour savoring every single bite. The only thing that would have made the burger more perfect would have been a nice thick slice of pineapple. Given the fact I usually avoid chain restaurants because they are almost always the same time after time, I went back to Checkers today expecting the same awesome burger. Unfortunately I was sorely disappointed. I really wonder what could have happened in 24 hours. This time I came close to tossing the burger in the trash halfway through eating it. I was painfully reminded why I prefer mom and pop places now.

And as an added bonus my chest hurts……..