When Reality Becomes Reality

All my life, from early childhood until present day I have always been known to be more than 85% passive, 10% creative thinker mostly from the hip inclusive of quick whit, 3% anger related, usually alot of swearing which ends up entertaining people more so than anything because most NJ people have the natural talent of running a two paragraph rant of swears without using the same combination twice. Then I'd say 1% explosive anger, the kind that scares people, you lock doors and wait for it to blow over. I had been known in my younger years to damage or throw objects in a rage that normally I would need assistance to lift. Its a black out anger and once its over, all is calm, right back to whatever was going on prior. Everyone else in the room is pale white with fear, but I would just return to whatever it was I happened to be doing just before the outrage occurred. Lastly, 1% emotion, I was very tight on that and never showed it anywhere at anytime. It seemed unexcepted in our family for the men so it was sucked up and dealt with, most likely the reason for the outrageous outbursts that happened at random, the mind just exploded. This was how I lived my life for the most part for as long as I can remember. All that changed in March 2010, reasons I would later find out about but this was the turning point for the mental assault that Dysautonomia was going to take on me from this point on.
I had two car accidents which had injured the same area for the most part. The first accident in 2007, the second 2009. Due to the nature of the 2007 accident, a more laid back approach was done to improve the effected areas due to my phobia of needles. Physical therapy & Chiropractic measures were in place of surgical intervention, pain killers or epidural injections. It was working, really slow, but working to some extent. I was slowly starting to regain some of the mobility I had prior and I was returning to normal activities.
Then the 2009 accident happens. I leave on a back board, not because the accident was so severe with major damage but because my back spasms were so bad I couldnt lift my left leg to get out of vehicle. When EMS arrived I requested assistance to get out of vehicle to walk it off due to previous injury & the fire fighter first to respond said to me that no such help was available. If I couldnt get out under my own power, they were lifting me out. So option B happened and these guys fought to get me out of this frigging 88 Jeep Cherokee company vehicle I was in and refused any help whatsoever that I could offer, just made me lie motionless. I had substantial damage to the lower back this time, herniated the disc & it was pinching a nerve which had caused both of my shins to tingle and feel cold all the time. At this point, I had no choice but to go the route of injections to speed the recovery.
Well the injections & the medications prescribed to help "heal" ended up causing a TE (Toxic Encephalopathy) which caused me to "blank out" completely on my couch while holding my infant daughter. My wife called EMS and I was brought to hospital where I woke up, (in my mind only, I had conversations with people in between but have no memory of it) the next day from what the nurse told me had been my arrival day. Wierdest part was I had lost most of the day prior to the day I had arrived as well & after going through my Blackberry, realized I had missed my cousins wedding, the birth of my daughter, Michael Jackson had died etc... In a mere 24 hour period, I had lost weeks, segments of years, three minutes ago etc... But everything else was different as well. A frigging puppy on TV would make me cry, my OCD tendencies as per my wife had gotten so tuned in that she was ready to call in for help. Sensitivity to light was amplified, confusion to patterns, i.e. diagnol tile patterens I suddenly couldnt walk on them. I was calm, sensitive, emotional & oddly enough, the missing emotion was anger.
Now I can only question what others brought to my attention but I can verify the emotional issue. There are times where the reality of my reality will hit home and the fact that I have something as constricting on life as a terminal illness, it will hit me like a 90mph fast ball to the back of the head. I could be watching the worlds funniest movie and suddenly be taken over by such a thought, be full blown emotional and then right back to normal within a three minute period. Probably going to be the hardest, wierdest, most overwhelming part of this whole syndrome to overcome. Its never a depression, like take me now feeling, its more an overwhelming pool of emotion of sadness for those people I will leave behind if this defeats me and then my determination kicks in and off I go back on track to "normal".
Well, I have never had any type of issues with the kids around, I refuse to show my hand to them. Their mother cries all the frigging time as it is and has made our son an emotional wreck and basically has parentalized him to feel he needs to take care of her, hes 6 years old, no kid should have to live with that much stress at his age. So I have always gone the extra mile to make sure I am always BEYOND excited and charged even though I am beat up and falling apart inside with every fiber of my body screaming "UNCLE". I dont want my son feeling he has to take care of both his parents.
So we're sitting on the couch watching TV together, the kids and I like always. Nothing different, same reruns of ICarly which make me want to vomit daily but when you love your kids you live with what you are dealt with to spend time with them. At one point during a commercial break, my youngest, the 21 month old turned and looked at me, big hazel eyes, red hair, adorable face, binky in place and she slowly reached up and gently rubbed my cheek with her little hand with this facial expression that almost said "dont worry about us, we'll be fine" and it was that reality and image right there and then that was too much to keep from emotional expression. I had an endless tear situation going on for almost 5 minutes but had to compose myself due to my son being on the other side of me without any knowledge of the fact his dad was in such an emotional distress. My daughter just stared at me as my tears ran down my face and she never stopped rubbing my cheek, it was the most heart breaking moment of my life to think that the reality of my situation is a potential of dying young and never seeing this little angel grow up. I was devastated and I just pulled her in as close as I could knowing that each moment I hug & kiss either of them is could be the last so I have to cherish each and every single time with all of my heart.
My oldest daughter choses not to speak to me, shes not one that enjoys hearing the truth, a lot of people prefer to hear how great things are or how great they are but can't handle someone that tells them like it is. I made every attempt in the past 3 years to make things right with her but with all the negativitiy her mom & grandmother project trying to hide a twisted past, all they've truly done is keep a daughter from knowing her dad. Its her loss, I have gotten past the feeling that as a parent I'm not supposed to ever give up on a child but the "vehicle" that houses that child is 18 now and believes they are an adult so I have to pretend she knows whats best for her now. I think she's going to find out too late that shes made the wrong decision, once I am gone, there isnt any such thing as ReFriending a father that has passed away. I have left the truth with several trusted friends that all have a way of contacting her so its not like I couldnt have come in like father of the year tearing up her mom & her grandmother, I have more class than that. I do however have everything in her mothers words exactly what had happened so it puts to rest all the BS they fed to my daughter the years prior. When you live in a glass house always make sure your neighbor isnt a slingshot salesman, and especially make sure you dont confirm everything you denied in writing. Another example of reality becomes reality.
In closing its important to realize that the mind does drift drastically with Dysautonomia and when fueled by prescriptions that most times the effects are reversed it can seriously play with you in ways that you begin to question your own mental status. I have a superior survival thought process so it seems that my defense against the syndrome in the mental attacks its waged on me have been beaten by me ability to self diagnose the mental impulse and spin it to a positive, task driven device instead thus defeating its negative grip. My only complication to this was when I was being injected with Testoterone, that unfortunately was a 24/7 thought process of ways of proceeding through with suicide, planning, plotting etc... I was almost Baker acted when I told my dr, the one who presribed the injections originally, she actually had me sign a waiver and immediately discontinue use. Not sure what the issue was with it, but what a mix up of communication there. So make sure you talk openly with your dr about ANY medication side effect no matter what it is when you suspect you might be sufferening from an ANS disorder. Any type of chemical imbalance can prove fatal. Thanks for reading.