Well, this is awkward...

Like running into someone you once dated, who one day, without explanation, just stopped calling. Everything seemed to be going so well, and then--Poof! You see him at the farmers market one Sunday morning, walking hand in hand with someone who is not you, buying flowers for their table, or some stupid arugula for the salad they will later prepare together, and maybe you just want to snatch their Venti lattes and scald the smugness right off of their pretentious little life. Believe me, I understand, but please, before you cause a scene, hear me out and give me a second chance! It's not you, it's me!

Doing the blog was really getting me down. It was a very long year, filled with periods of deep anxiety and depression. The more I thought about or talked about the AVM, the more anxious and depressed I became. Waiting 12 months to have my first post-gamma MRI, with no (medical) encouragement was driving me mad. Every day I feared that the gamma knife was not working, that I was going to have a bleed...I had to stop thinking about it for a while. Like a prisoner, I had to do my own time. A year has passed, and I am eagerly awaiting my appointemnt to ge before the parole board (otherwise known as the MRI tech, radiologist and neurologist.) I am hoping that they will give me life.

Missing in Action

Hello fellow travelers! Sorry for the long absence. Honestly, even AVM bloggers get tired of having AVMs. It's true. I made it through my semester and finished everything. I won't say I did well on my finals, but I finished and did not flunk out, so that is a small victory. All has been quiet on the brain front, which is good news, I am six months post gamma knife now, and still counting the months until that one year MRI. I am also moving. As hard as it is to move away from the Mayo Clinic and the blessed botox neurologist, this place has been killing me. Since everyone seems to think I am really lucky, I am considering buying a Kawasaki Ninja to celebrate. People have told me I am out of my mind to do this, but, hey, I've got a good excuse, right?

Migranes and Hula-Hoops

Last night I had my first real headache since having gamma knife for my arteriovenous malformation. In the past I have had random pains, weird sensations, and passing discomfort, but nothing like this. I called the pharmacy and asked them if I had any refills, they replied, "of what?" They seemed taken aback when I said, "Whatever, anything really." No dice.

My head felt like it was splitting open, but I still drove 20 miles to take a baby bird to a wildlife refuge, and went to two separate stores looking for hula-hoops for one of my kids, wondering all the while if I was going to drop dead in the process. By time I got home (after three temper tantrums--the baby's, not mine), I am bitched out by my older child about the sub-par hula-hoop. She followed me around the house, hula-hooping and moaning, making faces and stomping her feet to demonstrate what a terrible hula-hoop her mother had imposed on her. I was curled up, holding my head in my hands, and I tried my best to think of a way to constructively ask her to stop, but that came out was: "Will you please fuck off?"

I am thinking about writing a book about my AVM experience, but if that doesn't work out, maybe I'll give Lynne Spears a run for her money and write one on parenting instead. I will call it: "Profane Parenting: Nurturing Through Expletives for the Vascularly Challenged"

Who else has used this technique?

Insurance is a Magical Thing!

(Photoshop Dramatization)

Well, it turns out that if your insurance decides to cover Botox for neurological damage, Neurologists suddenly decide that wrinkles are neurological damage! From now on everyone will just have to picture my world weary, sardonic expression in their mind's eye! Wooohoooo!

Is That a Giant Sucking Sound, or is it Just Me?

There are international agreements governing trade, and countries who are parties to the agreements take on certain obligations that prevents them from erecting barriers to free trade. For example, customs rules. A country must agree to publish instructions on what you must do in order to get things through customs. Sounds simple, but there is a reason the rule was needed. In order to protect domestic industries, countries come up with clever and sneaky ways to foil trade. Many only published lists of things that you can't do if you want to get things through customs. An affirmative idea is infinitely more powerful than a negative. Imagine if you asked my how to roast a chicken, and I said, "Don't boil it." Not very helpful, although technically true.

Lately I have been inspired by this concept as it relates to personal healing, both for my brain and my spirit. I don't want my AVM to bleed, I don' want to have gamma knife again, I don't want a craniotomy, I don't want a seizure, a migraine, or an anuerysm.

These are all really general thoughts and fears, diffuse and tress induceing. They don't really address my hopes, my wants or desires. From now on I am trying to channel my thoughts into the affirmative. I want the AVM to be obliterated. I want my brain to heal. I want to relax. If I give my brain clear instructions, I am hoping to remove the barriers to healing. A treaty, if you will, to root out the sneaky processes that undermine progress. And while Ross Perot might disagree with my logic, I'm hoping the benefits will lead to better relations between my body and mind...after all, they're stuck being neighbors, they might as well get along.

Supportive...Like a Jock Strap

I view myself as something of broken person. Maybe other AVM survivors don't feel this way, and I hope no one takes offense when I say, in some respects, we all are. The stress and depression, the anger, the rage, the brain damage...we are a fragile bunch. I have made a lot of friends who are dealing with arteriovenous malformations, either their own, their partner's, their child's...no matter how this enters your life, It leaves you changed. Most people I have met have been amazing. Others have...not been. The question is, are the people who are waaay out of line the ones who need the most help and support? Are the people who are inappropriate positioned to benefit most from community? Maybe. But, not from me. I recognize my own limitations. I can nurture and feel empathy, but only to a limit. Growing up with three sisters, I developed a keen sense for when it was time to throw down my school bag and fight. (Our mother dressed us in hideous, poorly made, cheap clothing--as a result we all became champion bare knuckle boxers in the school yard.) I am quick to stand up for those I care about, often with inappropriate force and swiftness. Its possible that some people act like assholes because they have monster AVMs, catastrophic brain damage, etc. When caustic attitudes are directed at me or my friends, however, the only hand I am able to extend to reach out to them, tends to be a fist.

An "A" for Effort!

What ever happened to the good old days, when your best efforts, no matter how dismal the results, still earned a shiny gold star and a mello-smello sticker from the teacher? I crashed and burned today on my second of four final exams, like Jon Bon Jovi--shot doooooown in a blaze of glorrrr----aayyyy!!! But I feel like I worked way harder than any other person in the class. As far as I'm concerned, I should have rated a standing ovation every time I went to class. Extra credit for resisting the urge to walk out every time I was gripped by a panic attack and couldn't breathe. Instead, all of my efforts will be judged by three typed pages that, instead of addressing the exam questions, criticize the professor's grammar. One of my answers relating to a question about federal regulations went something like this: (and yes, I did use bold)

These sentences are all written in a passive voice!!!!!!!!!!! WHO did WHAT? WHO is the ACTOR??!!! WHAT/WHO are the SUBJECTS of these sentences!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!There is no way to answer any of these questions!

So, maybe I suck at being a student right now. They say those who can't do teach. (Ironically, I have no idea how to punctuate that sentence.) Maybe it's true for the professor and I both.