I've been looking back over the last few years and realized I've lost touch with quite a few guys I used to chat or e-mail with on a fairly regular basis.
a lot of them I met here so I thought I'd just drop a quick update.
the last 2 1/2 years have been pretty rough. I was injured at work and lost my career. they say I'm not dis-abled though as the vocational eval shows I'm still am fit for work as a cashier, dining-room attendant or housekeeper. I feel like I'm trapped in a capital-one commercial.
anyway, I still get the migraines that run virtually 24/7. though I found a Dr who managed to get a more accurate diagnosis than variations on 'neck strain'. they've now figured it to a combination of neck, inner-ear, and eye trouble, all brought on by the blow to my head (I had a freight elevator door closed on my head for those who I forgot to tell). through a very strict diet, major modifications of how I spend my day, and a few dozen mg of morphine I can now keep them down to nuisance level for about half of my waking time, and only spend about 5-10 days a month where they go to a level where I can't function at all.
for the first 12-20 months I had months at a time where I would completely check out, the meds couldn't touch the pain and I'd just live moment to moment (thats where the losing touch with people came in).
the basic symptoms other than the pain are-
inability to concentrate (picture driving through rush hour traffic, lost, in a strange town, with 6 kids having 3 different arguments in the back seat, while your car is running out of gas and you franticly search for a gas station and an exit. thats pretty much what the inside of my head is now like when I try to focus on anything important or with any pressure at all),
complete trashing of my sense of spacial relations. my internal compass is trashed among other things. I get lost very easy in places I've spent most my life in. navigating in the dark, low visibility or compass work while diving are virtually impossible. (on the up side I can dive if I keep it to safe, beginner to intermediate level dives with a good dive-buddy who understands my situation. it actually relieves a lot of the stress and pain I feel on the surface. not sure if it's due to reducing the work on my inner-ear and eyes trying to keep me standing or just the relief of finding something that I can do that is almost normal and doesn't require a lot of adjustment to deal with my symptoms. whatever the reason I'm very tankful for that)
constant sea-sickness (driving in a car or even walking if the ground is too un-even. so boat dives are mostly out),
plus the vision problems. my eyes don't line up and work together. one is rotated, different magnification levels and double vision. plus they say my brain uses my eyes to track the horizon to try and compensate for my damaged balance and keep me up-right.
the comp payments ran out a year ago, the bank account runs dry about the middle of next month, and I'm trying to get my butt motivated on looking for minimum wage jobs (at the jobs listed above the DR says I can work up to 6 hours a day, no multitasking or high-stress situations, and expect to randomly ms a half-dozen days or so a month. should make finding work a real treat under those conditions)
minimum wage won't keep us afloat but I'm hoping to make enough to slow the loss and keep us afloat until spring when we go to court and try for some sort of fair settlement.
I've stopped playing the flight sims (don't even have a stick on the newest PC), the technology has gotten good enough that I get enough of a sense of actual movement when playing that I get sick after a few minutes of play.
lately I've been playing silent hunter 3, sub-sims are a lot slower, it used to be a down side but now it's a plus.
for the first 2 years I was unable to read other than a few paragraphs at a time. went from reading 600-800 pages a week to 1 250 pg book in 2 years. but I found a vision therapist this summer who is using special glasses and exercises to get my eyes working together again. I read a lot slower and my comprehension isn't even what it was in Jr high. but if the the reading is interesting and not too technical I can read 20 or 30 pages a day with reasonable comprehension, though some days I can't read at all. (I seem to forget the first of a sentence before I get to the end). I'm on my 4th book since August or so (one 50 pager and starting my 3rd 400+ page book.) it'll be awhile before I can pick up the latest couple from Robert Jordan though.
anyway, a couple people had asked how things had been going and I wasn't up to going into it at the time, but I'm feeling OK today and thought I'd try to catch a few up at once. over all things are improving though a bit slowly for someone with as little patients as I have.
it has opened my eyes a bit and changed how I view other people quite a bit. before the accident if a guy who was working for/with me said he had a headache my usual response was something to the effect of "yeah? and I have a hang-nail and my wife has cramps. we've got things to do, get up on it." I'm a bit more sympathetic now. I never had much patients or understanding while stuck waiting behind people who were slow or confused. I'm a bit more understanding now, though to be fair, more often than not those people are waiting behind me now.
another lucky break for me is that while it has seriously effected my ability to think, it doesn't seem to effect things that I've learned before the injury. processing information is slow and tedious, I have to take an insane amount of notes where I never wrote down anything before. but at least I don't have to re-learn subjects I've already covered.
at least I think thats how it's played out. It could be that I have lost things I knew but also forgot that I ever knew them so I'm un-aware of the loss..hmm
anyway, that sums up most of it. see ya around.
