Stupid Hurts

I had a neurology appointment today. After the usual poking and prodding (I have lost ten pounds because of the drugs) I got to talk to my doctor and hear a phrase you never want to hear in medicine, ” uh-oh.” We were talking about the fact I am having seizures daily still after trying 4 medicines. Several of these medicines have been at the safest highest dose. And I am showing no real improvement at all, and in some areas I am actually getting worse.

He noted, that having tried this many drugs for little over a year now with basically no results, that it’s more likely than not I will continue to have seizures unless there is brain surgery. Truthfully there are two problems with that. The first is the fact no one actually knows whats wrongs with me, so I would rather them not melon balling my brain. It is the only one I have, plus I have put a lot of time into it. The second problem is the fact I don’t have insurance. Doctors don’t work for free typically, so even if they knew where to dig, I couldn’t pay them. So for now, they are trying a left field drug and anti-depressant.

After leaving the clinic I was heading to the coffee shop because I needed to see my friends. I kinda needed some reassurance at that point. Being alone probably wasn’t a good idea. Taking my usual route I woke up in the ditch with people standing over me which meant I’d had another seizure on my bike. One of these days I am going to break my laptop when I do that.

Early Thursday someone asked me, “are you going to Elizabeth’s party Friday?”
“Who?”
“Elizabeth?”
“Who?”
“Besti….The mad Russian!”

Turns out I was, so were half of the other bicyclist I know and people who do volunteer work in east Atlanta went as well. One of the more interesting things of the night was the fact they had liberated a huge billboard from somewhere and turned it into a massive slip and slide using water and baby oil.
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I played it fairly calmly since I was still recovering from several seizures earlier in the the night, but still managed to have an all around good time. I also had to barter for a ride home in very broken German.

I think it officially became a party when I heard Jeremy utter the phrase, “Where are my pants?”
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The next day while doing volunteer work at Sopo, I had just taken a moment to eat lunch when a guy ran his motorcycle into the side of the building while attempting to exit the parking lot. I ran over to make sure he is ok, then checked to make sure he didn’t have a concussion, and what happened? I had a seizure. Pretty much like clock work. I checked the guy out before walking to the bathroom room and passing out. 6 seizures in 3 days while on my medicine, a new personal record, but it has left me a bit tired and in pain. But on a side note, I am getting a new Medic-Alert bracelet for my birthday

“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.

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.“ The entire theater was silent when he spoke those lines. Clark Gable’s voice gripped everyones’ throat for that moment. Then ear shattering applause.

I got to see Gone with the wind for the first time at the Alabama theater this weekend and had an absolute blast. With my short attention span the plot was a little hard to follow, but some of the cinematography and the costuming is amazing. To make the show complete the soundtrack interspersed with music from the Wurlitzer pipe organ, and there were five or so women roaming around in period costumes.

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Past that I have spent most of the week out riding my bicycle up and down the hill I live on and roaming around downtown Irondale.
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Getting down the hill is easy, and once I got used to the speed has even proven to be the fun part. There is something special about looking down and seeing that your bike is doing 35 miles and hour and trying to get the phrase ”stupid hurts” out of your head.