No tonsils.
No appendix.
No sigmoid colon.
A third of a liver missing.
No gall bladder.
No appendix.
No sigmoid colon.
A third of a liver missing.
No gall bladder.
Constant constipation headache.
Fifties-style pot roast and instant mashed potatoes.
Jello with canned peaches.
Skippy peanut butter with Welch’s grape jelly on Wonder bread for the vegetarian.
Jello with canned peaches.
Skippy peanut butter with Welch’s grape jelly on Wonder bread for the vegetarian.
Angry, busy… over-burdened… unavailable… constantly shape-shifting android robots.
Needles, needles, needles… sometimes they hit
“She's like heroin to me
She's like heroin to me
She's like heroin to me
She cannot miss a vein”
She's like heroin to me
She's like heroin to me
She cannot miss a vein”
The Gun Club
a vein on the first try… mostly not.
Heinous antiseptic aromas, vile cleaning fluid smells.
Glaring toxic “junk lights” at all hours.
A squirming, sweaty bed that kept inflating… and… deflating… making… constant, insidious noises. Frightful, unnatural sounds… beeping, buzzing, whirring… mechanical compression clamor… metallic wheezing.
Glaring toxic “junk lights” at all hours.
A squirming, sweaty bed that kept inflating… and… deflating… making… constant, insidious noises. Frightful, unnatural sounds… beeping, buzzing, whirring… mechanical compression clamor… metallic wheezing.
A poisonous blanket of killer EMF’s.
Fox News… the angry oligarch’s channel… seeping out of the walls… day and night… in a hideous stream of negative, opinionated, destabilizing pions.
Fox News… the angry oligarch’s channel… seeping out of the walls… day and night… in a hideous stream of negative, opinionated, destabilizing pions.
Random drug tests…
“In other words a kind of Euterpean didstick-do… Oil change check the pressure in the foetussack… Fiat lux here in the back of the long black cadillac… 1,000,000-cylinder priest incandescent ferous lust-it… Ferris wheel future-ride fescued from kilt-kinescope… Kinematics Christ and the bulging crotch of chemistry… Wish-list want-gadget pus-bucket or mental-ladle 10-4… And or all of the above and that’s not all folks”…
Board licensed, insurance company certified sleep deprivation torture.
Pale green prison cell.
Big round wall clock with Arabic numerals, 1-12.
A clock which metamorphoses… in conjunction with psychosis-inducing drugs… into a pale green cyclops after midnight.
The infamous, corporate drug pusher’s “scale of 1-10”
Benevolent pain chart… in large, bold, informative, helpful letters… designed to accompany the constantly repeated mantra… “on a scale of 1-10”… “on a scale of 1-10”…
Board licensed, insurance company certified sleep deprivation torture.
Pale green prison cell.
Big round wall clock with Arabic numerals, 1-12.
A clock which metamorphoses… in conjunction with psychosis-inducing drugs… into a pale green cyclops after midnight.
The infamous, corporate drug pusher’s “scale of 1-10”
Benevolent pain chart… in large, bold, informative, helpful letters… designed to accompany the constantly repeated mantra… “on a scale of 1-10”… “on a scale of 1-10”…
Oh. And did I mention?…
Non-stop, food-rejecting nausea.
Full right side of the body muscle weakness and numbing pain.
Throbbing… always and only on the right side… migraine headache
pain with a full range of visual, aural, olfactory… hallucination-inducing synesthesia… triggered twenty-four and seven.
Extreme sensitivity to light, sound, touch and smells.
Vertigo, dizziness.
Total mental breakdown… confusion leading to severe difficulty
locating words and communicating effectively.
Difficulty listening to people speak as their words are
Immediately!!
Suddenly!
Jarringly!! !
Full right side of the body muscle weakness and numbing pain.
Throbbing… always and only on the right side… migraine headache
pain with a full range of visual, aural, olfactory… hallucination-inducing synesthesia… triggered twenty-four and seven.
Extreme sensitivity to light, sound, touch and smells.
Vertigo, dizziness.
Total mental breakdown… confusion leading to severe difficulty
locating words and communicating effectively.
Difficulty listening to people speak as their words are
Immediately!!
Suddenly!
Jarringly!! !
…a nd spon taneously ….. .
Electro-chemically translated into… pain ful, disorienting, whirling
Blurring… bizarre, con flic ting,
complex physical sensations.
Con fused… and confus ing nerv ous cacophony.
complex physical sensations.
Con fused… and confus ing nerv ous cacophony.
Excessive, imbalanced neuron firing.
Fear, constant fear.
Whole bodily frustration presenting as choppy interference patterns.
Bouncing, pivoting waves of anger.
A constantly rising desire, recurring impulse to run!!
To flee, to escape certain peril —
Fear, constant fear.
Whole bodily frustration presenting as choppy interference patterns.
Bouncing, pivoting waves of anger.
A constantly rising desire, recurring impulse to run!!
To flee, to escape certain peril —
ARTICLES ON
MIGRAINE TYPES
What Type of Migraine Do I Have?
With Aura
Without Aura
Aura vs. No Aura
Ocular
Silent
Hemiplegic
Vestibular
Menstrual
Abdominal
Basilar
Status Migrainosus
Transformed
Visual
Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome
With Aura
Without Aura
Aura vs. No Aura
Ocular
Silent
Hemiplegic
Vestibular
Menstrual
Abdominal
Basilar
Status Migrainosus
Transformed
Visual
Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome
Hemiplegic migraine is a rare and serious type of migraine headache. Many of its symptoms mimic those common to stroke; for example, muscle weakness can be so extreme that it causes a temporary paralysis on one side of your body, which doctors call hemiplegia.
Symptoms
Sometimes, before the actual headache pain, you'll get other symptoms that it's coming. These early symptoms, called auras, can include short-term trouble with muscle control and sensation:
Severe, throbbing pain, often on one side of your head
A pins-and-needles feeling, often moving from your hand up your arm
Numbness on one side of your body, which can include your arm, leg, and half of your face
Weakness or paralysis on one side of your body
Loss of balance and coordination
Dizziness or vertigo
Nausea and vomiting
A pins-and-needles feeling, often moving from your hand up your arm
Numbness on one side of your body, which can include your arm, leg, and half of your face
Weakness or paralysis on one side of your body
Loss of balance and coordination
Dizziness or vertigo
Nausea and vomiting
You may also have problems with your senses, communication, and drowsiness:
Seeing zigzag lines, double vision, or blind spots
Extreme sensitivity to light, sound, and smell
Language difficulties, such as mixing words or trouble remembering a word
Slurred speech
Confusion
Loss of consciousness or coma (rare)
Extreme sensitivity to light, sound, and smell
Language difficulties, such as mixing words or trouble remembering a word
Slurred speech
Confusion
Loss of consciousness or coma (rare)
Panic. Did I mention a hyper-alert <<constantly vigilant>> threatened state of fight or flight… verging on almost constant panic? I believe it is an advanced form of anxiety. Every time someone in a hurry entered the room.
What was this highly unusual, constantly aroused state of fear and… panic about?
I knew. I knew with every tingling nerve fiber of my being.
Even with a borrowed scarf constantly covering my eyes. And ear plugs constantly closing my ears. I knew. Just like “the see no evil, hear no evil,
speak no evil monkeys”… I knew everything. I sensed the world around me. With hyper-sensitive awareness. By just how quickly the door latching mechanism clicked open across the room. I knew by just how violently the unknown person entered the hospital room. I knew through highly amplified subtle sound vibrations. Whether the person who entered the hospital room was kind, slow and gentle. Or. If that person was banging their way toward me… unconsciously, insensitively, angrily, in a hurry… with full intent to inflict pain. To harm me. In my hyper-sensitized, helpless state.
It was bizarre. This unknown, utterly inconceivable, hyper-sensitized… extremely painful… disorienting condition. I was ripe for torture and abuse. All anyone had to do was enter the room hastily. And I was put on high alert. In absolute terror. Frantic. Unable to escape.
A blithering idiot. That’s what I appeared. And. For the most part. That’s just how I was treated. I couldn’t put two coherent sentences together without giving up in frustration. The main problem being. That. When anyone spoke to me—
It felt like <<gun shots going off>> <<and reverberating>> in my head!! Or like—
>>>Their words were nails<<<
And the >>hemiplegic migraine master<< was a >>hammer<<
Driving <<their>> <<word-nails>>
<<deeper<<and>>deeper>>
>>>>>into my skull<<<<<
And the >>hemiplegic migraine master<< was a >>hammer<<
Driving <<their>> <<word-nails>>
<<deeper<<and>>deeper>>
>>>>>into my skull<<<<<
I kept repeating… migraine…. migraine… and waving my hopeless surrender banner
They kept saying… on a scale of 1-10… on a scale of 1-10…
No can do. Sorry. See you later, gringo. Can’t help you, pal.
What could they do?
With a lowly, unreligious sultan… With a pagan wave worshipper like me?
Really? All those bewildered Catholic nurses and their Catholic multicultural robotic assistants? In dear old Catholic St. John’s. In Catholic Santa Monica? In the semi-modern era.
If only I had brought my Tibetan prayer beads…
Read the Bible, senor. No one had any answers.
No one had ever heard of a hemiplegic migraine. No one had read that obscure study. No one could follow me into my own private hell.
I was so far gone underground. So deeply buried in personal misery. So mired in the chthonic mysteries. I felt like a—
…. nocturnal, cultic, ritualized…
>>sacrificial animal<<
upon a dire slab
in a megaron
attended by blood-maddened maenads.
upon a dire slab
in a megaron
attended by blood-maddened maenads.
Communication with those sinister PKD robots was hopeless. I might as well have been trying to convince a pack of hungry teenage werewolves that I wasn’t mall-worthy food… on the feast day of
Did you know?
Saint Monica
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also known as Monica of Hippo, was an early Christian saint and the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo. She is remembered and honored in most Christian denominations, albeit on different feast days, for her outstanding Christian virtues, particularly the suffering caused by her husband's adultery, and her prayerful life dedicated to the reformation of her son, who wrote extensively of her pious acts and life with her in his Confessions. Popular Christian legends recall Saint Monica weeping every night for her son Augustine.
Because of her name and place of birth, Monica is assumed to have been born in Thagaste (present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria).[3] She is believed to have been a Berber on the basis of her name.[4] She was married early in life to Patricius, a Roman pagan, who held an official position in Tagaste. Patricius had a violent temper and appears to have been of dissolute habits; apparently his mother was the same way. Monica's alms, deeds and prayer habits annoyed Patricius, but it is said that he always held her in respect.[5]
Monica had three children who survived infancy: sons Augustine and Navigius and daughter Perpetua. Unable to secure baptism for them, she grieved heavily when Augustine fell ill. In her distress she asked Patricius to allow Augustine to be baptized; he agreed, then withdrew this consent when the boy recovered.
But Monica's joy and relief at Augustine's recovery turned to anxiety as he misspent his renewed life being wayward and, as he himself tells us, lazy. He was finally sent to school at Madauros. He was 17 and studying rhetoric in Carthage when Patricius died.[5]
Augustine had become a Manichaean at Carthage; when upon his return home he shared his views regarding Manichaeism, Monica drove him away from her table. However, she is said to have experienced a vision that convinced her to reconcile with him.[5]
At this time she visited a certain (unnamed) holy bishop who consoled her with the now famous words, "the child of those tears shall never perish." Monica followed her wayward son to Rome, where he had gone secretly; when she arrived he had already gone to Milan, but she followed him. Here she found Ambrose and through him she ultimately had the joy of seeing Augustine convert to Christianity after 17 years of resistance.
In his book Confessions, Augustine wrote of a peculiar practice of his mother in which she "brought to certain oratories, erected in the memory of the saints, offerings of porridge, bread, water and wine."[6] When she moved to Milan, the bishop Ambrose forbade her to use the offering of wine, since "it might be an occasion of gluttony for those who were already given to drink". So, Augustine wrote of her:
In place of a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to bring to the oratories of the martyrs a heart full of purer petitions, and to give all that she could to the poor--so that the communion of the Lord's body might be rightly celebrated in those places where, after the example of his passion, the martyrs had been sacrificed and crowned.
— Confessions 6.2.2
— Confessions 6.2.2
Mother and son spent 6 months of true peace at Rus Cassiciacum (present-day Cassago Brianza) after which Augustine was baptized in the church of St. John the Baptist at Milan. Africa claimed them, however, and they set out on their journey, stopping at Civitavecchia and at Ostia. Here death overtook Monica, and Augustine's grief inspired the finest pages of his Confessions.
Saint Monica was buried at Ostia, and at first seems to have been almost forgotten, though her body was removed during the 6th century to a hidden crypt in the church of Santa Aurea in Ostia. Monica was buried near the tomb of St. Aurea of Ostia.[7] It was later transferred to the Basilica of Sant'Agostino, Rome.
Anicius Auchenius Bassus wrote Monica's funerary epitaph, which survived in ancient manuscripts.[7] The actual stone on which it was written was rediscovered in the summer of 1945 in the church of Santa Aurea.
The fragment was discovered after two boys were digging a hole to plant a football post in the courtyard beside Santa Aurea.[8]
A translation from the Latin, by Douglas Boin, reads:
Here the most virtuous mother of a young man set her ashes, a second light to your merits, Augustine. As a priest, serving the heavenly laws of peace, you taught [or, you teach] the people entrusted to you with your character. A glory greater than the praise of your accomplishments crowns you both – Mother of the Virtues, more fortunate because of her offspring.[7]
About the 13th century, however, the cult of St. Monica began to spread and a feast in her honour was kept on 4 May. In 1430 Pope Martin V ordered the relics to be brought to Rome. Many miracles are said to have occurred on the way, and the cultus of St. Monica was definitely established. Later the archbishop of Rouen, Guillaume d'Estouteville, built a church at Rome in honour of St. Augustine, the Basilica di Sant’Agostino, and deposited the relics of St. Monica in a chapel to the left of the high altar. The Office of St. Monica, however, does not seem to have found a place in the Roman Breviary before the 16th century.
The city of Santa Monica, California, is named after Monica. A legend states that in the 18th century Father Juan Crespí named a local dripping spring Las Lagrimas de Santa Monica ("Saint Monica’s Tears") (today known as the Serra Springs) that was reminiscent of the tears that Saint Monica shed over her son's early impiety.[9] As recorded in his diary, however, Crespí actually named the place San Gregorio.[9] What is known for certain is that by the 1820s, the name Santa Monica was in use and its first official mention occurred in 1827 in the form of a grazing permit.[9] There is a statue of this saint in Santa Monica's Palisades Park by sculptor Eugene Morahan; it was completed in 1934.[10]
Blessed Santa Monica. Ah. You knew her? You guessed my little secret?
The very saintly mother of my spiritual cohort.
The Saintly Legionnaire, Augustine of Hippo.
From whom I have derived the heading title of these Adobe Portfolio… mine own… Confessions!
And… of course… the undying inspiration… of the perennial principle… to seek farther… and farther… and, drive yet further on… into the inky darkness… of the hidden depths of… the collective unconscious… glory-strewn, golden past… which we inherit by design… and must all share.
So you see. I was in good hands. Even if I wasn’t fully aware. Wasn’t able to receive the many blessings.
But. As I was attempting to… word paint… my hideous condition in Santa Monica, St. John’s Hospital, March 25-31, 2014. As I was saying. I wanted one thing. And one thing only.
With all of my rational mind… freaking-out, frightened animal body… pounding, screaming, five-alarm heart… sublimely, vigilant spirit.
We didn’t know what the hell was happening to us!! But. We knew one thing with grave certainty.
We all wanted to flee. To get away—
To run as far away from Santa Monica… secret black ops… CIA torture prison… as possible.
We knew in our “heart of hearts”… that “they”… the “black iron prison” controllers… were killing us. That the very life force itself… like the wizened old wharf rat that it is… was getting ready to abandon ship.
It took a while. To convince “them”… the powers that rule… the “empire (that) never ends”… to release me.
Actually. They wanted me gone. After five days bandaging a scarf around my head like Obama Sin Laden. With ear plugs stuffed constantly in my ears. Making me hopelessly unable to answer the most important question of all… On a scale of 1-10….?
Begging like a nameless, shameless Jew at the Wailing Wall in Old Town Jerusalem… incessantly… for liberation… for immediate parole.
Shit. They were happy to see me rolled out the double-wide, plate glass front door… down the red carpet in a wheel chair… with my pockets full of
sinister “pennies from heaven”…
sinister “pennies from heaven”…
RX# N 1226931
03/31/14 PL/EV
HUGH LILES
TAKE 1 TABLET BY MOUTH EVERY
3 HOURS AS NEEDED FOR PAIN
03/31/14 PL/EV
HUGH LILES
TAKE 1 TABLET BY MOUTH EVERY
3 HOURS AS NEEDED FOR PAIN
OXYCODONE/ACETA 5MG/325MG #50.00
heroin… and a big smile for the cameras…
Past a long row of Ferraris, Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Porsches, Teslas, Mercedes…
And loaded unceremoniously onto my old palomino ride back seat… Lisa’s Honda Odyssey van with a hundred-and-fifty-something-something… with intrepid Lisa driving… and her fearless sidekick, Jasper, riding shotgun
In parting… I gave em my best John Wayne impersonation… impromptu on the… celebrity runway… the departures vs. arrivals… blood red-carpeted landing… to a liveried, bewildered attendant… audience of one… probably hoping for crisp hundred dollar tips… who knows…
I quipped loudly, forcefully… with proper, idiosyncratic Duke pauses… sly intonations… and clipped western twang—
(Choose one of the following:)
A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by.
A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by.
Don’t say it’s a fine morning or I’ll shoot ya.
Hurry it up. We’re burning daylight.
It looks like it’s going to be another fine day.
Goddamn, I’m the stuff men are made of!
You can take everything a man has as long as you leave him his dignity.
Well, there are some things a man just can’t run away from.
Don’t pick a fight, but if you find yourself in one, I suggest you make damn sure you win.
All battles are fought by scared men who’d rather be someplace else.
Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway
When you stop fighting, that’s death
Hurry it up. We’re burning daylight.
It looks like it’s going to be another fine day.
Goddamn, I’m the stuff men are made of!
You can take everything a man has as long as you leave him his dignity.
Well, there are some things a man just can’t run away from.
Don’t pick a fight, but if you find yourself in one, I suggest you make damn sure you win.
All battles are fought by scared men who’d rather be someplace else.
Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway
When you stop fighting, that’s death
We drove off with guns blazing in the air…
