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It all started January 2007. I went to get new glasses, and the optometrist said, "hay you haz nystagmus." Nystagmus is a problem where one or both of your eyes do weird lateral motions for no apparent reason. It's part of a reflex, but if it happens randomly it can cause vision problems. It's looked for by police when you get pulled over for DUI.

She quickly quizzed me to see if I had any other neurological complaints, but at the time I didn't have any. She asked me about mood swings, but I was already diagnosed with bipolar disorder. So, she shrugged it off and said "these things happen" and put a prism in my new prescription and sent me on my way.

Over the next year and a half, I've started noticing weird intermittent burning/tingling in my limbs, especially towards the extremities. But it wasn't a serious problem and I just blew it off. I've had weird phantom pains from my arthritis and I just figured that was part of it.

Then about last Labor Day, I woke up confused, disoriented, nauseated, dizzy, and worst of all, I had double vision. I'm like, fuck, I might be having a stroke. But it didn't FEEL like a stroke. I could still move and talk and all that. So I go to the doctor right away, and he looks me over and said well, doesn't look like you had a stroke. But he sent me to the hospital for a CT scan and it came back clear.

I had gone camping the previous weekend. The doctor and I kicked around that I could have been that I was bitten by a mosquito and got some kind of mild infections encephalitis or something, like West Nile. It cleared up in a few days and I didn't think much of it.

Well, the double vision and confusion returned shortly after last Christmas. I went to the ER. Another CT scan. No clear issue.

In the meantime, over the last 4 years my mood disorder has been getting worse and worse, to the point that I am having extreme mood swings nearly constantly--able to go from depressed to manic in the same day, and then back again. This is not a normal course of bipolar disorder--it's extremely rare in people that have no apparent organic cause. And the episodes have gotten worse and more extreme, sharply over the last 2 years, to the point where my psychiatrist suggested I take this summer off work. And I did so, though I'm about to go back to work.

During all of *this*, over the last several years I've been occasionally bothered by paraphasia. Paraphasia is a difficulty in language, usually manifesting itself by substitution of an inappropriate word. In my case, often the substituted word is related in some vague way or simply rhymes. But I thought it was because I was taking lithium, so I shook it off. But my paraphasias have recently become more frequent and more bizarre, to the point where sometimes I will just have to stop trying to speak or write. This is especially true in the last two weeks.

I've had some strange problems with coordination lately, especially with my fingers. I can't type as well anymore. I've made an increased number of typos in ways not normal--not mere transpositions, but missing letters, completely wrong letters, and so forth. My effective typing speed is probably down under 50 wpm, which sounds like a lot to some people, but I'm accustomed to 70-80 wpm. Not just that, but other things--I'm getting worse at playing guitar on Rock Band, for instance, instead of better. However, once again, a slight issue with typing and not being able to play a silly video game very well aren't major issues, so I don't really care.

And....fatigue. God, the fatigue. I've felt tired for YEARS. And some days I can't really do anything but sit on the couch. But I thought that came from the bipolar disorder, and if not from that, the drugs I have to take for it.

That brings us to today--I woke up this morning, and I was seeing double again. I was confused, not sure what day it was, or even WHERE I was. When I figured it out, I got out of bed and stumbled to the couch. Except on the way I fell twice. Not being able to really see, I decided to water the garden instead of getting online or anything. I nearly fell three times while doing that, and I could barely get the hose in the right place to water the tomato planters. I felt dizzy and nauseated the whole time.

I finally decided to try to get online anyway. I found I could see reasonably well if I closed one eye. For about an hour, I couldn't fucking type ANYTHING. And when I did, everything came out gibberish. My legs and arms were on fire. Eventually, I was able to communicate, but I still felt weird. I was a little hungry, but not much. Then the internet went out, so I decided to go get lunch. Driving when you see double is not too smart, but I did the closing-one-eye trick and made it to Taco Bell and back. But I barely ate half of it.

And my moods, GOD the moods. Depressed and listless one moment, full of rage and OMG the next. Great, on top of the bad day I have had, I am having another mood episode. Or...wait...is it? Um....

I was feeling pretty miserable in all this, then I was like, uh oh. I opened up a text editor and listed my symptoms:

Vision problems: nystagmus, diplopia (double vision)
Bladder problems: increased frequency, urgency, strange sensations while urinating, bladder feels "numb"
Neuropathy: distal (towards hands and feet) numbness/tingling/burning of both arms and legs, arms/legs feeling heavy
Mental: Ultradian mood swings, confusion, paraphasia, coordination difficulty, stumbling/falling
Other symptoms: overwhelming fatigue, nausea, dizziness
Other: recent and current extremely hot weather

Ohhhhh crap. There's only one disease that fits that list, and it's multiple sclerosis. And the final thing? The ER doc last December mentioned it as a possibility.

Well, I'm not freaking out just yet, because I could just be a fucking Internet hypochondriac. But, I've been suffering weird, phantom neurological symptoms for half my life, and they're constantly getting worse. Any one of these things is a troubling annoyance. But when they stack up like this? Gotta get checked for MS.

It would be much more satisfying to wave MS around as a diagnosis than medication-resistant ultradian bipolar disorder. As hard as I have worked to destigmatize mental illness, having an organic cause would simply make others more willing to tolerate what is wrong with me. I hate that with a fucking passion, but it's a simple fact.

So, perversely, I hope MS is indeed what I have, because knowing what it is and knowing I'm not going to suddenly die from it makes living with all these difficulties much easier.

The problem is that I have no health insurance at this time, and so I can't afford to go get screened for it. Essentially, I'm going to need an MRI and some other neurological tests. So, it does suck to merely suspect this and not be able to prove it.

I've been spreading this everywhere:

---

getting up here I say it is the best road trip in America
soaring through nature's finest show
Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun
and then the extremes
in the winter time it's the frozen road
    that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty
the cold though--
    doesn't it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?

and then in the summertime
such extreme summertime
about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago
than just some months from now
with fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and
merciless rivers that are rushing and carving and
reminding us that here, Mother Nature wins

it is as throughout all Alaska
that big wild good life teeming along the road that is
north to the future

---

I didn't realize that Sarah Palin was a Beatnik.

Neither did she.

---

I may need to reactivate the blog.

misquoted created a syndication feed for my blog, which is until_the_lamb. Thanks, misquoted! If that's your preference, you can view it there. It hasn't fired yet, though.

There will be a post tonight, about Peter Schiff, why he is a tool, and why the Reagan "Revolution" really didn't do a whole lot but make a bunch of rich guys richer. The rising tide didn't lift all boats. Not until the M/V Clinton came steaming along, anyway.

In the summer of 1988 I was at the record store with a friend and I saw a cassette single of a song I once heard on the radio. "Trouble Me", by 10,000 Maniacs. The town I lived in did not play alternative rock on the radio, alternative rock itself being kind of a new thing. If you're kinda younger, 10,000 Maniacs was Natalie Merchant's group, a kind of mellow New Wave + Folk sound that combined happy, upbeat tunes with very depressing subjects.

The "B" side of the single was something called "The Lion's Share". Unfortunately, Merchant is a lot like Stevie Nicks. She's not the most intelligible when she sings, and although this song is catchy, it's difficult to understand just what the hell she is saying.

I recently lay awake in bed listening to this song on my iPod and I began to pick out parts of the lyrics:

The lambs are bare of fleece and cold; the lion has stolen that, I'm told.

I begin to realize this is an intensely political song about macroeconomics, which is unusual even for 10,000 Maniacs. I download the lyrics. Sure enough, it's a pop-Communist Manifesto:

Can I be unhappy?
Look at what I see: a beast in furs and crowned in luxury.
He's a wealthy man in the poorest land, a self-appointed king,
and there's no complaining while he's reigning.
The lambs are bare of fleece and cold; the lion has stolen that, I'm told.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
The lambs go hungry (not fair), the biggest portion is the lion's share.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.

Can I be unhappy?
Listen and agree, no words can shame him or tame him.
The lambs are bare of fleece and cold; the lion has stolen that, I'm told.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
The lambs go hungry (not fair), the biggest portion is the lion's share.
There must be some creature mighty as you are, as you are.

Razor claws in velvet paws, you dunce in your guarded home,
'til a stronger beast will call on you and pounce upon your throne.

Do we pay? Dearly, for the lion takes so greedily
and he knows that what he's taken, it is ours.
That's how the wealth's divided among the lambs and king of the beasts, it is so one-sided.
Until the lamb is king of the beasts we live so one-sided.

Not really so much with the sickles and the hammers, this hidden gem just lays out the fundamental unfairness of unchecked capitalism without suggesting a specific solution. Previous specific solutions being, of course, decidedly unsatisfactory.

Because the lamb never seems to end up king of the beasts.

Anyway, this idea will be the centerpoint of my new blog, Until the lamb is king of the beasts. until-the-lamb.blogspot.com. The blog will mostly be on topics like this, but probably a little about everything.

Anyone in Seattle know a good neurologist?

[How's that for dramatic?]

...at least here in Washington we told Martin Sheen to go fuck himself on I-1000.



Josiah Bartlett, I loved you, but you are now dead to me.

I really wished I hadn't missed this celebration in Capitol Hill: