Objectivity Overruns My Egocentric Subjectivity

At least no storms today.

Has anyone been hearing the ads for drilling for oil on family farms on NPR? Those are ads really for them to come along & FRACK your land, which very likely could entirely destroy your & your neighbors' ground water as well as contaminating local waterways. But the ad puts it like you'll be saving your farm & like the oil companies are your friend.

Yeah, just look at the gas prices. 30 cents more than last year & 10 cents more than last week. With friends like that -- as the cliché goes.

Does this also make NPR complicit, not our friend, due to their involvement in schemes to defraud & exploit listeners for the sake of needed corporate sponsorship?

To such ethical questions, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I became convinced that non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good."

So much is bad in the news. It's so hard to keep going. Then I take a walk with LeNoira June (my dog) in the woods or on the country road, witness the tadpoles in the overflowing ditches, watch the light & shadow play in the clouds, visit with the neighbor horse & cows, & just enjoy whatever happens - be it redhead woodpeckers flying past or new flowers on the roadside that last a mere afternoon. Then I know why I am here: to be alive & aware of it. Objectivity overruns my egocentric subjectivity.

Aware, I have become an atheist. I don't believe anymore in a hereafter. No progression of mind or will. I believe when this is over, it's over & the mind/self evaporates into oblivion. But this isn't bleak. The miracle is how hard it was to achieve this being alive, this being a species that can be aware. The real gift is this existence. Short-lived, yes, but this IS a blessing.

ENJOY IT for as long as it lasts!

(art 2013 by Clay Bennett)

July 19: Another Seizure

Had a seizure last night.

A tremor (brief slice/flash of a seizure) first got me while out on a dusky walk then when back inside, at the kitchen table which acts as my desk, I was writing in my journal when the radio show talked about Arrested Development & I remembered a similar broadcast a while back when I DID have a temporal lobe seizure, then one came. I almost fell over. Lost my glasses.

Fortunately, I had the wonderful euphoria afterwards. I hardly ever get that anymore, usually stuck with nothing except nausea & confusion.

Deja vu plays majorly in many of my seizures - a memory of something either that has happened or I had a premonition & the moment arrives.

(Art © 2012 by j. m. Scoville)

Standing at the Edge of Inadequacy…

I stand at the edge of a major abyss. It's very much like a femme siren, calling me to leap into its empty space & pretend I can fly until I crash way below at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Don’t worry, I won’t leap.

Thank-you my Chronic Migraines, dastardly seizures, disorganizing anatomical chaos, for such exhaustion (sarcasm drips from my weary lips). Why do you have to visit every day? Peppered throughout with various obstacles to my functioning correctly, I struggle to get the minimum done when trying for the most in any wakefulness…

I have few people (P. & S. mostly) who I can discuss this bleaker side of me, this purging moi. Maybe a blog entry can handle it, can refuse to be infected while also feeding me some of good spirit of venting without contaminating others. I have begun to be darker on my blog. I need this. Need to know that the shadows aren't to be feared. That I can't until I can. When I can, I DO, which is almost my mantra nowadays.

My therapist can also see how I’m doing if I write more on this blog, which will help me.

Having left this deep woods, isolated property twice already this week, which was the first time 16 days, I went needing agave sweetener from the country store for me & chicken tenders to cook up for my little dog. She's ill too – some bacteria. Not too much but enough to call for 10 days on antibiotics. Poor baby. So the 2nd departure, which was Monday, was to take her to the Vet's. Then yesterday they sent an assistant out to deliver the antiB capsules. That was a sweet gesture. I couldn't have driven then. Not again after the Vet’s florescent overhead lights brought out another migraine type.

My sleep patterns are a mess. I’ve gotten to bed at almost noon the whole of this week. It makes me exhausted when I go to bed so late & have to be up before dusk to take my dog for her walk & to give her dinner. Often I incorporate naps to balance out the lack of enough sleep. Mostly that cycle leaves me sluggish & dull.

I sit before this screen as a smelly heap of flesh. I resemble a transient person, a literal dirty old man, getting his late night supper from local trashcans along with the raccoons. What I'm saying is: I haven't showered in nearly a month. It's layered in the reasons why: 1. my illness makes me unbalanced; 2. my water pressure is unreliable; & 3. I am too paranoid at night to shower after dark. When I get up at almost dusk, or have chores before dark, I can't partake then after. Part of that reason is related to #1, where I'm off balanced for a time each day after waking. So, I guess I am stuck in a loop, a Catch-22 so to speak.

BUT before anyone calls the loony-hatch wagon on me, I do use cloth hand towels & wash often during this month of strife. I don't shower, but keep clean enough. It's mostly my hair that flakes & gets the neglect. When out, I fool pedestrians into thinking I smell & look like them, like a Normal Norman. HA! I've got 'em fooled.

I tap this as John Lee Hook sings & strums Blues from the other room, beamed from New Or'lins on WWOZ. Dawn is widening its light upon us. I just hope today isn’t as hard. That would be a wonderful treat.

(Art © 2012 j. m. Scoville)

Psycho-Motorist Ruin

Lowdate (instead of Update): this wakefulness has been brutally hard on me. My face, eyes, being, feels like I've fallen from a couple stories up, landing face down on concrete & brick. Besides, what is this gravel that has replaced my gray matter?

And my sleep is all messed up again, so that is only adding kindling to the proverbial fire of psycho-motorist ruin.

I'm not holding my breath on any miracles happening to revive this wreckage. Expecting more of the same with the same kind of weather predicted throughout this week. Severe barometric rips/shifts are tough on Migraineurs.

I wanna join a different krewe (club).

(Migraine Art via New York Times - Courtesy of the British Migraine Assoc.)

A Sad Howl into the Bleak Night

One tries to rely on others when chronically ill, but no one can hold it together enough to fully help. And often is the case, which it is for me, people begin to step back & walk away. Not just because we are demanding, but because most people DO want to help. When their efforts don't correct the problem & make us right, they can't handle a prolonged commitment. Our society teaches us to be goal orientated, so we're supposed to get better no matter what the situation. This leaves us, who are helpless or needing of help, alone to deal with the immensity of our conditions alone. I image that is better than them holding on to become grouchy or even mean, turning that frustration on us.

This image by Teresa Burritt illustrates my perspective aptly.

(Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt 03.06.19)

More Seizures

My Weekend Update: Another BAD daze into night. Exhaustion beyond description & narrowing of sight to the strained right eye remaking me into a Cyclops.

Then when I tried to catch up sleep & subdue exhaustion, I had another pair of temporal lobe seizures while horizontal. Both pounced when awake while resting. The last happened just before midnight & was far worse than the brief first short circuiting.

Maybe they were a fluke.

I sure hope so.

Cyclops-d Again

More, continued physiological drama as my eyes fuse into a single tunnel of vision due to another kind of Migraine. My left eye is pained & mostly obscured as the right struggles to focus. It's not doing such a good job either. In other words, my sight is lousy & causing me to feel exhausted. Ugh.

Call me Cyclops. Consider me Doomed. Being a Migraineur is such fun.

(Art © 2011 by j. m. Scoville)

Real Bad Barometrics...

One forgets after suffering a week of scattered temporal lobe seizures & now a week of immense overheating & considerable aura migraine manifestations obstructing one's sight, recreating all into a Floating World of fog & disembodied images, that good old fashioned bad weather can really lay low a Psycho-Motorist (original term for Migraineur).

Well, this afternoon, the heavens DID open up their dams unleashing an incredible amount of water in very short time, flooding everything. Of course, the temperature was changing, so lightning flashed on the periphery, rumbling low into my soul with their pronounced thunder. This sat on me hard, making getting up impossible as I laid or slept in painful pressure & tormented barometric dreams that generally infuse the exterior elements into some "being chased" dreamscape.

Now I'm upright, while remaining very dazed. One could use the example of an abrupt hit to the head, getting my bell rung so to speak, leaving me in a stunned state.

How to resolve it? I guess, MORE caffeine... & time spent awake.

(Art © 2012 by j. m. Scoville)

This is My Life: Full of Disorder

Still stable, no seizures.

ONLY more aura migraine clouds that made it difficult to see the neighbor's cows & horse when I was staring right at them on my dusk walk with my little dog. It obscured the view as does fog, making everything disembodied & very surreal.

At least I know it IS a symptom of a migraine aura along with the thin roots of floaters. Otherwise, it could be quite scary.

This is my life: full of disorder.

(Photo © 2011 by j. m. Scoville)

A Collision of Images

Update: Still NO temporal lobe seizure & we're almost at 4 days. Not even a hint, which is beyond "swell" (such a funny word from childhood).

BUT am starting to really be affected by visual distortions, aura migraine influenced. On my dusky walk with my little LeNoira June, I noticed outlines of tree lines staying in my eyes when turning my head causing a collision of images. It manifests such a crazy, convoluted scene. Of course, it plays with one's equilibrium & forces me to concentrate on balance.

Then something brand new struck me: the far sky at the end of the country road became distorted by a magnificent starburst shape reminding me of a sea star in the Pacific. It's colors match the sky & clouds, while obscuring those for several seconds. In time I could once more see the usual shadow & light upon the clouds returned.

I walked immediately back home to the comforting air-conditioning & drank a glass full of Emergen-C.

Better now.

(Photo © 2011 by j. m. Scoville)

Huanchu Daoren

burnt shallow, exhausted - after seizures

All clear today (Saturday). So far no more malfunctioning.

None since 9:25 pm last night, ending another day's run with 8 wide awake temporal lobe seizures. 3 days this week were full of them, dominating all existence...

I am burnt shallow, exhausted. It really has dragged my mind over the proverbial coals.

Now to settling down & regaining some of my reasoning.

So Far - 8 More Seizures Pounce...

Thus far, fellow pursuers, I've had 8 Temporal Lobe Seizures since Noontime with MUCH overheating. 8 more since the 9 that meanly submerging me on Tuesday. Almost half of today's outbursts are when I'm upright, not sleeping, not splitting my sleep into a cruel wakeful vision of dis-clarity & sensation. Some on my little net book computer, another when outside taking my little dawg for a dusky stroll.

They find me wherever I am. Even breaking on the toilet.

Ugh...

(Art © 2013 by j. m. Scoville)

9 Temoporal Lobe Seizures Yet This Day...

At least 9 Temporal Lobe Seizures today have pounced - maybe another 2, but I was made unconscious during those hours. Often they come when I'm horizontal, sleeping & waking me up inside their chaos, overwhelming me, making it impossible to get up & change positions, but that doesn't always work.

Am still overheating since my last attack about 3 hours ago. Overheating, dizzy, exhausted, very spacey. My fingers feel like they're dried out to a point of being excessively painful. The last 4 were the worst - extending to several minutes (lifetimes).

Something new: a terrible taste in my mouth. Some things I'm trying to rid with the overbearing flavors of peanut butter & Coke, but they aren't yet working.

My List of Attacks reads:
1. 2:40 am
2. 3:15 am
3. 4:13 am
4. 6 am
**here I might have had 2 but can't recall**
5. 9:18 am
6. 10:19 am
7. 2:07 pm
8. not sure of time (couldn't move to write it down)
9. 5:30 pm

What a bloody day...

Art © 2013 by j. m. Scoville