sneaky bastard! Okay just a thought or two..

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hey, it is nearly the half way point through my monday.. and so fall things are going pretty well.. I am still tired as hell.. and feel like I could sleep a month..

I have a small admission here.. I have brain damage.. yep.. I do.. I had a vascular defect called adn AVM in my left pre-frontal cortex, I am better now, as I had successful gamma knife surgery.. but it did leave me with a rather unique typing style.. it also left me with chronic fatigue..

I have a hard time telling fatigue from depression.. they feel a lot alike. Difference is, with depression I don;t get a 8.6 richer scale headach if I don;t sleep.. with the fatigue from the brain injury I do.
Dr's say that I am having migrains.. that is what I though I was having when the vessel broke.. so headaches with any severity freak me out.. it made my mom feel bad telling me.. headche.. it aint; gonna kill you.. not get to school..
of course that was YEARS before the actual AVM but nobody says to me "It's all in your head" anymore.. :)

I have often though about making an AVM survivors website, but I feel a little guilty about surviving, many people with AVMs don;t.. my neurologist said the 80% of AVMs are diagnosed in autopsy.. so how do you start a website that says.. "Hey look at me I survived" when there is a good change the people that coem to your site, will have lost somone with the same defect?

I guess I will just blog about it as i see the need to..

AVM (excuse spellign here) is an Atrio-veonal-malformation wher an artery adn vein come together there are supposed to be capilaries, these capilaries besides acting as the exchange points for nutriants. oxygen also step pressure down. Arteries are very muscular in their make up and handle pressure well, veins are not as muscular and do not handle high pressure well.. so the capilaries are important.. in an AVM the capilaries aren;t there.. so you get an artery dumping directly into a vein.. this causes the vein to expand.. and can lead to a buldging or bubble in the weaker material.. this bubble can rupture and leak.. fast or slow.. mine leaked slowly I believe..
I had a hell of a headche, adn wanted to go slpeep it off thinking it was a migraine.. I went to my Dr. asking for a shot.. and to be sent to bed.. he instead sent me to the hospital for a headache workup.. I was given a CAT scan, and about 30 minutes later a nurse or dr came in and said " you have a bleed in yor head" .. having some medical education / experience, I knew that this was BAD>.

I stabilized within 12 hours.. I wanted to see what my options were, as the one that was being presented with the most viggor was cutting my skull open and taking a look-see.. I wanted to know if there were any alternatives.. I was lucky and there were..

One was occlusion, where they run a catheter up into the brain, and inject some "gunk" that plugs the artery.. thus taking pressure off of the vein and the bubble.. (rememebr I had stopped bleeding)

The other was Radio surgery.. or gamma knife for this I went to Miami.. my insurance company threw fits.. and I waked away with a golf ball sized chunk of bain that now looks like a sponge, and a $22,000 bill.. but other than the headaches and a little bit of a droop in my left uper eyelid (that only I notice for the most part) I am healthy and well.

I guess my whole point here is that life is not that bad.. for me, or if you can read this, for you.
Remember life can be going along swimminly, then one day you wake up with a funny headache adn some visual disturbances.. and it is never the same again. Mae the mst of today, go tell somone that you love them, go do somthing kind for a stranger, smile at the next person you see.. even if they are dirty and homeless, hold a door open for somone at a sore, give a dollar or a smoke to a begger, remember today life is good, adn so is every day, that you are not dead.
This is whay Nitzche meant.. when he said "That which does not kill us only serves to make us stronger".
Peace pass it on.. (spelling left in shambles for effect :)