teddwebb

Shit happens every day, but it can always be wiped away…

Archive for the tag “What’s Going On”

What an Odd Super Hero

What if I Were a Super Hero?

I have Multiple Sclerosis. I like Flock of Seagulls and the Simpsons, plus have a little bit of experience at Illustrator, which gives me the power to render my way out of any situation. I’m psychic and schizophrenic, so I can see you wherever you are, and whoever is following you and your imaginary friends. I am the protector of the imaginary and a detective in the infinite expanse of the universe for lost souls of friends in need.


Flock O Tedd

Shit Happens Every Day But It Can Always Be Wiped Away!!!

 

>ð|~@-@~|ð<

Teddy’s New Back Brace

Teddy’s Gotta New Back Brace!

So after waiting three years, and being tested, poked, and prodded for years by two Neurologists, three Pain Doctor Specialists, three Neurosurgeons, three Primary Care Physicians, a Parkinson’s Neurologist, and a leading Multiple Sclerosis Neurologist, it was a simple Physical Therapy Prosthetic Technician who figured out what kind of back brace (a “TLSO”) that I actually needed to support my back properly to help ease my daily pain!

Teddy’s New Brace!


Amy is her name. She works at Hanger Prosthetics. And as an added bonus, she said that EVERYONE that she “prescribes” this “TLSO” to their Neurologists, or that she “installs” this “TLSO” onto people, generally lose a lot of weight while wearing this brace. She took about 50 measurements of my body, so my brace is actually custom molded to my body now. I also have to wear it so tight that I can hardly breath – that’s the only way to keep my back actually fully supported, all nice and straight, and tightly bound upright.

Nice-n-Tight!


As I’ve gone back and forth with my meetings with Amy, she’s been telling me about this aspect of the “TLSO” and I was always doubtful. I mean, how could wearing a back brace alone make you lose weight? My Neurologist wanted me in a back brace so that I could walk more because I cant walk very far before my back gives out. The first brace he prescribed, a “Jewitt,” didn’t even fit my body type, and they ordered two different types; Man that was a TOTAL waste of time, and it cost Sheri and I over $100 in cab fair with me going back and forth to doctor appointments for a waste-o-time-back-brace-piece-o-shit! Well, I am a Convert Now. I am a True Believer Now! I take two bites of food and drink a sip of whatever I’m drinking to wash it down and I’m full. Actually!, I can hardly swallow the bites of food and I can hardly wash it down!!! And after I’ve eaten a few bites of food, I start breathing heavy like I just ran a mile because my stomach is now full and is fighting for space with my lungs inside the hard plastic clamshell that I’m locked down inside! LOL!!!

I’m so Full!

I CAN’T BREATH!




Does my ass look smaller?

 

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Pigeonholing God’s Saints

God Does NOT Pigeonhole His Saints

I have felt the drawing. I have felt the calling. God has called on me for years and I have struggled and fought with God for years because “Tedd knows what is better for Tedd than God does,” or so “Tedd” had seemed to think that for years, until I gave in to God’s calling, his drawing. I know that it has taken a good toll on me, my resistance, my lifetime of resistance, but now that I have given in to God’s drawing, His calling, my life is much better, even though the mental and physical damage is already there and can never be undone. Well, I guess when they invent time travel, it could be undone! LOL!!! But because I have God’s presence in my life now, everything and anything is bearable. I have a loving and trusting relationship with God, one based upon Complete Love and Complete Trust.


…the drawing…

There Can Be Only One!

There can be Only ONE!

My story is not uncommon, or unique, or special. I have known, personally known over 30 preachers, pastors, ministers, whatever you want to call a “Man of God” (“Man” meaning mankind or person, so that includes women) in my lifetime. The common thread is that they too feel the calling, they feel the drawing from God, but they are not sure what that drawing is, at least they try to pretend or fool themselves into believing that they do not know what God wants them to do, but they really DO know what God is calling upon them to do. Then they deny that drawing because they are afraid, because it is TOO BIG, TOO MUCH for them to handle, to understand, to take on, and it is NOT what they had planned for their lives. God is asking them to shed everything and follow him down an uncertain, foggy path, when they already had clear plans laid out for their lives and that is a huge decision to make, and a scary decision to make; it is a leap of faith.

The Holy Spirit

Many, like me, fight the drawing – that’s The Holy Spirit tugging at your shirt sleeve trying to get your attention – for varying lengths of time, going through ups and downs, usually living in a state of spiritual confusion, almost a type of self-inflicted Purgatory, if you would. For me, I know that I delved deeper and deeper into The Word, and I studied all other major religions, and I was like a virus, weaving my way throughout all the scriptures learning more and more, but still a virus, still sick inside. Everything I studied in the various worlds’ religions had common threads leading me back to God, always to God. And in the end the only way to obtain relief, to kill the virus, the sickness, was to accept The Holy Spirit, allow it to fill me up completely and accept God’s calling. There’s an old timey hymn and part of the chorus is, “he’s calling for you…he’s calling for me…”

When a Preacher decides to follow God’s calling, His drawing, it is the biggest decision that She will ever make in Her entire life. Gone are all the hopes and dreams and plans that She made for Her life, all Her fantasies about shopping for the right pair of shoes to match Her business suit for that high-paying job with the corner window office. Now She will spend Her days visiting sick parishioners while She’s wearing comfortable shoes because She’s on Her feet all day long. She won’t be living in the 3 million dollar house on the hill overlooking the ocean, because a Preacher doesn’t make that kind of money! However, She will receive the hugs and kisses from countless multitudes of people that She has counseled in their darkest hour; She will receive limitless blessings from talking to people on the phone that are at their rock bottom, and perhaps some are even ready to end it and She had talked them back from the edge of death; She will share in the happiest moments of new couples lives as She performs marriage ceremonies or baptizes babies. Best of all, She will receive The Holy Spirit of God each Sunday as She preaches and spreads The Word of God to those who would listen.

I am, by no means, not an expert nor do I have some special power, but I have 40 years of going to church under my belt. Growing up, I went to church Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night and every 2 months or so, we would have a week-long “revival” where we would go to church EVERY NIGHT and then spend ALL DAY on Saturday and ALL DAY on Sunday at church. I have heard, in person, easily 50 different pastors preach full sermons, and it’s probably more than fifty! I have sat in church and not a peep was heard and I felt nothing. I have sat in church and “Amen” and/or “Praise God” and/or hands were in the air, or the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up and I’ve felt electricity run down my spine, and I’ve also been in sermons where I’ve felt The Spirit so strong that I almost jumped up out of my pew because I was so electrified and crying from feeling The Holy Spirit!


Time for church…

Hurst Chapel

Ding! Ding! Time for church…again!

So you can place me in the category of someone who actually “feels” The Holy Spirit. To me, when I feel The Holy Spirit, it feels like electricity running up my spine and all the hair LITERALLY stands up on my arms and the back of my neck. The stronger I feel The Spirit, the more electrified I feel, the more the hairs stand up and then I start to cry uncontrollably, but they are happy tears and throughout this ENTIRE process, my heart is just filled with overwhelming love, just like the love I feel for Sheri, well almost; it’s very, very similar to the love I feel for Sheri.


The Holy Spirit Fills Me…

The Holy Spirit

AAAHHH! I’m being electricuted!!! Turn off the power!!!

Given that I feel The Holy Spirit, when I sit in church and I hear a Preacher giving the sermon, I either feel The Holy Spirit or I do not feel The Holy Spirit. If I feel The Holy Spirit then I call that a good service. If I don’t, then I would call that a boring service. If I feel The Holy Spirit consistently from the SAME Preacher, then that Preacher is touched by God; that Preacher is Holy; that Preacher is following God’s Word; that Preacher is filled with The Holy Spirit; that Preacher is a Saint among mankind. You don’t have to do some kind of great miracle to be a saint in this day and age. If you make a positive difference in your community via The Holy Spirit, by following and obeying The Holy Spirit, by doing God’s Work, by spreading God’s Word faithfully via The Holy Spirit by giving yourself over to God and letting your words be His Words when you Preach, then you are a Saint.

There are fewer and fewer Saint’s among us these days because fewer and fewer people are willing to be selfless. That is what it takes to become a Saint. You feel the drawing, the calling by God to become a preacher. You listen to God’s calling and you adhere to that calling; you obey, fully, selflessly. You devote your life, entirely to the work of God, to fulfilling God’s work, to listening to The Holy Spirit and giving of yourself totally over unto God’s hands to do with as God would have. That is a Saint. And you know how you can tell? You sit in a pew and you listen to them preach on Sunday. That’s how. You listen to their words and if their words offend you, good because they are telling you to stop following the path of man and start following the path of The Word, to start following Jesus.

Jesus' Saints

When She decided to listen to that calling, She made the biggest decision in Her life. Her life would never be the same. She chose the hard path, but the spiritually rewarding path, the right path. However, once She started down that road, She devoted Herself fully, She turned Herself fully over to God. She became a Saint for God. And God blessed Her doubly by sending The Holy Spirit to Her, to guide Her, to lead Her, to show Her the way, and to help Her spread His message, His Word to all those who would listen.

God blessed Her with an overabundance of The Holy Spirit so that She could preach His Word to ALL His people. God does not care that She is a woman. She has a powerful gift of speech. Her faith is strong and unwavering. She has given Herself fully unto God. God would not waste the gifts He blessed Her with only to pigeonhole Her into the role of a babysitter just because She is a woman. God has not blessed Her with the gift of eloquent speech and filled Her with an overabundance of The Holy Spirit, just so She can go and sing, “so the bible tells me so” to small children who still pick their noses and have no actual, tangible concept of God, let alone possess the capacity to grasp the ideas and concepts she is capable of wielding to convey God’s Word. Far too often have I seen Men of the Pulpit take their fellow, equal, often more in touch with God, Saintly Women of the Pulpit, and pigeonhole them into the chauvinistic, “classical female role” of childrearer, instead of giving them the respect they deserve, instead of giving them their rightful place behind the Pulpit! God is smart and not a chauvinistic pig, so why do so many male Preachers question God and outright DEFY Him?
Dear Lord, please help stubborn male pastors to open their eyes to the extraordinary talents women possess.
Amen.


I’m so pissed off at Male Chauvinist Pigs!!!

 

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Tedd Got a New Dew

Tedd Got a New Dew

When I was a young child, my Mom cut my hair. I hated getting my hair cut.

When I was growing up, my Dad always dictated how my hair should be cut. I hated
having to keep my hair cut so freaking short.

Now, there was a short, few years in High School when my parents let me go through
my “angst phase.” I had my orange hair punk phase with the sides shaved and I let
the front grow down to my chin. We were all freaks back then. I had my “skater hair”
phase when I got into skate boarding heavily where me and my buddies pretty much
took shears and hacked up each other’s hair trying to get that modish shaggy bowl
cut, but of course, we kept it covered most of the time with knotted up dew rags.
But you know I was never quite satisfied with any of those dues either because I
was mostly going along with the crowd.

When I graduated High School, I went direction into the Army for Four Years. Well,
I wore everything from the “Standard Shaved Head,” to the 1/8th of an inch “Screaming
Eagle,” to the “Ranger Roll Horseshoe,” to the “Short-Timer’s Pushing-The-Reg’s-Limit
Bushy” haircut. During my post-brainwashing time after Basic Training, Advanced
Individual Training, Cryptography School, and Electronic Warfare Combat Signals
Intelligence Training, I did rather enjoy the Ranger Roll. It looked slick, cool,
hardcore, but as the brainwashing wore off and I returned to a more normal human
thinking person, I began to see it as a rather stupid looking super-short haircut.

After my Four Years of Service, I entered into the Workforce in the South. Well,
the business workforce in the South has no place for freedom of expression in men’s
hair. Nope, in the South, A Man wears his hair “cropped” short and kept neat. So,
again I was relegated to following someone else’s rules as to how to keep my hair
cut, how to style it.

Well, in 2002 Sheri and I moved to the land of Free Love, Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll.
Yep, we moved to Anaheim, about 4 blocks from Disneyland with a beautiful view of
the Disneyland nightly fireworks show! I got a respectable high-level IT job working
for a mid-size half a billion dollar a year company that was growing fast. I walked
in and I was well dressed and had nice short East Coast hair. And there were people
everywhere dressed sloppily and with long messy hair and I was shocked!!! My BOSS
even had a pony tail, but he kept it very tight, very clean and neatly kept, very
professional looking and he always dressed very, very professionally, so the pony
tail could obviously be forgiven and overlooked. However, other than him, all of
the people in power, the Managers, the Directors, the Vice Presidents, and the Presidents,
all kept their hair like mine and they all wore suits, East Coast Style. So yeah,
I “could” grow my hair out and wear it any way that I liked, IF I didn’t care about
making a good impression, IF I had no aspirations, IF I had no drive to move ahead,
because as far as the eye could see, none of “those free love dirty hippies” filled
any of those positions. SO, yet again, I was forced to keep my hair short and neatly
styled.

When Multiple Sclerosis, Unknown Neurological Disorder, Dementia, ADHD, and 4 Disc
Protrusions (10mm, 5mm, 3mm, 3mm) finally beat me, and I had fought hard, very hard,
fought successfully too I might add, for 6 YEARS, and I was forced to retire early
from the job that was the best job that I had ever had in my entire life, I decided
things were going to change. I figured that I was now 38 years old and I had NEVER,
in my ENTIRE LIFE been able to grow my hair the way that I wanted to grow it. Hell!
I don’t even know what my own hair looks like even! I said Fuck It! I’m going to
just grow my hair out like a wild man. I had a vision of John the Baptist and I’ve
clung to that image ever since and not let go.

It’s been growing now for a year and just last week I relented and let Sheri take
me to her fancy Newport Beach Salon Stylist to give me back my blond highlights.
I do have to admit that I have very much missed my blond highlights. And she trimmed
off all my split ends, but other than that, she didn’t cut 1 inch off of my hair.
My original intention was to have it layered and cut a little shorter or something,
but after she got her hands on my hair, she didn’t want to cut it – she just wanted
to trim the split ends, show me a little how to style it, give me some Moroccan
Oil to put in it, for some unknown and as yet understood reason by me, and gave
me some tips and sent me out the door and told me to practice and come back and
see her in a couple months.

Now me, I’m thinking Farrah Faucet meets John the Baptist.

All Sheri see’s is Barry Gibb.

Nice.

I’m not sure where she get’s her idea’s from because I just can’t see the similarities…

Any Resemblance?

 

>ð|~@-@~|ð<

Who Put That Chewed Up Pizza in My Mouth?

So on Tuesday the 17th, 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…

>ð|~@-@~|ð<

Tedd’s Freedom Run

Earlier this year, I was driving to work every day, working 12 hour days, and driving home. I would drive and do the Grocery Shopping. I like doing the grocery shopping. I always do a better job than Sheri. I always do most of the cooking too. I LOVE to cook! I also am TOTALLY ADDICTED to cooking shows on TV too! I can sit and watch Iron Chef all…day…long!!! And don’t even get me started on Cake Boss! Sheri is a Cake Boss Junkie! I think we have seen EVERY Cake Boss episode ever made.

A few months ago, I started noticing that I was having problems paying attention while driving and that I wasn’t quite able to process all the input coming at you while you’re driving. I’ve known that I have dementia for a long time. My Neurologist has known and Sheri has known, but no one ever wants to officially say it or tell it to your face until it’s pretty damn obvious to everyone that shit just ain’t right in your head anymore!

Anyway, I stopped driving for the most part and Sheri did most of the driving. Basically the only driving I did was short driving down to CVS and Albertsons (our grocery store), which are less than 1 mile away, and to the Bank and Home Depot, all within 5 miles. So all the driving I did was to places I always drove to; I always took the same routes and always went in the “slow traffic” part during the day.

Well, I started getting scared driving because I couldn’t pay attention to all the traffic around me, traffic lights, slowing down, taking off, dozing off while driving, daydreaming while driving, not being able to keep my car in my lane, and most of all, I kept having these episodes where all of a sudden I would have this realization, HOLY SHIT! I’M IN A CAR AND I’M DRIVING!!! WHERE AM I AND WHERE AM I GOING??? It was like I had woken up from a dream and when I woke up, instead of waking up in my bed, I woke up behind the wheel of a car speeding down the freeway at 80mph drifting over into another lane!!!

After the last scary episode, I swallowed a huge gulp of pride and decided that the risk of running over and killing a family full of little kids because I was too damn stubborn to stop driving just wasn’t worth it. So, I don’t have a car anymore and I’m a “shut-in” now.

I’ve been trying to keep myself busy, but I’m in a great deal of pain most of the time and am disabled so my options for going out and walking are limited. I can get out and walk a little in our complex, but there’s something rather depressing about walking around in a parking lot by yourself, afraid to walk too far from your house in case you start to have a seizure and need to get back home quickly, or in case you have a sudden wave of fatigue and almost collapse to the ground and can barely walk and need to be very close to your home otherwise you’ll just be stranded where you are until you gather your strength or until hours later when your wife gets home and can help carry/drag you back home.

Sheri and I looked into some inexpensive Respite care, but they’ve been unreliable, flakey and/or plain unavailable when we’ve needed them. I’ve joined half a dozen different “support groups” but I don’t quite “fit the profile” for most other people there so they can’t really relate to what I’m going through, or the sites are so flakey and slow to make them practically unusable.

Being a shut-in sucks. All of my friends are my co-workers. All of my co-workers live so far away from where I live to make driving to here impractical and I can’t go see them for lunch anymore now that I can’t drive and given the huge distance, they sure as hell can’t come pick me up for our “reunion lunches” anymore. Being a shut-in sucks bad! Sheri works long hours and doesn’t get home until around 6:30 PM almost every day! And she certainly doesn’t need to be burdened with having to take me out running to CVS and/or Albertsons to let me do my little errands and get my ‘out’ time.

Today, I tested out the “Tedd Freedom Run” to see if it was cost-effective and to see if it was feasible. I called a cab and had them take me down to my local CVS. I had them sit in the parking lot and wait on me while I went inside and browsed the few isles that I needed to in order to find the few items that I’d kept forgetting to order online because I didn’t quite know exactly what I wanted because I had to actually browse and see what was there.

Taxi Round-Trip From Home to CVS and Back: $30

Tedd’s Freedom from being a Shut-In: Priceless!

Today has been a very, VERY GOOD DAY!

Smile

 

>ð|~@-@~|ð<

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