My Wacky Brain: I Swear It Could Give Me An Aneurysm

It's funny. When single, I always thought I would end up with a cute, Jewish girl from NYC who had a split-your-sides sense of humor like Sloane Crosley or Sarah Silverman (I would've included Tina Fey, but she's not Jewish). Turns out, I did waaaaay better: a beautiful, quick-witted, part Cherokee woman from Oklahoma who suffers from seizures and has a mother who narrowly escaped an aneurysm. Lucky indeed!

Take this weekend for instance. Sunday I walked into the kitchen and chuckled, relaying to my wife that I kept having these strong moments of de'ja vu and couldn't get this burnt hair smell out of my nose. It was like someone had set fire to a barber shop and I'd seen it in my future. This inexplicably caused her to spin around in her chair. "What did you say?"

Oddly enough, these are related details, as are the constant headaches, restless sleeping, tingling in my fingers, stiff neck, nausea, extreme fatigue (even my fingers are tired), and that five-hour dizzy spell with the goofy blurred vision I experienced the day before. Who knew? (My wife for one)

Growing up, if you needed medical attention, the mantra was: if you're not bleeding, then you're not dying. (Incidentally, I've heard they're trying to fit that statute somewhere into the universal health care legislation.) This is why it usually takes something fairly definitive to get my family into gracing a waiting room with their presence. According to my wife, this was definitive, and she made an appointment with a neurologist first thing the next morning. I guess the neurologist concurred by the way she kept nodding her head and scribbling in my folder before ordering a battery of tests that are strung out over the next few weeks. (Had my first today--strobe lights can mess with a brother's head.)

I hesitated in sharing all of this with you--one, because as part of our "hardened" childhood, eliciting attention from your aches and pains was frowned upon as being commensurate to instigating a holocaust; and two, there are several doctors and medical professionals who read this blog and who I don't want thinking this is my passive aggressive means by which to solicit there expert advice (to do so puts them in a position of liability and that's just rude on my part). My neurologist is quite on the ball, and I'm confident with her judgement. She's made me aware of what the possible diagnoses we're looking at, which I'm not going to share at this time because I'm not an alarmist.

The thought that finally influenced my decision to pass this along was that I felt I owed it to the people who read this blog and to those whose blogs I read, many of whom I've built good friendships with. What I mean to say is this, I'm taking a break from blogging--oh, I'll still read blogs and leave comments--but when it comes to posting regularly here, it's going to be sporadic at best. The extreme fatigue I mentioned is stronger than anything I've ever felt, like having an invisible force field holding you in place as your eyelids bounce up and down. Trying to blog on top of writing professionally (for pay) has become too much, which is why I've done a poor job keeping up with blogs and returning comments.

The thing about blogging that makes it so different from just writing is that it's about community, and community requires interaction. Right now, my ability to interact is, for the moment, limited. The blogging community has become very real to me, almost as real as calling up people that are physically in my area, and meeting them for lunch; in some cases I interact with blogging buddies more than my own extended family.

So, what am I getting at? I'm just setting an expectation that I won't be around consistently, at least on the blog. I still plan to keep up with Facebook and Twitter. (So if you haven't already "Friended" or "Followed" me on those two, please do so. Still trying to figure out Skype, but I'm on there too.)

Anyway, I've already taken up too much of your time, so I'll finish by saying thanks for understanding, for reading, for commenting and for allowing me to be part of your community. This isn't a farewell--more of a leave of absence if you will. I'll still be around. I'm always around. Thanks.

- Ron