teddwebb

Who Put That Chewed Up Pizza in My Mouth?

So on Tuesday the 17^th, I go to see one of my Neurologists. He is a Neurological Pain Management Specialist. I have Occipital Neuritis from the Auto Accident I was in back in June 2008 – migraines that generate from the base of my skull, like electric shocks and then gradually spread out over my scalp, throbbing and stabbing at the same time, but also pulling it tight, making my scalp itself sensitive to the touch, then making my eyes feel like someone has their thumbs over them, trying to push them back into my brain, and every time my heart beats, I want to scream because it hurts so bad, and if I move less than an inch or try to turn my head the slightest little bit, let alone try to open my mouth to speak, the pain is unbearable.

Anyway, that’s a new, wonderful symptom that was heaped on top of all my other MS symptoms when that retard wasn’t paying attention and plowed into a line of cars sitting still on the freeway and rear-ended my car, destroying my Car, the Car I loved so dearly, my Baby, who drove like a dream, was tuned up, had high-performance tires, new high-tech headlights, just had some work done on her, and he killed her – that asshole! Oh, yeah, and he screwed me up even more than I already was too, but hey, what’s a little more pain – THAT WAS MY FREAKIN CAR DUDE!!!

My MS Neurologist has been thinking that these new headaches and migraines were a result of the MS Exacerbation generated by the car accident and she’s put me on disease modifying drugs to see if that would help; they just made me sick. And she’s played around with my existing meds and tried new meds on me; no luck. However, my other Neurologist, who deals more with physically damaged nerves and not so much disease damaged nerves, figured it out after two visits.

Unfortunately, the new “Latest, Greatest, Does Great Wonders and Shits Rotten Cucumbers” Wonder Drug, only chipped a slight bit, a tiny bit, an itsy, bitsy, teeny, weenie bit of the pain away, but it made it so that I couldn’t pee a drop. No matter how much water I drank, I could not pee a drop until that medication had been fully processed by my kidneys and liver and broken down. Only then, was my body able to get back into the ball game (penis game) and let me go pee. Thank You Jesus for Being Able to Pee!

Where was I? Oh yeah, rambling as usual… On Tuesday, I go to see my Pain Neurologist and he wants to try a different type of steroid injection directly into the base of my skull and directly into the nerves that run up inside my spine, through the base of your skull and then fan out and start getting smaller as they work their way around your head. I have a lot of pain – have I ever mentioned that? I think of my Uncle Mike, of seeing him in pain for all those years while he was on medication fighting cancer before he died. I loved my Uncle Mike. He was like a Father to me. The memories from my childhood during that six-year timespan used to haunt me, trouble me. However now, well now when I think of those memories, I have a new sense of compassion for Uncle Mike, a new understanding of what he was going through, and I wish I could hug him and tell him that I know what it’s like to live every moment of every day in agony.

Instead of pity, “oh, you poor thing” and my own selfish, (now I realize that my feelings were selfish feelings) “Dude this makes me feel real awful to see him suffer like this,” I have more of a loving compassion, “I know your pain and I understand. You are strong and give others hope” and my own kindred feelings of understanding, empathy, and love and the end of “woe, poor me, look at how much this is hurting me.”

Uncle Mike was a Powerful Preacher, Touched by God, and Filled with The Holy Spirit. When he preached, you could feel The Holy Spirit. You could tell that Uncle Mike’s words were not his words, but that he had turned himself completely over to God and was letting the Lord guide his words, send him the Sermon, and supply him with that to be said which was needed to be heard. His flesh suffered greatly, but he was blessed by God, and the Lord filled him with The Holy Spirit, and after six years of suffering and of spreading the good news, the word, preaching, the Lord took him home to walk with Jesus in Heaven. I will commune with Uncle Mike in Heaven some day and I look forward to giving him one of my Big Old Bear Hugs! 🙂

It has taken over 20 years for me to ‘come to terms’ with the death of my Uncle Mike. I am at peace now.

OK, back to my story…so they’ve jammed needles into the base of my skull and injected steroids into the base of my brain, all freaky Star Trek style, or spooky SAW torture style – yeah, a very unique experience! LOL!!!

Well to my shock and amazement, after visiting my Pain Specialist for a MASSIVE INJECTION of Pain Steroid Injections Directly Into my BRAIN, I had trouble staying awake when I got home. I was hungry and wanted to eat some lunch. We had leftover pizza. We actually had some of this leftover Super Yummy-Licious Philly Cheesesteak Pizza! I put my feet up, get my heat-pad going on my back, a pillow to support my head and neck, and a plate of pizza in my lap and I start eating this pizza. Then I suddenly wake up and there’s this plate of warm pizza in my lap that’s been hardly eaten and my mouth is full of chewed up pizza. It’s not all gooey or slimy or gross or anything like that; it hadn’t been sittin in there long enough for that, so I finish chewing it and go in for another bite.

Things change and I am able to stay awake and eat some of the pizza for a couple of minutes. However, a few bites later, I suddenly wake up and there’s a partially chewed up piece of pizza in my mouth. I know what’s happening at this point and am no longer disoriented and confused when I wake up to find food in my mouth, so I just chew it, swallow it, and go back for another bite. This goes back and forth a few more times. I have two slices of pizza and I eat slowly these days, but I am making a good dent in it. At one point, I wake up with a complete, whole bite of pizza in my mouth, my arm and hand so gently fallen to my side, but with a piece of pizza in my hand, and it just laying on my belly on my shirt, and it is cold, and all of my pizza is cold.

It is decision time.

My Best Friend Norm has a favorite saying, “just power through it,” and Sheri has a saying, “you better eat some lunch.” I put my feet down. I sit up. I chug half a Mountain Dew. I stack both cold pieces on top of each other and I start cramming that pizza in, chewing and swallowing and drinking to help wash it down, cramming it in, chewing, drinking, swallowing. I envisioned that little Japanese Dude with a giant plate of hotdogs, eating those hotdogs as fast as he could. I tried to “channel” him…

…become the hotdog man… …be the hotdog man… ….you are the hotdog king…

…eat…eat…eat…eat…

DO NOT FALL ASLEEP…

Oh, and Sheri is going to kick your ass if you choke on this pizza, so do not freakin choke!!!

I was triumphant!

Sheri is a Good Woman. She could do awful, terrible, funny shit to me if she really wanted to, but she doesn’t. The door was locked and Sheri was at work, so I can be fairly certain that this time, this time, no one put that chewed up pizza in my mouth…this time…

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