chase the light

After a horrendous year of no sleep, months of doctor exams, a neurologist’s pokes and prods, a general facial paresthesias, blood lab work, ECGs, EMGs, EEGs, having to go to sleep hungry because of fasting before a test in the morning, gadolinium contrast agent shots, a couple of MRIs, including an IAC MRI (internal auditory canal), both times being stuck listening to the live semi-acoustic version of “Hotel California” while the big ‘ol magnet thumped, sputtered and clunked right outside my headphones and head coil… there is fortunately nothing “structural” in my brain. Saying they’re going to look for something “structural” is just the softest way a neurologist can say “it” without having to actually say “it”… I was prepared to be writing something very different. I feel like I aged ten years since last summer and unfortunately I think it shows. But no matter. The really bad news I had prepared for never came.

Here’s the very first photo I shot with my new camera back in September, which at the time was to take my mind off of the crazy seizure like things and the buzzing and shooting sensations my brain was sending out and down my body. I also took four months off of work after Polar Express wrapped so I could start dealing with all this and do a little traveling. Ya know, just in case. Which was probably a mistake anyway because all it did was give me the time to think about it 24 hrs a day. Literally, because I was not sleeping at all. So, hooray for doctors, nurses and imaging technology!

I still remember the first really big desktop scanner I used was about 15 years ago. It was this big honkin’ Agfa Horizon flatbed scanner [LINK]. I stuck my head in it and scanned it a whole bunch of times. For two weeks afterwards my cheeks, eyelids and forehead did nothing but twitch. And a lot! It even says not to do that right on the thing, but come on man, ya gotta! So I’ll make it easy and just blame that scanner for the past years scare. Oh, and caffeine for the heart palpitations. So instead of actually buying Starbucks coffee, I’ve been buying Starbucks stock instead and it’s working out much better for me. No more skipping and stopped beats. When I have coffee, soda, or iced tea I feel like that spider that’s hopped up on caffeine, all freaked out and no plan whatsoever [LINK].