Prayer Request and A Thank You From My Favorite Headache (Long Vanity)

I promise to make this as brief and painless as possible here but knowing the way I write...you folks are screwed. I also apologize upfront if I happen to come off in Clintonesque style in saying the letter "I" too much or the word "my." I know those are sure signs of someone who is thinking only of themselves and I do not want that to be the case here.

What I am about to write out to you is a request. A request for prayers and for hope in my name because there is a bad time going on right now and my faith among a few (very few) other things are getting me through this. I do want to however give a bit of history about just what I am writing to you about so I do not have to make this post sound like something that is totally confusing. As a matter of fact...this is my 2nd draft of this letter to my fellow Freepers. So a bit about my story and why I am asking for a moment of your time today.

I have an illness and am sick. There is a long story behind this that really does not need to go into detail in a complete open forum here but I want to share with you what is exactly going on and sort of in a way leave this post here to symbolize something about what I have gone through and what road I am facing. It appears that this actually has traced itself back to when I was 5 years old. But I will get to that in a moment.

You see back in 1995 I was in two bad car wrecks. None were my fault and the parties involved were taken care of legally to the extent I could take care of them. The car accidents happened 5 weeks apart if you can believe it. The first one that happened was an accident leaving a car show. I was waiting at a standstill with my foot on my break where I was then smacked from behind by a mustang that had a guy showing off in the area and his throttle stuck open and whacked me from behind. His car was a street-mod with all the trimmings including NOS aka nitrous oxide. My car at the time was a hell of a lot faster. It ran the quarter mile in 10.70. I was a lot younger back then and was actually more safe on a race track then I was sitting in a parking lot.

Well, during that accident my head hit my roll cage in the car and I have not been the same since....or have I? Five weeks later coming back from a friends wake I was in another friends mustang but this time as a passenger. I looked to my right and there was a drunk driving a beat up old 1968 Ford pickup. He was drinking from a keg that he was taking home through a line going through the sliding window in the back. I looked at the road in what was a quick blurry moment turned to my friend Rob and said this guy is drunk and he is running out of lane here we are going to get hit. Well, 3 seconds later we were hit and the car was flipping in the middle of the road. The impact taking it right on the passenger side as luck would have it and my head going into the side window. I swear the one memory that sticks with me was looking at on coming traffic upside down and was waiting to die. Plain and simple nothing else.

Paramedics arrived and thought we had already had medical help. I still was wearing a brace around my neck from the accident five weeks prior and a back brace as well. One phrase sticks out from that night as well and that was said by a police officer..." God really must want you to be here kid." Needless to say I was shaken up and was not sure of the extent of my injuries. Went to the hospital and was told I was a mess but they just were not sure what to do. So I will skip along here and just say that I after that accident have been to over 42 different doctors and have been on over 90 different medications. All of them except one did nothing and were just a shot in the dark.

I have expressed in posts here on the FreeRepublic that my father was taken from me at a young age. He had a massive stroke due to doctor negligence when he was 37 and I was 3. He passed away of another one when I was 11 and he was 45. A man who was a CEO, in the Army, and was in MENSA...brought to his knees from a stroke. He was and still is my inspiration to get through everything I feel today because of one huge reason...he never complained once. Not once. He was thankful to still be given some time on Earth no matter how fractured that time was and I believe one reason that happened was because my mother prayed and prayed right after his first stroke for Jesus Christ and God in Heaven to give my brother and I a chance to know our father. He was not supposed to live 48 hr. He lived 8 years. I believe in prayer. I believe in the power of the mind and able to heal ourselves as well.

My body has been wrecked, beaten, chemically altered, and just downright played with to no end by so called professionals and doctors. I have seen everyone from Neurosurgeon's, Neurologists, Neuropsychiatrist's, Occupational Therapists, Pharmacologist's, Chiropractor's, LMT's, Physical Therapists, Ear, Nose and Throat specialists, Orthopedic Surgeon's you name it from the MRI to the CAT Scan I have had it. I have been put on drugs that were being given to people with seizure conditions to narcolepsy. You name it they messed with it. As a matter of fact I became part of a course that is being currently taught by one of my old doctors as a study to what can happen to a person with 'post traumatic stress syndrome" but guess what? They are studying the wrong person. I have been labeled as having everything from a bad vestibular disorder to ADD and ADHD.

All of them wrong, wrong, wrong. Now to when I was 5 years old. I fell out of a house that was two stories tall and was being built in my old neighborhood that I grew up in. I in no way place blame on anyone else but myself. I was doing wrong by playing in the house with 2 girls...but hey...they were 2 girls who worshipped me! How can I let them down? I clinically died that day folks. I fell through a hole next to a set of stairs head first onto the concrete. I woke up on a lawn by CPR from one of the girl's uncle's. I never had an opportunity that little to go out and play because my older brother and I would take care of my father while my mother would try and scrape by with a part time job as a bank teller so we could have money in the house period. The one day my mother gives the OK to go out and play...this happens.

So I cracked my skull, broke my hand, cracked my fingers, and was in the hospital for 10 days. The doctor's again said it was a miracle that I survived. Well, indeed it was looking back at just how bad it was and what I was to find out later. Doctor's said that there was no permanent damage.

I had ton's of problems with coordination, simple eye hand movements that took longer to develop for me, and my memory was not the greatest either. Yet I managed to accomplish 7 Honor Roll's, 14 Principal Commendation's, and 2 Presidential Academic Achievement Awards from then President Bush in high school. I also was a goalie in hockey, a center in football, and a right fielder in baseball. I also have played the drums for 18 years and of course picking out the masters as my influence...Neil Peart, Buddy Rich, Billy Cobham, Steve Gadd. Well, you don't see me sitting on any stages now do you? Hahahaahaha. So obviously I did not master any of those sports or drummers. But I never gave up!

The problem was I could do some of the most complex things and hit a ball a ton. But when it came to the most basic in moves and rudiments...I was flawed to no end. So I was always just average. Why? Why do I have a tough time with memory and coordination and why do the complex things seem to be so easy to figure out and do at other times? The answer is...that fall out of that house did more damage than anyone ever cared to look into.

I had indeed suffered brain, neck, and back damage which resulted in effecting just about everything I did growing up and to this day. It just took 2 bad car accidents to bring the real problems to light. I never have taken an illegal drug in my life and was never a big drinker. The last time I actually consumed an alcoholic beverage was in 1995. I have had the symptoms of positional vertigo, dizziness, horrible fatigue, nausea, neck,back,leg,head pain. Blurry vision and a host of other problems as well. All given a false panacea from doctors over the years and doing a number on me as well.

We enter 2001 in this story now. I am a proud father of a 2 yr old son who is my world. He is my life and everything that spins around it. Yet, I am also a failure on many levels. I have so much that I need to accomplish in my life like we all do and realize that we are indeed only immortal for a limited time. I worry about being too sick to take care of him one day or possibly inheriting the genetic code that brings the ill to me that my father had. Obvious issues I realize I have no control over so I live my life the best I can to not worry about the future so much and live each day and freeze each moment a little bit longer.

I was introduced to the name of a doctor this year who has changed my life. His name is Paul St.John. He is the answer to so many prayers and is a Retired Green Beret. He was in the special forces and treats the likes of Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, Dale Jarrett, Mario Lemuix, and other big name people. I just happened to be going to a massage therapist who was taught and being taught certain techniques and therapy from Paul. Paul is the first person to hand me the miracle of a correct diagnosis and the first person to also make me realize that I needed to find every single way possible to beat what I have and that I was indeed in for one of the biggest battles of my life but:YES...THERE IS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL.

I have been put on a time table that brings me to the end of 2003 until I should start to see improvement and really get results. I am even down on a stabilizing medication that is a horror on the muscles and body and should hopefully be off of it all together by next year sometime. I just need to go in and get my knee fixed as I have been walking with a fractured patella and meniscus for 2 yrs since I injured it at a part time job I took. Insurance companies are another story...believe me on that.

The sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle is one of the most complex in the body. It functions as both a short range (clavicular head) and long range (sternal head) rotator, an upper cervical extensor, a flexor of the cervical spine on the thoracic spine, a lateral flexor, as well as a very important source of equilibrium sense. Likewise, when it becomes dysfunctional as a result of containing myofascial trigger points (TPs), it can present a complex clinical picture.The pain referral pattern of the SCM includes pain over the cheekbone, in the forehead, on top of the head, in and behind the ear, over the chin, over the SC joint, over the forehead, and deep in the throat. The throat referral is a commonly overlooked cause of sore throat, often mistaken for pharyngitis. The patient will often feel a fullness in the throat, especially upon swallowing, which feels like a partial obstruction. The forehead referral pattern is one of the very few instances, if not the only instance, where referred pain can cross the midline, as the pain is frequently felt in the contralateral forehead area in a patient suffering from a TP in the clavicular division of the SCM.In addition to pain, TPs in the SCM can cause autonomic and dysequilibrial symptoms. In the sternal division these relate to the ipsilateral nose and eye, and include lacrimation, conjunctivitis, pseudoptosis, blurred vision, coryza, and maxillary sinus congestion. The pseudoptosis is caused by spasm of the orbicularis oculi muscle, which lies within the pain reference zone of this section of the muscle.

The clavicular division is the part of the muscle that can produce dysequilibrial symptoms. As stated earlier, this is a short range cervical rotator, and as with other short range cervical rotators, such as the splenius capitis and obliquus capitis inferior, is extremely important to our sense of equilibrium.

Symptoms from TPs in the clavicular division include postural dysequilibrium, vertigo syncope (when severe), nausea, ataxia, and dysmetria, as well as localized sweating and blanching due to vasoconstriction to the frontal area of referred pain. These symptoms will usually be brought on by sudden turning of the head which will stimulate the trigger points, and can be reproduced by pincer palpation of the muscle.

Of course, the dysequilibrial symptoms must be differentially diagnosed from labyrinthine disease, cerebelar disease, posterior column disease, vertebrobasilar arterial insufficiency, cervicogenic dysequilibrium from upper cervical joint dysfunction, and lumbogenic dysequilibrium from lumbar joint and/or muscular dysfunction (rare).Treatment of the SCM TP can also be a complex matter, as underlying factors can be involved. Ischemic compression, spray and stretch, and/or postisometric relaxation are quite effective, but these must be done with the patient supine in order to ensure that the muscle will be completely relaxed. It is important to look at the upper cervical spine for joint dysfunction, as well as the sternoclavicular joint and the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). Of course, motion palpation procedures should be applied to the entire spine in order to detect joint dysfunction at lower levels as well. The patient's static posture and movement patterns, especially cervical flexion, sit-to-stand, and swallowing, should also be looked at.

Effective treatment of the sternocleidomastoid syndrome can be very rewarding to both doctor and patient if discovered at an early state. The symptoms mimic other conditions that have a wide range and often are not even considered as the main factor in what the patient actually has. As when it is severe, it can be very distressing and the patient can lose faith in ever finding an answer. Knowing how to diagnose and treat myofascial pain and dysfunction syndromes is essential in successfully managing these cases.

So it is not pretty but at the same time it is not the end of my life either. It presents some major problems in my life no doubt. Having been hit with this has ruined relationship after relationship because of lack of understanding for what was really going on. I was frustrated to no end not knowing what in the hell was actually wrong and what was happening to me. I had to go through a long battle to convince my son's Mom that I need him in my life and that my condition would not affect my being able to do my part in raising him. It was very difficult. I finally won and she gave in out of the blue one day after my prayers had been answered by St.Jude and the great God above.

I have stood out with fellow Freepers in the pouring rain outside the EOC in bad dizzy spells acting like they were not there. In pain from a horrible migraine and ringing in the ears yet still able to fire off a million words a minute at 2,000 dumb ass Gorons and paid Liberals outside the Palm Beach County Courthouse...on 3 different occasions. I stood and marched and walked miles and miles with the condition holding signs and screaming my head off for George W. Bush. A man who totally changed my life. He became a huge inspiration to me through the stories of his own struggles and personal problems. His constant bashing he takes for his speaking problem and people thinking he was not smart enough for the task yet always in the end proving everyone wrong.

With the exception of the speaking problem I feel I have so much in common with him it is amazing. From the day he came out and did not pardon Karla Faye Tucker on national television...I knew this was my man. God Bless him and Thank God for him. He along with very few people in my life and history has changed me to become more than just a footnote in history.

It is Christmas time and bad news has struck again. My job was part of a company wide budget cut and was let go 2 weeks ago. It has not been easy and I was constantly being watched and criticized for my writing and opinions. But I will not conform to something I am not and I have a feeling that because some of my skills are not the best 100% of the time I was one of the people they could afford to cut. My background is in radio/television and I thought anything I could land in the media to make a difference I would take and do my best with. Well, I obviously was not able to hold my own. It is a tough business and I have not given up on it.

I have worked on a book that I am trying to finish. I still try to write as much freelance stuff as possible and my resume is being sent out more than Heidi Fleiss sent women over to Charlie Sheen's house. I have an audition next week for 2 radio stations with a partner of mine for 2 slot's open for my own program. I am not expecting a miracle to happen but at this point...I will take it if it does!

One of the worst feelings in the world is feeling the burden without a doubt of not being able to provide correctly for your family. I started the new year out by getting into my first home. I had been renting all along. I now have to sell and move to a different market. Sometimes life throws these things at you and you do not know what or where you are going but you just go. I love what I stand for. I love my son. It pains me to know I cannot give him the Christmas he deserves as a child. I know my mother did an incredible job under her circumstances when I was a kid his age. I will get through this.

So in this season of spirit and hope I ask of one thing from my friends and my cyber family here at FreeRepublic...your prayers. No matter who or what you pray to that you give some thought and prayer to help me finally reach that beacon that seems so far away right now. I really want to personally thank someone on here but they choose to remain nameless who sent my son a Christmas gift. You know who you are and as tears fill my eyes...I can never thank you enough for just being who you are. You should really let me tell everyone your name. But I will respect your wishes and just say thank you for listening to me off of FreeRepublic and for allowing me to bring one more smile for even an extra minute to my boy. I will never forget it.

In closing this manifesto here I want to wish you all the best of wishes and thanks for a hell of a year on FreeRepublic. I originally had signed up under another name during the impeachment scandal and had moved and forgotten the screen name I had. But Gene McDonald aka Seeking The Truth had persuaded me to sign back up again last October when we were out screaming for Bush in the street. Hmmm that doesn't sound right there.....:) oh you know what I am saying.

FreeRepublic is as I have said before like my home away from home. It is like my diary sometimes. I am able to post how I am feeling in words or pictures or sometimes both at the same time. Knowing that I am leaving my mark a little bit in the open...and I kinda like it like that. It brings you intouch with so many walks of life out there and this site provides a service like no other.

Finally I want to thank Jim Rob for letting me post this. I want to thank him for his service to this country and for all he does in making some people's day by just being able to log on here. So many nights go by where I am lost and have no clue about my life and direction. Being 27 years old and a single father puts you in an odd category out there and yet sometimes it feels that everything is gonna be allright....because FreeRepublic was here to read and listen to me when I needed them the most.

Peace On Earth...except for Al Queda,The Clinton's, Al Gore, Democrats, Socialists,Communists,bin-Laden, The Taliban,Gary Condit....etc.

"Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring - not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all." (Romans 4:16)

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41:10)

Heavenly Father, thank You for allowing us to approach You in intercession for our brother. Thank You that because of Jesus' sacrifice, You do not hold our transgressions against us, but rather embrace us as Your sons and daughters, and allow us continued communion with You...for even broken vessels can be put to good use in the Kingdom.

Father, in Your Son's name I ask that You bless this brother and his family. Remove his physical afflictions and allow him many more wonder-filled years with his beloved son. As you blessed his father with eight more years of life, I ask that you so bless my brother...even to ten times eight years to be with his family. Father, you know the family's financial condition. You know the hopes and dreams and needs of each member of this household. I ask You please, Dearest Father, to richly provide for every need no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Fill every heart with Your limitless joy and certainty not only in our futures here on Earth, but also with You in the vastness and greatness of the Universe. Provide a good and rewarding job to my brother, and allow his son to grow up in the safety and security that this father wishes to provide...as is his right and joyous obligation. Thank You Father for Your many great blessings! Thank You for FreeRepublic where we can meet and join with each other in loving support. Thank You Jesus for Your magnificent sacrifice...all because You loved us from before the beginnings of our world. In Jesus' name I have asked these things...for the support and comfort of all my brothers and sisters, that we might look to this brother and proclaim Your mighty arm does indeed sustain us...Amen!

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