Existential Ennui - The Quiz

When someone says to you, "Ya know? All illness comes from inside, like the mind, ya know," and you are still looking and feeling like Death, your first instinct is to ask someone to shoot the hippie and the hippie train she rode in on. "When i get better," i say to myself, "I'll lick her good." Fortunately none of the hippies I know carry weapons, so she was safe. And perhaps, not wrong.

1. What was on my mind.... I was "falling in love" with Senor Ego who I knew would break my heart. I knew it. i just did. He had shown all the signs and symptoms. Still, he loved me too. So, I wasn't delusional. I just had no business getting involved with this guy, thinking I could control the situation. I knew the situation. I forsaw "falling in love" as a falling away or an entrapment. That's what my mind set up and that is what happened. I got trapped alright. Literally.

2. I already had an "auto-immunity." I take a little pink pill (and BTW, my parents never received their settlement from Synthroid. Class action, my ass.) [[Pay Pal address here.]] The little little pink 200mcg levothyroxin has been on my tongue since I was twelve. (Hint: Hashimoto's Thyroiditis.) I confess to going "over-board" and not taking my auto-immunity pill, my kill pill. I was on a "fast" six months before the illness began. Long enough for my body to become mal-adjusted.

3. Childhood knock-out blows. Two, serious. One neurological "dissociative" experience. The two grand mal seizures, the "highlights" of the sudden on-set, I interpret as "side-effects" magnetized. My consistent, since the age of about 16, "partial temporal lobes seizures" have "normalized." Almost.

4. Immediately before my body broke down, I was electrocuted (shocked) at a bar/restaurant (It's still there) on St. Mark's Place.

5. I was immunized for Tetanus only weeks before the symptoms began.

Now you guess what the first symptom was? You can cheat and glance at my wiki. Think about it. Pain. What is the first symptom of pain? The geniuses have the answer! Try to think of how to say it.



Extras points for naming the doctor pictured. His name is above!

The Pitch

I want my story to be published. So, here's my pitch.

I was diagnosed with a super-rare autoimmune disorder in 2001, the same year that the War to Start All Wars began.

With delirium, dissociation from a "secondary" illness, and a penchant for being impolite, I wrote as I remember. I would like to include imaginative wanderings (a playlet) on how my "ass" began to take over my body (and in a fight of paranoid fancy, the universe.) I called it "Ass Disease" or the "Please, Do Not Touch Me" disease when it first started as "The Itchies." Itching is a form of pain. I repeat. Itching is a form of pain. It is the simplest form and most misunderstood. I was misdiagnosed dozens of times. I was given the eyebrow. I was told by doctors to "Look it up on the internet." I was given the words of Dr. Kokayi, "I consider myself good at diagnosis, but...." when he sent me to New York Methodist Hospital. It was here that I was tortured for three days by refusing pain treatment. The treatment I take is valium. I must take up to 40mg per day. Valium was discovered by Dr. Leo Stenbeck. It saved my life. Valium is a Schdule A drug. I am not a political pundit. I am writing a memoir. I am a very fiesty person. Maybe I should call it, "Let the Drug War Begin."

Mozass Takes Over The Universe the play

Valium and the DEA Shakedown

I got to the neurology clinic and some cute boy-doctor who's name I can't recall says hello and we chat about the ultra-hot, smart, and on the spot, Dr. Jennifer Frontera, who was my primary neurologist for a while, when they didn't know where to put the Stiff WoMan. She had to script me valium every month while she was still a resident. Now she is full time staff in neurology critical care. I joked with the doctor-boy about how I wouldn't want to see her there! Ha ha! (He laughed. Funny. It really is not funny. I could have a seizure again. Stroke is up there. Ah well. I love to make people laugh.)

I need to get the script from the tenured, know-it-all, full-time staff guy at the Movement Disorder Clinic, Dr. Ford. Calls between he and the new resident have been made. The new resident doesn't want to script the valium.

Today. No problemo. Dr. Ford wasn't even there and I was handed a script with his name on it! The "ladies" at the Movement Disorder Clinic are so civilized. They handed me a script and a patient (with patients) smile, all nicely prepared. Thank you ladies. By contrast, the people at the General Neurology Clinic treat it's patients like the undeserving Medicaid recipients that we are.

Dr. Ford gave me the sigh and the sputter about "It's addictive" last month. I recall that I mentioned to Dr. Ford that he should understand that I am the one who is inconvenienced by having to get a script once a month for a chronic drug treatment that I take. I can not call in for refills, like I do with levothyroid. (More on other Hashimoto's Thyroiditis later.)

Please understand that doctors are under constant DEA shakedown. Some are shocked when I ask for a valium script. Some will look terrified. Some have sweated profusely while trying to figure out the letters and numbers that you have to put on a little piece of paper that the G-Man is gonna read.