Boo-hoo-hoo. A new victim

This TV ad really pissed me off.

A young woman talks about her migraine headaches and nobody understands, not even her mother. So her mother puts on virtual reality goggles and sees her daughter’s migraines, a bunch of out-of-focus and blurry things and people and she takes off the goggles and says, “I didn’t know” and she hugs her daughter and everything is OK.

The ad was for a pain killer; I don’t remember which one.

But what the ad really presented was the migraine as victimhood. I hurt; nobody understands; I am a victim.

Give me a break.

(DISCLAIMER: I am not making fun of migraine headaches. I do not have migraines, but I did have a vein burst in my brain 30 years ago. It felt like somebody hit me in the head with a sledge hammer. Maybe that's how a migraine feels. If so, I can honestly say, I feel your pain. But there is no victimhood.)

A thing to remember after brain surgery

Richard Porter, a former fellow National Guard platoon sergeant, Sunday night mentioned something I did not remember, but which I wish I had used more.

About three months after I had surgery to fix a cerebral aneurysm in 1986, my mech infantry company underwent an inspection by battalion staff. A young captain came into my office, where Richard and I were having coffee. The captain said, “Sgt. Merriman, where would I find records on (some training event)?”

I allegedly replied, “I don’t know, Sir. I just had brain surgery.”

The captain said, “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I apologize, Sgt. Merriman.” He left the office and had no more questions for me that inspection.

Later, I was like just about everybody else who has brain surgery – so intent on showing I could still do the job that I refused to recognize failings as caused by mental deficits. If I had remembered a simple sentence -- I don't know; I had brain surgery -- maybe I would have kept one or more of the jobs.

Any time a doctor opens your skull ...

In 1986 a neurosurgeon incised part of my scalp and part of my right temple. He peeled back the skin and with a sort-of doorknob drill drilled through my skull. He took out the circle of bone and then began moving aside parts of my brain in order to reach a vein that had burst almost two weeks before. Reaching the vein, he attached a stainless steel spring-loaded clip, sealing the cavity. After withdrawing instruments from inside my brain, the doctor waterproofed the edges of the plug of bone and slid it back into place. The operation was successful. I did not die; I was not paralyzed; I still had vision and speech. But, as an attending neurologist said, every time you touch the brain, you cause damage.

The linked article is much worth reading.

“I woke early on the morning of the operation and lay in bed thinking about the young mother I had operated on the previous week. I had operated on a tumour deep in the right side of her brain and somehow – I do not know how since the operation had seemed to proceed uneventfully – I had caused a major stroke, so that she awoke from the operation paralysed down the left side of her body. I had probably tried to take too much of the tumour out. I had probably strayed too deeply into her brain. I must have been too self-confident.

…

“Each brain tumour is different – some are as hard as rock, some as soft as jelly. Some are completely dry, some pour with blood – sometimes to such an extent that the patient can bleed to death during the operation. Some shell out like peas from a pod, some are hopelessly stuck to the brain and its blood vessels. You can never know for certain from a brain scan exactly how a tumour will behave until you start to remove it. This man’s tumour was, as surgeons say, co-operative, and with a good surgical plane – in other words, it was not stuck to the brain. I slowly cored it out, collapsing the tumour in on itself away from the surrounding brain. After three hours it looked as though I had got most of it out.”

http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Henry-Marsh

Linked from maggiesfarm.

Sometimes, crazy doesn't seem all that bad

“Okay, I'm just gonna say it out loud. There are times when going crazy looks attractive. And I'm not talking about becoming charmingly eccentric. I've already got that covered nine ways to Sunday. No, I'm talking about purposely emigrating to the land of lunacy. That special psychological zip code where The Ancient Laws of Behave Yourself no longer apply. My "reasoning" is simple. It takes a great deal of effort to sustain a conservative, trustworthy persona. Surrendering that effort would involve, from a Freudian perspective, a conscious dismantling of the super ego - that part of the psyche entrusted with enforcing parental and socially approved actions. And therein lies the allure of going full frontal wack-a-doodle. The constant energy required to pass as normal would suddenly become available for doing and saying whatever pleases me in the moment. Imagine it. The id and libido completely unbound by any and all moral or cultural restrictions. Hmm... Probably won't need the shrink anymore... might need a lawyer.” – Chuck Lorre, 13 Oct. 2011.

http://www.chucklorre.com/index-bbt.php?p=323

(Thought about it. Didn’t know how to come back. Thought, too, after cerebral aneurysm in 1986 – How do I know I won’t wake up tomorrow in a hospital a week after the aneurysm? Huh? Answer that, Bucko.

(I also thought how good it would be to have an on/off switch. Things are bad, announce, “I’m going away now. Please turn me back on in 12 hours.” Or 24 or in a week; however long you need.)