Cause and Effect?

Having an AVM makes you question, question, question. There are no satisfying answers, no solutions. Why did this happen? Is it because I kicked that kid in the balls in third grade at the roller skating party with my skates still on? Is it because I spent too much time laughing at other people's misfortunes? Or because I don't have enough faith in god?

Something goes wrong and you think, okay, well I did a lot of horrible things in life that were wrong, and this is my punishment, but surely, I must be all paid up on karmic debt by now. And then something else goes wrong. You scramble for all the variables, the x's and y's. You arrange and rearrange them like an algebraic equation. The harder you try for the solution, the more disjointed your logic becomes. You become a caveman, never certain, unsure in a threatening and unpredictable world.

"It rains because I am angry!"

Today I was visiting a friend in the hospital. She also has an arteriovenous malformation. After visiting hours were over, her mother and I were walking through the hospital corridors when I whapped my elbow on a door frame. At that exact moment a very loud, low humming sound reverberated through the hospital. It sounded like an enormous tuning fork. I immediately started shaking my arm, waving it wildly up and down. My friend's mom turned around, and asked if my arm was okay, and without pausing to think I blurted, "Is that sound coming out of my arm?!" She looked puzzled and said, "no, that's the intercom, there's no sound coming out of your arm." I looked at her and told her I was just having a little trouble with cause and effect. She burst out laughing, and soon we were both in a hysterical fit, doubled over. She knew exactly what I meant.