Well, here it is. My first whinge in the pit. It’s only here because I feel like cursing, not because I have a well-crafted rant for all of you to be in awe of.
So here goes.
My weekend started out pretty good. I dropped my car in for servicing and decided to walk into town (a 10 minute walk) to have breakfast. So I wandered in to the Coffee Club and ordered a big breakfast. Mmmmmm scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, grilled tomato, buttery toast, orange juice and iced coffee. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm. So far so good 
I wandered into Myers to have a look at cordless phones. They had an interesting Panasonic model there, which I was quite interested in but they were out of stock. Bummer! No big deal, thinks I, I wanted to have a look at CDs too… so I headed off to a music store in the Brisbane city mall.
I know you’re all waiting for the rant. Be patient, fellow dopers. So I went into the CD store. I picked up Robbie William’s latest offering, intended to be a gift for my best friend. I also had a look at one of Nirvana’s CDs.
About 10 minutes later, I woke up, with ambulance officers looking at me. Huh? What happened? I don’t remember much about that, except that they wheeled me to the ambulance and stuck me in the back.
“What’s your name? Do you know where you are? How did you get here?”
Hmm. Let me think about that. I know the answer to the first two questions. I am Maxxxie and I am in the back of an ambulance. Ever the smart-arse. 
“Did you drive here?” Umm. I guess I must’ve.
“Where’s your car?” Umm. I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
As they put the oxygen mask on my face and pricked my thumb to do a blood sugar test, reality started coming back to me. I’m mildly epileptic. I have frequent petit mal seizures - funny blinking and occasional twitching. It’s not a problem and I haven’t had medication for it in close to 14 years.
I guess I should say I HAD mild epilepsy. Apparently this wasn’t too mild. Witnesses say I fell backwards onto a CD display stand, then started flailing. More on this in a minute.
They drove me to the Royal Brisbane Hospital where the staff attended to me straight away, checking me for broken bones, injuries etc. I puked up my fantastic breakfast (whinge number one - why in the fuck couldn’t I just have had toast or something for breakfast? Dammit, I paid $15 for that wonderful brekky!), then basically dozed until the nurse came to stick a needle in me.
I have an issue with needles. I don’t like 'em! She told me if I had a seizure again the only way they’d be able to hit me up with valium was if she stuck the needle in me, ready, just in case. Fine. I lay there and cringed while she stuck it in me… I suppose I should be grateful I was half out of it anyway - I barely remember this part of it.
Just as I remembered what I’d done with the car, Ford rang to tell me it was ready to go. The doctor answered my mobile phone and told them what had happened and put them onto me. They told me they’d hold onto the car for me over the weekend. Aren’t they nice?
I told them to call my friend D, who is one of my best mates (one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, my friend D - she came to the hospital, helped me to the loo, helped me back in bed, took me back to her place, looked after me, took me home, stayed over to make sure I slept OK… what a great friend). Then they left me alone. I basically dozed, but this was becoming more and more difficult as the pain set in.
If ever you want a great workout, my recommendation is to have a seizure. Every muscle in your body gets a good going over! But if that’s not enough for you, be sure to repeatedly hit yourself on something hard. That’s what I did and that’s one of the things this whinge is about. Let’s do a count on the injuries, shall we?
I hit the right side of my head on something. Swelling from the right side of my forehead, around behind my ear, right down to the base of my neck.
I hit my right cheek. Bruising and grazing.
I hit my right shoulder. Bruising and grazing.
I hit my right shoulderblade. Bruising from my right shoulder diagonally across to my spine.
Massive bruising across my lower back.
Cuts and grazes on my hands and fingers.
Bruising and grazing on my knees where I (presumably) fell forward onto them.
Cuts and grazes on my shins.
There is not one single part of my body that doesn’t hurt. That is what this rant is about! Fuck it all to hell, it’s not bad enough that I had a seizure? Now I have to cringe every time I move, every time I touch something?
Bastard brain from hell! You lasted 14 years without medication, and an 18 year total since original diagnosis… what prompted this shit? I had no idea this thing was coming! Normally if I’m feeling a bit “fitty” I get headaches, or a bit of depression or general tiredness… but this??? This came out of the blue! How dare you totally change yourself!
Now listen up brain, you and I had a deal. I promised I wouldn’t dope you up with shitty medications… and you told me you wouldn’t pull any of these stupid stunts. We had an arrangement. A pact! And you backed out of it without anything so much as a warning. Well thanks. Thanks a lot. Next time you come to me wanting something, I’ll remember what happened Saturday. And trust me, I WILL use it against you.
And here’s the other part of my rant. This affects my livelihood. For those of you who do not know, I run a small IT consultancy. I look after small-to-medium businesses’ IT requirements, networking and the like. An integral part of what I do is getting to and from my clients’ sites, being able to respond to emergencies quickly, often out of hours.
I can’t do that anymore. I can’t drive anymore. At least until I see a neurologist, get treatment and confirm that I’m not going to have fits again.
The public waiting list for a neurologist is a minimum of twelve weeks. TWELVE WEEKS. Well, thinks I, I’m glad I have money enough to see a private person. So I call up Neuro #1. Oh yes, he can see me mid-bloody-JANUARY. WOWEEE!!! Not good enough. So I bite the bullet and call my old Neuro. I didn’t want to see him because he’s patronising, but he can see me next Monday. A mere week away. I should be grateful, I know I should…
… but a part of me is dying inside. I know I’ll be put on medication. If it’s anything like the stuff I was on last time, I can say goodbye to having a real life. I was a zombie. I didn’t live, I merely existed. I don’t want to go back there! I don’t want to be just a shell of my current self.
That’s what this rant is about I guess. My options are gone. I can lose my livelihood or lose my personality. What sort of a fucked up choice is that to have to make?
Max
