The Cliffs of Insanity

Well, not really; I'm just trying to step away from the inebriated madness of last night. My excuse is perfect: PHENERGAN. That's what the doctor gave me for the nausea. So far it has worked, as I just had a potato about an hour ago, and that was the first bite I'd had since Tuesday night.

I didn't think I had committed to memory the grand mal seizure I had that night. Well, actually, it was very early Wednesday morning. First thing I lost was my bearings, and I fell a couple of times just trying to get to the bathroom. Third time was a charm, though. My vision went wibbly and I suddenly woke up on the living room floor. I'd bitten my tongue again, could hardly move pulling myself with my arms, much less stand up. The TV had automatically turned off, so it was pitch black in the house. No light and hideous confusion is not a good combination, when you're trying to get some help. It took me a good half hour to finally dial the phone right, after I finally got it knocked down from the table, with an umbrella. It was as though neither the cell nor home phone would properly work. In actuality, it was my fingers that would not work.

Finally, I got in touch with Janice around 3:30 in the morning. She called 911 and I was hauled off the E/R to be monitored to see if I needed to stay in hospital, or if I could go home. I did my best to behave as though I had gotten my bearings and consciousness back, because I had the initial interview with my new therapist, the one who specialises in grief, and I really didn't want to miss that. It's been a year this month, and it's taken me this long to actually get somewhere. I wasn't about to let a seizure put that off.

The meeting with the therapist went very well, I believe. It's still a tentative arrangement, but I think I'll warm up to him nicely, and I really think he'll be able to help me. The issue I have is with myself. I'm not inclined to allow myself to be open about much, unless I'm baring the soul (and a little leg) here on the Cliffs. He mentioned that journaling may well be a good outlet for what I'm dealing with. My thought was, dude, you don't even want to know about my journal! haha

Since the incident of the other night, I've been spending the evenings at Uncle Michael's and Janice's. I just did not, and still don't honestly, feel comfortable with being alone when I still felt like a mean jelly. I will probably go up to their house again tonight, especially if I'm still a tad nauseous. If I have to have more phenergan, I want some physical support in the event I fall out from the medicine.

Regardless of where I stay tonight, I'll definitely have the computer with me, because I need to finish this damnable Feeding the Tree story. It's pretty much a given now that Flint will survive to perish in another tale. If it keeps up like this, Flint will end up being a staple for The Harming Tree cycle. God/dess only know what B will think of these stories, if he ever reads them. Maybe his advice to go nuts with the idea of The Harming Tree will be something he regrets. We'll see.

Tomorrow, I need to finish paying my bills and I need to clean this house up. In trying to find something, anything, to reach the phone, I pretty much trashed the living room. I really despise domesticity. What I hate even more, though, is not being allowed to drive for six months. It's gonna drive me (no pun intended) bonkers.

One funny thing that came out of this whole seizure/wreck mess; when I talked to the guy at the body shop, he commented that the car wasn't taking up much room. I said, "Well, it's only two feet long."

He laughed and said, "Yeah, it's a legal golf cart."

Then I laughed and said, "It's a moped with four wheels!"

And we both just cackled.

If I didn't laugh at situations like this, I'd scream with sorrow and die.

Well, it was an interesting day. Aunt Tudi and I had to go to Wal-Mart for a couple of things, and we also wanted to go to Earshot so I could look for some oddments to put in Barry's box. We first went to Wally World, so we could avoid the church crowd. We went to the office supply section first, because we needed some photo paper and a couple of rolls of shipping paper. I was feeling odd walking back there; just not myself, sort of feeling like I wasn't quite present. While we were in the office supply section looking for our stuff, I decided to have a seizure. When I woke up, I was surrounded by paramedics, Wal-Mart employees, and one shopper who was a nurse. They asked me a fuck ton of questions, had my sign a couple of things, then helped me up to toddle off into the sunset. After everyone dispersed and I walked a ways with Aunt Tudi, I started to cry. I don't know why I do this but, every time I have a seizure, I cry afterward. So, not only did I embarrass myself by having a seizure in Rednecktown, I compounded it with a good ole boo-hoo. After I got myself together, we finished in the store and headed on to Earshot. I found some really cool stuff for B, so the packing can now commence. Ha!

I've talked funny all week thanks to the seizure I had on Sunday night. I actually got to sleep a wee handful of hours that night, but I woke up the next morning with a horribly bloody pillow and a very painful tongue. I'd had the seizure in my sleep and had bitten my tongue on each side whilst seizing. One side is bad, with a small wound that's pretty sore, but the other side was laid open and bleeding off and on all day Monday. Sore doesn't even begin to cover this deep bite. I haven't been able to properly eat, speak, brush my teeth, or do anything else one usually takes for granted in relation to the tongue. Despite it taking my breath away from the pain, I began a regimen of salt water to begin the healing process. Once the wounds seemed to be closing up pretty well, I switched to a peroxide/H2O mixture to cleanse the wounds as they healed. I've eaten very little and what little I have eaten has consisted of soup with crackers, cottage cheese, yoghurt, and other forms of mush. Using the tongue to chew is pretty much agony made manifest in my mouth, so I'm avoiding it as much as I can. If I can let the food slide down my throat, I'm a happy camper.

I put a call in to my neurologist in hopes that he'd see me sooner than June. I need to find out what I can do to mend my tongue quicker than this, 'cos I've just been miserable this entire week and I'm concerned that my tongue might not be healing properly, even after all I've been doing. The deeper bite appears to have closed up, but I have a huge knot on my tongue there now and it's still horrifyingly painful. I didn't hear back from the doctor's office today so, if I don't hear back by Noon on Monday and my tongue is still in the same condition as it is now, I'm going to the ER to get checked out. 'Til then, I guess I'll be sucking on my various mushes and attempting to lick my wounds, which is pretty damned difficult to do when the wounds are on your tongue.

Thanks to everyone for all the well-wishes. That's really sweet of you.

Dr. Pilch has increased my Topamax to two a day for five days, then three a day after that. I'm taking Topamax for my migraines, but it's also a seizure medicine, so I lucked out. Ha Ha!

Aunt Tudi and I went out to dinner with Aunt Janice and Uncle Michael. Todd sent Aunt Tudi a gift card for Outback, so we went Australian this evening. I had an appetizer's before my steak: crab-stuffed shrimp. They were deeeeelicious. If I ever get to go back, I'm not getting a steak. I'm having the crab-stuffed shrimp for an appetizer and for dinner. In fact, they could just give me a big tub of that crab stuffing and let me bathe in it. It was that good and that's no lie.

I've taken all my meds now and I'm going to try to sleep. I did sleep really well last night in between the seizures, which I don't remember at all. All I remember is Aunt Tudi freaking out on me. I hate I scared her.

I adore the advert people at Geico. The caveman commercials are genius, just as stack of money with eyes, and the old guy with the gecko. The old guy/gecko advert with them in the bathroom talking about ringtones is golden. "Ring-a ding ding ding-a-dee-ding ding-e-do!" HAHAHAHA! Now they have this Mission Impossible type man asking the question "Can Geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance? Does 10 pounds of flour make a really big biscuit?" And then it shows this little boy buttering this huuuge biscuit! Omigawd, I just want to hang out with the Geico advert department. They've got to be the most hilarious folks on Earth. I love them. Wait, I'm gonna see if it's on You Tube. Yep! Here it is. Enjoy!

Today (yesterday now so, if any of this sounds ridiculous, it's because I've been awake for 24 hours as of..right...now~!), I got to see my favourite doctor, Dr. Pilch! Why is he my favourite? Because he's bloody gorgeous, that's why! Well, that and he's tending the brain I got from Abby Normal with the best bedside manner I've ever encountered in a doctor, surpassing even that of my old orthopedic surgeon. This was my normal three-month follow-up visit with my neurologist, whom I've been seeing since last July when I quite unexpectedly had a seizure, not that you often schedule seizures. Suffice to say I'd never had a seizure prior to the one I enjoyed last year and I haven't had one since. In addition to trying to figure out why I had the seizure, Dr. Pilch has gotten the extra added joy of pondering my imponderable insomnia and ponderously pounding head. On Thursday, he got to add black-outs to the laundry list of noodle issues. Only recently has this begun and, lucky for Dr. Pilch, it began right before I was scheduled to see the good (looking) doctor.

Once I was called back by the nurse, I told her what had been going on and she took diligent notes, because she's a very diligent nurse. She told me that Dr. Pilch would be in shortly and to try to be comfy. I thanked her and proceeded to wonder why it was all chairs in doctors offices and exam rooms were the least comfortable on the planet, with the exception of the dentist's chair. And that's simply black humour right there because, really, where can a person be least comfortable but a dentist's chair? If it were any less like a La-Z-Boy, the dentist would have to scrape his patients from the ceiling before any given exam or, at least that's how it'd be with me. I could be given a Tempurpedic mattress and a hookah brimming with opium, and still be chew-a-hole-in-the-world-with-my-ass nervous while at the dentist's, and my dentist caters to cowards!

But I digress. After giving up trying to be comfortable in the exam room, I began to read the latest issue of Neurology Today, which isn't as interesting as Psychology Today but, since I didn't have that and my only other option was Southern Living, Neurology Today was the winner of the day. In the back of the magazine was a mini-article featuring the ongoing adventures of Migraine Chick. The two strips featured in the article had me har-dee-har-harring as much from woeful familiarity as from the full-on hilarity of the illustrations.

This was one of them:


About the time I was finishing up writing her URL down on my hand, in walked Dr. Pilch. He looked at me as if to say, "You're writing on yourself. I'm a neurologist. Perhaps you need a psychologist instead. And then the moment passed and he was all smiles and sweetness because he's that good (looking).

Now, on the best of days, speaking with a neurologist is always fodder for the Theatre of the Absurd. Dr. Pilch began to look over the notes his nurse had taken, and he asked me about the black outs. I told him that they seemed to be very brief and I never fully lost consciousness, so they weren't like the seizure I had.

"Do you know how long they lasted?"

"Not very long. It's not like I had missing time, or was abducted by aliens or anything."

::wry grin from the dee-lec-table doc:: "So what did you see?"

"Uhm...black?"

"And when you came around, were you confused as to your whereabouts or who you were?"

"No more so than usual, doc."

::another wry grin:: I love his grin. He is a hotteh, my brain doctor.

"I see you're not sleeping as well as you were the last time we saw one another."

"No, 'fraid not."

"And the migraines are worse?"

"Yeah, 'fraid so."

"Do you think the black-outs have anything to do with these other factors?"

"You tell me doc. I have a faulty brain and am unsure of my capacity to think clearly."

Yeah, I was being a bit of a smart-ass, but not in a snarky way; rather, more in a playful please for to allow me to molest you on your uncomfortable furniture way. Or, if you need to be more comfortable, my dentist is right down the road. We can turn off the drill...and the lights...and.... But I digress.

"Well, I think that, even though you say you've actually been sleeping better this week, the crux of your problems lies in your body being unable to maintain a recognisable sleep pattern. I see we've tried a number of different treatment methods and have ruled out sleep apnea. The Klonopin was working well for you until we doubled your anti-depressant, so what I want to do is add a 1/2 milligram of Klonopin to your 1 mg at night. If we can jumpstart your sleeping pattern, maybe your body will be able to grasp it and go from there in healing itself. I think your migraines will diminish as a result as well; however, if you have any more black-outs, I don't want you to wait until I see you again in December. I want you to call me immediately. We may end up having to do another electroencephalogram."'

"Meh, not another one of those..."

"Well, it's been a year since we tested you. Better to be safe than sorry and, who knows, maybe something will turn up in a new one that couldn't be seen in the last one. Let's hold off on that for now, though. I know your funds are limited, so I want to try to treat the underlying cause of all this before we go crazy and hook you up to the electrodes again. In the meantime, you're still on the Paxil, Relpax and Lortab as needed for migraine, and the magnesium?"

"Affirmative, Doc."

"Okay, let's see how things go with the 1.5 mg of Klonopin. Hopefully, this will take care of the insomnia, which will help with the migraines and all associated symptoms of those including, I'm betting the black-outs. But, like I said," and he waggled his finger at me, which is fine with me since he's my elder (and I always respect my elders, especially those of the irresistible kind), "any more episodes and we're going ahead with the EEG immediately, okay?"

"Anything you say, you tasty morsel of medical mayhem! Oh...you got it Doc!" I sure hope that first bit was my internal voice remaining....internal. If not, though, I can always blame faulty hardwiring of the brain and ask him for some special attention in that grievous matter. To satisfy his curiosity, Dr. Pilch asked me about my writing on myself. I explained to him about Migraine Chickie and I showed him the comic strips at the back of Neurology Today. He took the mag and studied the strips for a few moments and, O so very slowly, his face split into one of the prettiest smiles I've ever seen on a person (and, yes, men can have pretty smiles just like women can have handsome ones!). Not just that, no no; Dr. Pilch then began to chuckle lowly.

"Forgive me. I know it's not right to laugh at something from which a patient of yours is suffering, but...this is really quite funny! Please don't take offense."

"None taken! I was cackling at these right before you came in, so I'm right there with you, Dr. Pilch (and on you like a cheap suit, if given a shred of a hint of a whisper of a chance in hell)."

The good (looking) doctor stopped and sized me up, saying, "You know, that's a very good attitude you have there. When it comes to medicine, one can never underestimate the therapeutic benefits of a good chuckle."

Those were his words exactly. And here's hoping the good (looking) doctor is right because, if he is, I'm already cured of everything. Since that's obviously not the case (I would have otherwise slept last night), maybe another electroencephalogram is in order which, given my newfound association with head electrodes, will certainly push me over the edge of hilarity and into "The doctor gave me a pill and I grew a new kidneh!"-ville.