Lying on the table today waiting for the technician to get everything in place for my MRA I was struck by how normal it seemed.

It shouldn’t seem normal to have your brain scanned to make sure that your weakened blood vessels aren’t going explode from the pressure of your blood racing through them.

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I just got sidetracked for at least 30 minutes reading an article on www.migraines.org

about myths and realities surrounding migraines. 

I am fairly certain that if I do wake up in the morning, it will be with brain stuff oozing

out of places it shouldn’t be oozing out of. At the very least I will be twitching or something.

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Back to me.

Head firmly encased in that pretty plastic cage thing pictured in the image above, the technician maneuvered me into the barrel. He told me to keep my head very still. As if I had a freaking choice. The procedure took about 10 minutes which was much shorter than previous MRI scans I’ve had done.

MRA stands for Magnetic Resonance Angiogram. An MRA is a specialized type of MRI that is used to study blood vessels. It is most commonly used to detect, diagnose and aid in the treatment of heart disorders, stroke, and vascular diseases.

This is an image from an angiogram which is not mine that shows an aneurysm. See that out of place looking blob in the center of the image? That is an aneurysm. That looks out of place because it’s not supposed to be there.

This is NOT my brain.

 

Still not my brain.

My concern is stroke. Given my history of migraines and their persistence, frequency and severity; I have grown more and more concerned about the integrity of those little tubes o’ blood in my head.

My mother had a series of strokes with I was 15. This scared the crap out of me, but I think it scared her more. Not so much because of the strokes mind you; more so because that when I was little I apparently told her that she was going to die when I was 15. Precocious little tyke wasn’t I?

It is a valid concern, this aneurysm thing. My sister Chris has some odd tangly brain vein thing that has a very medically srs bznss sounding name which I can never remember. At least I think she does.

Adding to the “hey, there really might be something wrong with my brain” theory is the fact that my memory is shot. I mean shot. I pretty much have zero short term memory and I have to write everything down in order to remember it.

At any rate….

While the MRI machine whirred and clicked around me I wisely spent my time thinking.

I briefly thought about my tax refund in as much as that I wondered where the hell it was. According to the “this is when we do this” IRS time table, it should have been deposited on 2/13. Of course there is a disclaimer on the chart stating that “this date is only an estimate’’ because god forbid someone is actually held accountable for something.

The rest of the time I spent planning exactly what I would do when (when, not if) the technician came back in the room to tell me that they had discovered a very unstable aneurysm and I needed to be taken to surgery immediately.

First I would ask the technician to get the key from the window ledge of the room I was in. The key was to a cabinet that housed my cell phone, wallet and car key.

I would explain that I needed to call my mother-in-law to stay with my Luke and notify my parents of the situation.

I would call her. She would take the news with a calm that belied her fear and then do whatever needed to be done. She would get Luke and gather some clothes for me. Luke would be worried.

He would make sure though, that I had all the things I needed at the hospital. He would stop mid-stride to think of everything I could possibly want and he would gather it for me.

He would tell the cats that I would be ok.

Then I would contact my boss to let him know that I would not be at work for awhile. I would apologize, because at this point in time my physical wellbeing would not be any different than it was 30 minutes before hand. I would “feel” fine, regardless of the fact that any moment a vessel in my head could burst forth with life sustaining blood and kill me dead. That wouldn’t occur to me because I would be thinking of the things that needed to be accomplished in my absence.

I would contact some other people and make some arrangements.

I would let a few friends know.

That’s it. No emotional outbursts. No freak outs or panicky moments. Calm, precision, logic.

I bet you’re thinking that I had one of those epiphany things where people realize that they are going about this whole life thing the wrong way.

I didn’t.

I’m happy with that flow of action, with that proposed reaction to a potentially tragic situation. I’m even happy with my choice of thoughts during the procedure that could very well lead to some not so pleasant news.

I like logic and calm in the face of chaos. That is where I am strongest.

I have had a rough day emotionally. I am struggling with guilt that is not mine to bear yet I bear it anyway. No one placed it on my shoulders; I heaved it there myself.

I feel very adult today.

It is an odd mixture of pride, excitement and longing.

6:00 AM Migraine.

Boy to school.

Then

Then Dr. Slater

 

who gave me a shot of Toradol

and a refill scrip for

 

and a new scrip for

then here

where I felt

until

when I went

briefly chatted with

still felt

so I

 

 

until about

and told Luke to

I went to

to pick up some

 

Now it’s time for

 

Night Night

Things happened today. There was a lot of sleeping.

Then grocery shopping, bunny petting, hermit crab choosing (ending in disappointment), food eating, pie eating, homework “discussing” and other unrelated things.

That said, I am too tired to form coherent sentences so I will write a post tomorrow and backdate it so it looks like I’m on top of shit.

Look at this instead:

 

 

 

 

So you can see here that I have applied my awesome multitasking skills to painter’s tape. Why you ask? Why would you feel the need to cover up the indicator lights on your laptop you perfectly normal and in no way psy-fucking-chotic person you?

The answer my friends lies deep in the genetic code of human beings themselves.

See, when I was young; my mother (whom I love dearly and have the utmost amount of respect for) began to reveal her technological shortcomings. In those days, we had a VCR that conveniently displayed the time.

Of course, if you didn’t set the time properly; it would flash 12:00 over and over and over and over. This drove both my mother and father nuts. Little did I know that it was driving me nuts as well. I was too young and innocent to fully grasp the depth of my inherent psychoses.

This problem was solved not by setting the time (because it would invariable get unplugged and have to be reset anyway), but by covering the flashing numbers with a little piece of cardboard or tape. Despite the rather advanced technical skills of both my father and myself, the cardboard or tape remained for years.

During this time my mother became affectionately known as a “12:00 flasher” or “she who is not one with technology”.

With that background knowledge; it should be easy for you to understand why, when my laptop battery shit the bed and the indicator light began to flash, it needed to go away.

 

Had I not been able to cover up the flashing light I would have driven to my office to get my spare battery. This is how much the flashing light bothers me.

Because I have very sensitive hearing, I have the same level of fuckedupedness when it comes to certain noises including fans (or any other source of that oh so awesome white noise). I cannot stand the sound of metal on metal; rattling anything, squeaking chairs/doors/floors, ticking, electronic whines, rustling fabric, or extremely loud sounds. I do not however; have any aversion to run on sentences.

 

Look at pictures of my cat!

Odin enjoys the new bathroom a great deal because this is another place in the house where he can get to almost eye level and scream incessantly while I am trying to do the things that one does in the bathroom. He is also much closer to the spot he has deemed as his (my right shoulder) because god forbid the cat the can jump 6 feet in the air from a standstill actually exert any effort to achieve his goal.

For the record, these pictures were taken while fully clothed and not performing any of the things that one typically does in a bathroom. I had come back into the bathroom to tell that towel ring there not to fuck with me.  (I will explain in a minute)

Odin’s coloring compliments the bathroom very well don’t you think?

 

Finally in his preferred resting spot, Odin did take a moment to mug for the camera. Eli, not to be outdone, hopped up on the sink as well. He does not do this in order to facilitate physical contact because that is akin to torture in his odd little kitteh brain.

No, Eli deliberately goes where ever it is that he wants to go. It is not for attention or to convey his need for food. He does it to scrutinize every square inch of every single surface that he encounters, regardless of how many times he has been in the EXACT SAME FREAKING PLACE. (I learned from Dane Cook that yelling makes things funny.)

   

Later, we all had a nice cuddle on the couch. This is Eli’s version of cuddling.

 

I think that both Odin and Eli miss Hercules a great deal. Odin had been exceptionally cuddly for a few weeks prior to Herc’s passing and continues to be so. He’s always been an affectionate cat, but has increased his need for comfort tenfold.

Not that I mind one single iota mind you. It is a great comfort to me as well.

    

 

I love that he meows plaintively as he walks toward me when he wants to cuddle. If I am not in a position for him to lie down on me, he will simply pop up on the nearest counter and meow. Much like a baby’s cries, his meows are quite distinctive and it is fairly easy to tell if he wants turkey or cuddles.

He is such a vocal cat, which at times is a humongous pain in the ass, but most of the time I am in awe of his ability to communicate his thoughts/needs through vocalizations.

Perhaps it was Luke’s cries and the process by which I learned what each one meant that enables me to understand what Odin is saying by the differences in tone, pitch and other attributes of his meows.

 

 

 

Eli is very vocal as well and over the past year or so has developed an impressive array of tonalities. He tends to be very loud, regardless of what he is communicating. His meows tend to be very low, almost a yowl but not as urgent or heated. The depth of his tone is so incredibly low most times that I swear I can feel the floor rumbling beneath him.

I do love these kitties. I love them with the same ferocity that I love my son and there is very little that I would not do for them. Our lives have been jolted by the loss of Hercules but we cannot honor his memory by sitting in misery. For him we press on, remembering he good times.

I suppose that I should turn in now. It is almost 3:30 in the morning and I am sleepy. I think that I will give Doug a call and see how the other kittehs in my life are doing tonight

Aren’t they swell

Mutegi (Mo, Mo Knows, MoMo)

Gamba (Gam, Gummy Bear, Gamba Goons)

 

 

In my review of my post after publishing (I always do this because I am never 100% satisfied with it once it’s published) I realized that I forgot to explain the whole “telling the towel ring to fuck off” thing.

The people who lived in this house before me chose (I believe because they were fucking morons) not to use the proper wall anchors for drywall so that every item on the bathroom wall not screwed into a stud flopped around like Hugh Hefner’s penis before his daily Viagra.

For some reason (likely related to the reasoning stated for the previous owners), this was the one things that I did not replace the wall anchors for when I re-hung the accessories. Today was the day that I could no longer stand the wobbly towel ring when I dried my hands on the towel.

I replaced the wall anchors and screwed that towel holder in nice and snug and then arrogantly told the towel holder not to fuck with me. 

Shut up, I am already on medication.