The Anatomy of a Migraine and my Contact Info

You know how it all goes down. The pain that makes your eyes feel like they're getting wrenched out and squeezed at the same time. Actually, most of you probably don't. The sad fact is that most people don't know exactly what happens during a migraine. Well my friends, I'm here to tell you exactly how a migraine goes down. There are a couple of different kinds of migraines actually: some people actually get them upwards of 15-20 times a month! That thought of that much pain makes me want to vomit incessantly. Most migraines start out with these weird little visual accouterments, if you will. They're kind of like little kaleidoscopic elements that randomly appear in your visual field. They start out small and gradually widen out to take up your whole visual field. Then the horrible pain sets in. It'll last for a few hours; slowly draining the life out of you. Then it'll slowly grant you a reprieve and you can remember where your will to live went. Not a fun process, but I can say, once you've been through a migraine, what else could possibly trigger such happiness once it's done?

So surgery tomorrow, huh? That's a bit on the intimidating side. You guys all need to get on board with my physical and email addresses here in Baltimore. The physical address goes as such:

David Sommer
Best Western, Rm. 717
5925 O'Donnell St.
Baltimore, MD 21224

My email address is onceagainandagain@gmail.com. Hey! No funny stuff either. Ok well maybe just a little bit. Funny stuff makes me laugh, and laughter's good, right?

A day-trip to my old stomping grounds

Today I went to grab my car from Philly. I was only there for a brief time, but I got to see a whole bunch of my old (old? I thought they were new?!?) friends. It just so happens that I really like all those guys; maybe even more than I realized before. I’m kind of pissed off at my self, though, because I forgot to bring my camera. There were plenty of fantastic opportunities for tantalizing pictures that I missed. Unfortunately, it’s just not something that one thinks of doing when one visits home. I never really thought, “Hey, on this trip home, I should bring my camera to take lots of pictures of all that stuff that I used to take for granted.” It’s not really the kind of thing that I’d ever really consider while pondering a day-trip to Philly.

Like I said, though, it was a good trip to Philly.

My family and I didn't do too terribly much, but we did venture over to the Whole Foods (which I had honestly only been to like twice but will now probably be frequenting on a much higher scale than before due to my aforementioned raw diet.) The prepared foods there are pretty seriously awesome, it's actually probably the best Whole Foods that I've been to so far (that's not really saying much either. I'm pretty sure it's probably the fourth Whole Foods I've been to. Maybe not even the fourth: one was a Harry's.) But we hung with Dan my roomie and Kennedy a good friend of mine. It was really a good time.

This is my word-based image for the blog. I decided that it would be a good idea to sweep out underneath my tires. Yeah, there were tacks. I'm really glad I did that. My car might be stuck on I-95 getting run over by Mack trucks and pissed-off Philadelphians.

Finally, last but not least. Saturday night was the big Mardi Gras party here at the ol' Best Western. All of the 270 women that were here over the weekend had a big Mardi Gras party. So I leave you with a woman that had a minnie me replete with matching teeth. Ha! 'Nough said.

My Hands Felt Like Two Balloons

If you can guess the classic track that I hand-culled this title from, then I'll personally guarantee you a high five--feet flying and all. I think that's a pretty sweet deal.

OK so I decided that this post would pertain entirely to all the little oddities that the hulking Goliath has produced in my head. They're really hard to describe for the most part, but I want to try to explain them to my loyal audience as much as possible. Starting with some hyper-sensitivity that I've been dealing with my whole life, I'd like to delve into what I experience (in a hushed voice)--usually at night when I'm trying to sleep. I've never really had a reason to try to explain any of this stuff to anyone, but now I do.

I've tried to reproduce the text that was so horribly ripped from my grasp this weekend. I don't know what happened, but it was wrested from me alright. Tsk tsk. Alright so the first thing that I want to explore is this whole balloon hands thing. It's been going on for years, and I mean years, but it seems to be happening at an increasing rate since I've had this Goliath lurking around my brain. It's weird though, it feels like my hands--and only my hands--get this weird hyper-sensitivity going on. Simply put: they feel huge! But I know they're not huge, they just feel as if they were that way. It's so bizarre--like they're some kind of uncanny semblance of a hand that doesn't really resemble a hand but is still attached to my wrists. Uhhh what? I don't really know what else to say about it other than: weird.


Ok so the next thing is something that my friend Alison, who came down to see me last Saturday (she's such a super sweetee!) So she told me that there's more hyper-sensitivity going on in my little mind than meets the eye, er, Goliath. She called it Exploding Head Syndrome. We can just stop there. I mean, what a fantastic name. I wouldn't even need to know what it was to fully appreciate it. Anyway, it's a condition that is essentially like my balloon hands condition except it's in my ears. Anyway, the Exploding Head Condition--I love saying that--feels like or gives the quality of really loud noises to what are actually really quiet noises. So if you have, say a noise from the heater in my hotel room that is essentially really quiet, it will actually have the same quality as a noise that is really, really loud. It'll sound like the noise is screaming in my face, when it was really just a little peep in the background. It's really bizarre...

By the way, it's not like I'm freaking out with all of this stuff. It happens very rarely, but now it happens just enough more that I think it might have something to do with ol' Goliath. There's a few other things that I want to divulge to my loyal audience, too. I've found that there were a couple times over the last few years that I would find myself wondering--this is gonna sound weird by the way--when I am. There was this time at a school dinner, and the thought occured to me, "When am I?" It stuck with me for a few minutes, then I realized, "Oh, I'm so silly, I'm now." Honestly, though, that's how it happened. I went through this whole phase of history, seeing my neices and nephews in the future, and then it hit me, I'm now. Again really bizarre.

The next thing that I found to be really weird is one time I was biking up through Fishtown (a newly hip part of Philly) all on my lonesome, and I found that it was really hard for me to figure out how to get back to South Philly. Now it wasn't like I was in a bizarre part of Fishtown; I was right on York! So what occured to me was that my brain was having another one of those little episodes where it says, "Dude, I don't know. What do you want me to do about it?" Then I went back to normal and just felt like my usual self again. It was just so strange. You never know how your brain is going to trip up when you're on your bike amidst a warm dusty Philly evening, do you?

A new haircut and a raw food chaser

I must say that today was a much better day than yesterday. Days that I have bad headaches don't even feel like days rooted in reality. I'm seriously a different person on those days: rooted in my own wretchedness!

Today I did get a haircut, though. It's so great that I don't have to lose my hair for this operation--you know the one where I basically get scalped and my brains scooped out--yeah, no head shaving. So I decided that I should at least cut my hair shorter than usual (there's a picture of me post-haircut below, you probably wouldn't have guessed it). Apparently there's gonna be a bunch of goo all over it during and after the operation. That doesn't go well with long flowing locks, now does it? Anyhoo, the barber I went to is called The Beatnik Barbershop. He's no Michelle (she's my Philly hairstylist. Here's my plug for her at Ground Zero South located in the lovely Sweat Gym on Passyunk--go to her) but it was damn close and full of character. I just remember staring at a painting of a big black boxer who obviously had it out for me and me alone. I was scared. What? He was punching the air. How was I supposed to feel?


After the Haircut, we ventured down to a cool little raw food shop for lunch. It's called the Yabba Pot Cafe, and there was some delicious Kale and Spinach salad (what the H are we gonna do with me and my newly acquired vegan tastes?) My parents got some really good cooked Indian curry, rice, plantains and black beans. It's so sad. Even that looked really good. I think my ability to appreciate food has somehow migrated from the lower eschelons of food craving to a place that exists on some kind of higher plain. For example, instead of craving ice cream with chocolate syrup (which is still enticing by the way), I just want some fruit. I haven't had fruit in months. Tomatoes are my new fruit; a friggin' raspberry would be incredible.

With a little help from my friends

From the lyrics of the great Beatles tune, the title says it all. I don't think I'd be here today, if it wasn't for all the great well wishers that have doggedly persisted in well, wishing me well.

Well the big day has been scheduled at Johns-Hopkins. Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa (Check out his info. He started out in this country as a migrant worker. Now he's one of the foremost brainsurgeons--'nuff said) will be doing the slice and dice on my frontal lobe on Friday, Feb. 27th. I'm a bit on the nervous side; it's not too bad right now, though (I'm also trying not to think about it). I'd love it if some of you friendly folks would call my hospital room and tell me about your non-surgery related days or send me an appropriately placed text message--that would also be great. Anything to know that someone else is out there that isn't having to deal with brain surgery. I won't be admitted until that day, but I'll post my room info as soon as I get it.

Quinones really impressed my family and I with his steadfastness, faith in himself and his 'A' team. I thought that was incredibly reassuring to say the least; we hadn't really encountered a surgeon like that yet. We'll be up here in Baltimore for a bit, but I think it'll be worth it in the end. It could be two-four weeks, when all's said and done. It will be expensive for my family, but we'll figure all of that out down the road. I guess for now, all we can do is just explore Baltimore really well. You should expect this blog to be a bit of an all-things-Baltimore blog for the next few days. That's fine. I like travel blogs.

Recap: Oh, the places I've been.

It's been a wild ride thus far. I can remember what seems like tens of weeks ago (although it was actually in the range of ones of weeks ago) getting my first MRI at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. Then taking that very MRI over to the first doctor consultation in which he proceeded to scare the absolute crap out of me. My response to this was a simple one: jet out of Atlanta at top speed. We headed down to the Hippocrates Institute in Florida to locate some non-scalpel oriented therapy (AKA: alternative therapy) and leave our reeling minds to figure out what the hell had just happened.

Then there was back in November, when I had my first real Migraine. Yeah, that was weird. Laying on my couch with the kaleidoscopic version of reality going on in place of what I would have previously called my usual eyesight--and not much else. Just trying to focus on the TV screen to keep myself from freaking out was next to impossible. Then came the cold sweats--akin only to what I can imagine would be a hot flash--and the nausea. That wasn't very fun at all.

Now here I am in Baltimore, having yet another consultation. Fortunately, I'm not nearly as phased by it as the first three. The only difference this time was the lack of sleep that I suffered as a result. There was no sense of impending doom; no drifting alone through an empty vacuum. That's good, right? I think I can actually feel my skin thickening. Cancer, psssh, who cares? You'll have to dish out more than that if you want to take me down thank you very much.

I leave you with a lovely picture of my parents smiling before my consultation. Such great support. I don't know where I'd be without them. Well, maybe I do...

Carrot juice and all the sweetness that comes with...

My parents and I just went down to a sweet little juice bar called Liquid Earth down in Baltimore's Inner Harbor neighborhood. Both of the photos I posted are from there. I emphasize sweet because, as long as I've been on this diet, I've come to realize that almost everything that we consume is as sweet as sugar--seriously. We put the stuff in everything we eat. I have no idea how we got by before we put sugar in everything, but it's no wonder our teeth our rotting out of our heads!

Wow! My last post got kind of intense there at the end. I apologize for all of that business, but what are you gonna do when staring down the barrel of your own demise? What else can I say about it?

Tomorrow I'm meeting with the doctor at John's-Hopkins. Dun Dun Dun. It's the prelude to the big day, I guess. I find out what to expect from this doctor and what to expect from the whole process.

I've also decided that I'm going to thoroughly document this whole proceeding both with photos and the beautiful written word. There'll be a whole lot of John's-Hopkins Bayview related pics and words. If you really want to see a ton of pics of me with bandages around my head, staples falling out and whatnot, well my darling you've come to the right place.

Nothing but time at the Best of Westerns...

Without burdening myself to the weight of my claims from my first post or perhaps in justification of those very ideals, I've found myself looking back on them. Stuck in my head again, stuck in my head again. Basically, what this comes down to is that I don't know what I've gotten myself into. I don't know what's going to happen to myself, and I really don't know how I'm going to deal with any of it. I'm sitting here in my hotel room typing away, but I have no idea why I'm doing it or what I'm trying to say. I'm feeling this irrational distress inside that doesn't seem to own up to any degree of placation. I can't get rid of it, and nothing seems to budge it.

Is this simply because it's a horrible disease stuck in my head, and there's nothing I can do outside of letting someone else wiggle his/her questionably cleanly hands around in my brain? Is that all I can do? Then I'll just let them fill me up with God-knows how many different kinds of poisons and radiations in their so-often humble attempt that maybe, just maybe, the disease itself will die before I do? That sounds pretty damn shortsighted to me--especially in the light of how amazingly advanced our medicine is supposed to be.

Well I don't like it. You can call me a hippy, but I'd rather be running around outside than dealing with all of this. I don't think anyone else would rather be in any other situation, though. This just plain sucks. I don't think there's any other way to put it.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

OK that's my bitching for the day. I have to stay positive throughout this little trip, and I don't think that complaining about how much I'd rather be running around outside is going to perpetuate that. There's one other thing that's bothering me, though. I really wanted to delve into some issues that I have before Goliath gets yanked. First off, what created him? As I said before, many people think that cancer, in particular, originates from some deep-seated emotional trauma. If that's the case, what was it for me? Was it never discussing my emotional dissatisfaction with Philly with any of my friends there? That could be it. I don't think I ever let anyone know how much Philly bothered me. Philly's a filthy, stinky, angry, rat-hole of a city that I somehow managed to sneak in a little bit of love for at the same time. It really has turned out to be a love-hate relationship--but I guess it always was ever since day one. Ideally, I would've much rather been living in Athens in a van down by a river somewhere, but then again I might just go crazy in said van down by said river. Well I'm obviously losing my mind (or at least bulking it up in far from healthy quantities) in this situation, so what now? Do I move after this is all over? I think I just thought that if I never confronted the issue, then it wasn't really an issue at all. I think I thought it was a character flaw in myself rather than an issue that I really needed to let out. Maybe once it got out into the open, I'd realize that it's not as big of a deal as I thought before--or maybe not. One thing's for sure, though, I need to get these things out of my head and into someone else's ears before it turns into even more of a Goliath of a problem down the road.

Eye doctors rock!

Yesterday, I went to the eye doctor to find out what was going on with my eyes. The doctor was really nice, and she meant nothing but the best for me. I think my situation was a bit beyond her expertise though. Essentially, I think I really just freaked her out. She ended up telling my dad and I that I needed to be in the hospital somewhere—and right away. She said that my optical nerves were dangerously swollen; that's why I'm having the blurred vision. I think she actually said that I could end up with some seriously permanent vision problems or worse—that means death—I’m pretty sure.

“Hmmm, that's pretty cool,” I thought to myself, “maybe we should get me to somewhere where I won’t be facing such an imminent disaster.”

The funny thing about the whole situation was that after we were informed about the severity of it all, we ended up waiting like another hour or so for the doctor to talk to all of these other doctors in neighboring states and beyond (which was a beautiful gesture but ended up amounting to jack). Just after being told how dire my straights were, we were waiting around in the doctor’s office lobby—for the better part of an hour. I found the whole situation to be mildly comical to say the least (although our doctor was a sweetheart). She meant nothing but the best for me, and I honestly do appreciate everything that she attempted for me.


Sigh…now that that’s over. Here we are in North Carolina driving up to Johns-Hopkins and staying in hotels, motels and whatnots. If all goes well, I’ll be in the hospital come tomorrow. Maybe that’ll bring some kind of release to me and provide with some sense of Karmic retribution in these strange times—but probably not. I never would’ve thought that I’d be here right now, but I also never would’ve imagined all of the other things that have happened. It’s a pretty strange world—er life—I guess.

Ooh... this is what I get to eat right now!

So take a look at what I get to eat right now. Just one word sums it all up: sprouts. These little unassuming babes of the plant kingdom are evidently the gems of my little nutritional world at the moment. There's only one saddening side note in this little tale: I haven't had bread in about two months (This includes biscuits, and I'm not too happy about that--not one bit). Who ever would have thought that a deliciously rich buttermilk biscuit would be so disastrously poisonous for such a well-intentioned chap as myself? Not I.

Anyway, I’m drifting away from my madly engaging dietary diatribe. Ok so I also have to drink two “juices” in the morning. Now the word juice brings to mind sweet little concoctions that may or may not contain blends of delicious ripened bananas, oranges, mangos, and lemons. I think you get the picture. Not here though. These juices are composed of two items and two items alone: wheatgrass and blue-green algae.

Wheatgrass, like any grass, is a healthy choice for bovine animals and cute cuddly critters that eat it when they feel sick—oh and me, too. Unfortunately, I have to drink 2 oz. of this stuff twice a day. It wasn’t so bad at first, but now, yuck! I’ve had it explained to me that wheatgrass juice is the highest juice in chlorophyll—a compound similar to hemoglobin in the blood. That’s pretty cool, I guess, but does that help me with this lumbering giant growing in my head? Eh, the jury’s still out on that one.




Blue-green algae, the delicious beverage in the would-be coffee mug above, on the other hand is somehow remarkably similar to human DNA. I don't quite know how, but it's so close in fact that it’s rumored to actually affect our makeup. This means that people with comparatively weak constitutions can strengthen them by consuming just a few ounces of blue-green algae every day. Does this mean it’ll work for everyone? Probably not, but I think that it’ll work for some of us. Again, this isn’t really something that is going to keep the giant out of my head, but it’s something to remember for the future.

Goliath and I: the 3rd

This is what I feel like at the moment. These massive glaring eyes, overcome by fatigue and riddled with fear--not the best place to be, I guess. Hmmm... this doesn't really look at all like me, but I also really don't care. Here's me sticking my tongue out at you, myaaaaaaaaahhh.

I think I may have noticed my vision returning to normal--just by a little bit--today. I noticed that the clarity of the branches outside was like it used to be. Now I don't want to be all crazy about it, but I really need something to actually be improving here rather than slowly degrading. The vision problems have been really nasty over the last few weeks anyway. I'd love it if those decided to skee-daddle.

I do all of my best thinking at night. Last night I decided that I can't afford to be unhappy--in the slightest bit--anymore. I think the line I came up with was. "If you're not loving life, then what the hell is the point of living it at all?" The importance of this quote cannot be left to the dire straits of the blogosphere, oh loyal reader. We need to love our lives, not just live our lives. The last four years, I've simply been living my life. Some days were good, many days were not so good. Unfortunately, every day should be great or at least the attempt at it's greatness should be made. If I can't make an absolutely solid attempt at making my life really fantastic every day, then I need to change something about my lifestyle.

Goliath & I: 2.0

Beach, Florida, friends: these are all good times. Unfortunately, this is not like today's or most of my recent past experiences, though. Today was rough at the start to say the least: not only have I been having really bad vision problems due to either the Dexamethasone or the lumbering Goliath itself, but I've also been having some less-than-desirable cold symptoms as well. Oh please, can I have both a giant tumor in my head and a cold at the same time. I don't think that's nearly enough punishment. Anything else you wanna give me? How 'bout some more cancer or maybe, hmmm let's see, I haven't had any terminally fatal blood disorders yet. Maybe I'll get one of those. As you can see, my morning was less than stellar to begin.

I'm going up to Baltimore to John's-Hopkins Bayview on Sunday with my family to meet with one Dr. Quinones who will be the executive-managing-super authoratitve Doctor during my surgery. This means that his hands would actually be making physical contact with my brain--neato. Not that it matters, but I don't know that I want his filthy hands touching my brain. It is mine after all, and I don't want anyone's damn hands touching it.

Needless to say, this experience is scary. Just meeting with a Doctor for a consultation scares the s--- out of me. I don't get the impression that any of the doctors really care. What happens if I have serious language problems afterward? What if I don't recover completely? What if my vision never returns to normal? What if Goliath gets pissed off that somebody's trying to remove him, and, like the incredible hulk, he swells up with violent rage?

Goliath and I: An Introduction

This is my first post on this new blog. What do I hope to accomplish through it you ask? I hope to let everything loose that I haven't had an opportunity to purge from myself in the last four years. They (and don't ask who they are because I'm not quite sure) say that cancer, yes cancer is what I have, can at least partially derive from a stockpiling of emotions that are never really dealt with. Well OK then: Goliath is my big-little emotional build up that I just never really dealt with over the course of the four years that I've been living in Philly.

I better deal with it now-or else.