Instead of telling you all about the 6 tests and a presentation I have next week, or the hideous headache that has deprived me of sanity and sleep, I’m going to go off in an entirely different direction. Basically I’m procrastinating. But passionately and stuff.

What I really want to talk about is this. Because reading it makes me mad at this country. You can click safely, it’s not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama, it’s about logic and fairness.

And children.

Twenty years ago, a 9 year old boy shot a 7 year old girl, with a rifle, out of his bedroom window. The little girl died.

It is, in no uncertain terms, a horrific and tragic situation. But, the way that our justice system handled it was equally horrific. That 9 year old boy was tried as an adult in court. That boy who was 7 years from driving and 9 years from being declared an adult by the government, was declared one in a court.

The reasoning was because he had lied when he was initially asked about what had happened and because he fell asleep during court hearings. They said that lying was truly an adult behavior. I call bullshit. My 8 year old cousin regularly tells his mother that he doesn’t know how to turn off the Wii. That lie is not an adult behavior, it’s a childish one. It’s the act of a kid who thinks that he can get a few more minutes of video gaming if he tells a lie. It shows a disconnect with reality, not a level of maturity on par with someone 10 years his senior. If lying is an adult behavior, than every four year old I’ve ever met should be getting driver’s licenses and be old enough to buy cigarettes soon.

Just recently an 11 year old boy shot and killed his father. And was tried as an adult.

As much as I try to consider this rationally and think about the need to incarcerate and rehabilitate all those who commit murders, I cannot understand how this is reasonable. That child is clearly not an adult in any way, shape or form. It is a child and should be treated as such.

Think about it this way- if a man had sex with an 11 year old girl, he would absolutely (and correctly) be charged with statutory rape, because that 11 year old is clearly not an adult. But if that same 11 year old child killed someone, they could be tried as an adult.

Is age dependent upon the situation? Are children only children as long as their mistakes are minor? Because it seems like we’re happy to label them as children until it suits us otherwise, until we become scared by something they do. To me it seems like this child, who did something truly horrible, deserves a chance to grow up. They deserve treatment. Do we really think that at age 11 there’s no chance that we can turn this life around? That because in the 5th grade they made a mistake, that they cannot be taught differently?

Children’s minds are painfully impressionable. They can be shaped, molded. And sending them to prison with real adults, is not the answer to a situation like this. Holding them to adult standards is not reasonable. They do not have the reasoning skills, nor the understanding of the world that adults do.

I’ve been milling over this article since Friday and the more I think about it, the more I am disappointed with the justice system and those who populate it. In our haste to punish for crimes, we forget that those who committed them are people too. And we forget to consider them when we set out to rectify their wrongs. You cannot punish every person in the same way and you can’t make a child equal to an adult. They simply aren’t the same.

I think if we all took a step back and considered that we’re talking about 9 and 11 year olds, we’d see the absolute insanity that was applied to the cases of these two children. Treating children as adults is not reasonable, nor responsible.

And as adults, it is our responsibility to be both.

A few weeks ago, I got an email asking me to participate in a celebration. I waited, as usual, to the very last second to do my part, and didn’t realize until this morning on my way to school that today was the day.

You see, a year ago today, my internet friend Maggie created Violence Unsilenced. She created a website that was devoted to giving victims of violence of all kinds, a voice. She gave us a place to come together, to tell our stories, to get support.

Prior to Violence Unsilenced, I had never told my story to anyone. I had not told my mother. I had not told my husband. I had not told my closest friends.

I had no voice. I had the fears. I had the memories.

But I had no voice.

To say thank you to Maggie seems so insufficient. It seems so tiny compared to what she has given me. Maggie and the supporters and commenters at Violence Unsilenced gave me a safe space to share my secret. They gave me advice, they gave me a little bit of myself back.

101 of us have told our stories, have spoken out, have unsilenced ourselves to the violence we experienced. 101 of us have been given a chance to raise awareness to the sad reality that many men and women face.

And while the words thank you are no where near as profound as I wish they were, they’re really all I have. Thank you Maggie, for creating this place for us. Thank you to the other 100 people who have participated and to the thousands of comments that have supported us in this journey, in this moment of triumph.

I spoke out. Have you?

Internet, I am sick.

I have an undiagnosed, but very clear case of baby fever.

It started months ago, and it has been building. But it seems like suddenly half the people in my life are pregnant, have a baby or are in the process of trying to have another. There are literally babies everywhere.

And I freaking want one.

I know what you’re going to say. Think about the cost! Think about the sleepless nights! Think about the chaos a baby brings!

Yea yea yea. I hear you.

And yet. I want one. Or two. Or twelve.

I want their tiny soft hair and their infant noises. I want the fingers to curl around my fingers. I want to take the best of me and the best of Slappy and see it in a child. I want to see his eyes and my skin color on a child that has his (normal sized) brain and my baking abilities.

I daydream about the day I tell my family and friends that we’re having a child and all the excitement that comes with bringing in new life.

About half of my dreams these days revolve around babies. It’s like my biological clock is a bomb and the ticking is so loud I can scarcely hear above it. I have career aspirations, I am in school working my ass off for them, but if we’re being perfectly honest, the thing I want to be the most is a mother.

But the snag isn’t just in poor timing. It isn’t just in lack of funds, or the life obligations or the inability to quickly stop my birth control. The snag is that there are major questions about whether I’ll even ever be able to get pregnant. Whether all the damage I’ve done to my body will allow me to have the child we’re hoping to bring into this world in about 2 and a half years when all those other snags will fade away.

And so for now, while my biological clock goes largely ignored and the ticking grows louder and louder, I am left to my daydreams and to snuggling other peoples’ babies. Good thing everyone in my life has one.

It’s going to be a long 2 and a half years.

(Also, for the record, I’ve had this post in my drafts pile for a while now and it has nothing to do with the lovely Meghan’s big announcement today. Though I firmly intend to snuggle the hell out of that kid someday.)

A lot of people harbor resentment on Valentine’s Day. It’s hard when you’re single, it’s hard when your relationship is struggling, it’s hard when you miss someone in your life. Basically it’s only a good day for like 1 out of every 10 people. And the other 9 people absolutely hate that one happy asshole.

I’m sort of neutral on it. I love my husband with every fiber of my being. He is what keeps me relatively sane, keeps me grounded. He loves me even when he probably shouldn’t. He puts up with me when I can barely stand myself. And if I’m being honest, I really like having a day set aside to celebrate that. Yep, I’m that asshole.

But this year is a little different. You see, our (controversial) trip to New Orleans got sidelined by mother nature. I was only going to stay until Monday, so when Delta rebooked us for Sunday morning, I knew it just wouldn’t happen. With less than 24 hours in NOLA, I wouldn’t make it to any parades, I’d barely get 2 meals and that’s just a lot of pressure changes in a short period of time.

I’m bummed because I was looking forward to the trip, to seeing friends, to being in the city that I love, but it’s out of my hands (I’m actually sort of getting good at relinquishing control. Someone call my shrink and tell him that I don’t need him). My trip was scheduled to end Monday so I could be back at school, but Slappy doesn’t have to be back at work until next week. He chose this week of vacation so he could go to Mardi Gras, and at my insistence, he’s there now. He didn’t want to leave, but though he might not ever admit it, he needed some time away. He has picked up so much of my slack lately, I just wanted him to go have some fun.

So we did Valentine’s Day stuff last night. We went to dinner and a movie (Avatar, which I saw because I lost a bet, but surprisingly really enjoyed. I just can’t imagine how every many who’s ever seen it doesn’t feel totally ripped off for spending 3 hours in a chick flick) and just spent time being with each other. It was exactly what we needed. I can’t even begin to tell you how lovely it was.

And with all that said, I can see why as an in love asshole, you might not understand why I’m not all rainbows and unicorns today (besides the fact that really? have I ever been unicorns and rainbows about anything?) The real reason I struggle with celebrating Valentine’s day is because it has another memory tied to it, one less lovely than the dinners and dates and gifts that have been exchanged in my 6 Valentine’s with Slappy.

Four years ago today, I was diagnosed with Chiari Malformation. Four years ago, I started this battle with my brain.

I’m not a huge anniversary keeper most of the time, but this date is hard to forget. It’s hard not to remember that on Valentine’s Day 2006, I drove to my ophthalmologist’s office to get the results of my MRI. It’s hard not to remember the way the doctor sounded scared for me. The way he told me to call a neurologist as soon as I got out of his office. The phone call I made to Slappy who was 2000 miles away.

Even with the panic, the diagnosis wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, I felt relieved. We knew what was wrong. We knew the options. We new the next steps.

I thought we knew the fix.

And so the reason I feel conflicted today is that it’s been 4 years now, and even though we’ve jumped through every hoop we can find, we still don’t have the answers. After one brain surgery, 10 bajillion MRIs and 3 lumbar punctures, I still have pain that we can neither treat nor fix. The frustration is great and it’s gotten really difficult to keep my chin up and hope that by next year, things will be different. It just seems unlikely. Impossible.

And so this day is a double-edged sword, a wonderful victory and a deafening blow to my life.

Today I celebrate love, because imperfect though it may be, it is the thing I treasure most in my life. It is what keeps me going. And at the same time, I mourn the loss of normal, the onset of pain, the thing that stops me dead in my tracks. And I cling to hope that next year, I’ll be able to focus only on the good and that the 5th year from the day of diagnosis will be the first year of real relief.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

As with most things in life, it is easier to see and remember the negative things that chronic pain has brought into my life. It’s unfortunate, but true. But I would be lying if I told you that nothing good has come out of it.

A few months ago I wrote a blog post (somewhat, um, passive aggressively) to a family member that I was struggling with greatly. We couldn’t hardly be in the same room together. She couldn’t find an ounce of sympathy or empathy for things that were happening with me and instead settled for harsh criticism.

I left Thanksgiving ready to never see her again. It was sad, but things were just so bad.

In the months since then, things have changed so much I can hardly believe the words I wrote months ago. The relationship that was essentially completely demolished, that I was ready to completely sever, has grown by leaps and bounds. It has become a relationship that I have wanted my whole life. She has become one of my biggest supports, one of my best cheerleaders and one of the people I can talk to about anything.

I had given up on us. I had given up on ever feeling close to her. A closeness I have wanted, a closeness I had never had (this is not to say I had no role in our troubled relationship, it was just never what I wanted it to be). I am certain that we will have more fights, that not all days will be easy, they can’t be. But the incredible difference that these few short months have made is amazing.

I could spend hours telling you about how my life has changed in the past 6 months, or even in the past 2 years since the surgery. My energy levels are so low that evenings are a major struggle. When I get home from school, I go directly to the couch or bed, just trying to finish what I have to do before crashing like a ton of bricks. Simply put, my life is entirely different than I ever imagined. And in general, the difference is not for the better.

But there are these few silver lined things, like this relationship, that have emerged. And while it is easier for me to think about what I have lost, tonight I’m clinging to what I’ve gained. To a relationship that has been resurrected.

To a truly good thing that has emerged from this cloud of ugliness.

I have to be honest with you, I’m sort of stuck tonight. There are things I want to say, to write, to tell you. But I’m feeling stifled. I’m feeling closed off on my own blog.

It all started with a blog comment that I got earlier today. A part of me wants to believe that the person who left the comment was well intended. But then I read it and realize that, no. It’s not. It was intended to be unkind. And that bullshit baffles me. Who does that?

And as much as I want to let it go and walk away, there are things that need to be said. Because if people really believe what was said in that comment, there is much to clarify.

First, (and honestly, this is what bothers me the most), I have to address the insinuation that I think my pain is worse than everyone else’s. At no point have I ever said or, for what it’s worth, thought, that my pain is worse than anyone else’s. One of the things I struggle with the most is people in my life feeling guilty about complaining about their pain because of mine. I cannot stand when others feel like their pain isn’t real or isn’t serious because they compare it this headache. Because it is.

Pain is pain. I have nothing but sympathy and empathy for anyone in pain, whether it’s short or long term, whether it’s neurological or musculoskeletal. Pain, as a rule, blows. Mine is not special, it’s not unique and I hope that you realize that I know that.

Next, I guess I haven’t done a good job of explaining the way my life works. You see, I’ve had a headache everyday for 6 months. Sometimes the pain still surprises me, but I have learned to cope with a lot of it. It is still crappy and hard to deal with, but to say that I shouldn’t travel because of it, or go on vacations because I’m in pain is insane.

And yes, the past few weeks have been a clusterfuck of health issues. And if you think that they were not considered when I decided to go to New Orleans this weekend, you are mistaken. I wouldn’t be going if my doctors or my husband (who incidentally, IS a doctor) or I thought it was unsafe. I whine a lot, but I’m not stupid.

I realize that I have spent a lot of time discussing school lately, because it is a great stress in my life, just as it was last semester. And if you’ll recall, with a great deal of effort (AND with a trip to New Orleans in there too…), I passed all my classes. In fact, I did better than a very significant portion of my classmates. Not because I’m anything special, but because I worked hard. Just like I am now. Just like I will for the next 2.5 years.

I appreciate the concern, but I am not in danger of being kicked out of my program. And dude, I absolutely know that I’m in over my head. That’s pretty much the story of my life. But anyway, yes, my school makes a lot of accommodations for me, but I’m also in a graduate program for health professionals. It’s a graduate program taught exclusively by people who work with patients with disease and disability. I’m not a traditional student, but so far, I’m still a successful one.

And knowing how much I have ahead of me, knowing that I have a lot to catch up on, I’ve already informed my husband and my friends who I’m staying with that a great deal of this weekend will be spent indoors, studying. I very much want to pass all of my classes, and if I thought that this weekend away would prevent that from happening, I wouldn’t be going. It goes back to that whole not stupid thing.

If you really think that I’m making mistakes or that I need to consider something, there is a time, a place and a manner. Leaving snarky comments where you mock my pain doesn’t fit any of those. Same thing with twitter accounts that are used solely to mock someone for living their life and sharing bits of it with others.

The vast majority of people who stop here and leave comments or send emails are encouraging, supportive and helpful. And so it’s especially unfortunate that the echos of those who are not tend to reverberate the loudest. Perhaps eventually I’ll learn to drown out the ugly, but for now, I just wish that we could all grow up and treat each other well.

And until then, I guess there will be more days like today. More ugliness and more explaining. More days where I wonder if it’s even worth it to continue writing. When I consider walking away for good.

Last Friday, the world spun around me. It was one of those truly awful experiences that is burned into my mind forever.

Since then, it has become my life. It has become normal. Just another thing on the list. Sitting in class each day, I’ve come to expect the world to spin. I’ve come to expect the feeling of gravity dropping. The feeling of being totally out of control in my own head.

I’m lucky that the racing heart has stopped, because there’s a real limit to what I can handle and we’re dangerously close to pushing it.

I know that I should call my neurosurgeon, or the worthless neurologist, but I’m waiting, for a couple of different reasons.

I have had a cold that became a sinus infection since early last week and it just won’t quite go away. I woke up today with even more congestion than yesterday, so I’m not sure which side of this cold I’m on. Since I know that congestion can lead to dizziness, I want to wait that out, just in case. I’d hate to waste time for come regular old sinus or ear pressure.

But more than that, I just don’t feel like being poked, prodded or tested more. I did a little research and found that unsurprisingly, low csf pressure can cause dizziness. I’ve had some before, but this feels different. It feels constant. It feels shitty.

And if I’m being perfectly honest, I also fear that the neurosurgeon will tell me what I don’t want to hear. I’m afraid he’s going to say that there’s nothing he can do. He’s alluded to it before, but I don’t know if I can hear that. I don’t know if I can face that reality yet.

In the back of my head I know I’ll have to, and probably soon, but not yet.

And so I’m giving myself until the end of the week. I’m waiting for my sinuses to clear, for my mind to clear, to see if this weekend away makes any difference, for better or for worse, before taking the next step. Before making the next call.

Before asking for help again. And before facing the possibility of not being able to receive any.

I’ve sat down at the computer a few times in the past few days and stared at the blinking cursor, unsure of what to write. I have been in my head since Friday, some of the time it was because I was overwhelmed, some of the time it was because it was the only way to escape life. To escape reality.

Things have been said to, about and by me this week that ring in my ears. Things that are all true, that were not said to hurt, but that were said. That needed to be said. That no matter how hard I try, cannot be unheard.

It’s clear that my pain, my problems have extended beyond me. It’s clear that they do not just change my life, that they change others. And while I knew this before, I guess I failed to appreciate the degree to which they do. I forget how my health changes my husband’s days. I forget how much work my friends have to undergo just to help me catch up in school. I don’t realize the energy that my teachers expend trying to accommodate me.

Earlier this week, one of my classmates, upon overhearing the drama of the dizzy/heart thing on Friday, commented that if she was me, she’d have quit school already. I know that on some level, it was meant as a compliment. She was impressed that I had managed as much as I had, impressed with my perseverance. I know that.

But I keep replaying it in my head. Over and over. She’d quit if she were me.

And what I hear is that other people see that things are so shitty, that if they were in my position, they’d quit. And then I wonder if I should. I wonder if it’s worth it. I wonder if, even if I can pass my exams and graduate in 2 and a half years, if I’ll be able to work or if I will spend the rest of my life fighting for a tiniest sliver of normalcy.

I wonder if it’s worth it.

My husband asked me a question this weekend that I can’t wrap my head around. He wondered if since my unhappiness is tied to my health and my health doesn’t appear to be getting better anytime soon, if I thought I’d be unhappy forever. He didn’t ask it to be an asshole. He asked it because it needed to be asked. He asked it because he bears the brunt of my health and the havoc it reeks on those around me. He asked because my happiness, or lack thereof, is very directly impacting his.

And I sat there, sort of stunned.

Because well, maybe. I don’t think I’m depressed. I don’t think it’s a chemical imbalance. I think that I am unhappy because I am in pain. I think I am not myself because right now, my life kind of blows. But he’s right. there’s no end in sight. If the blood patch was going to seal up any tiny leaks that could be lowering my intracranial pressure and causing my headache, it should’ve already. And as much as I try to pretend like it isn’t, my head is still hurting. Every damn day.

It’s been 6 months. I am miserable.

What if it lasts 6 years?

6 decades?

It’s just hard to imagine how life plays out from here. It’s hard to get out of my head, to see the world around me, to see how much I’ve hurt those I love, those I need.

I don’t know what else there is to say or do. I don’t know how life moves on from here or what’s next. I don’t even know what the next hour will bring, let alone the next day or week. I can live with not knowing, that’s a fact of life. But I can’t live with the fear that comes with chronic pain. The fear that comes with seeing your life harm others.

The fear of life being the way it is, forever.

I don’t fear that tomorrow will bring something new. I fear that tomorrow won’t bring anything different than today.

Today did not start out the way I had planned. In fact, rather the opposite. And there will be time to talk about that, because it needs to be talked about. But not now. Not tonight.

I know that there are many people who think that football is silly and that what happened today was just a game. And maybe it was. But it was a game that meant a lot for a city that I love. It was one that meant more than just a victory in a sporting game.

The Saints won the Superbowl today. 4 seasons ago, people said that they’d have to take the Saints out of New Orleans and all the New Orleanians were outraged. Tonight, I hope everyone can see the symbol of hope that this team has been for the city. And more than that, how the city of New Orleans has risen up beside their team.

Congratulations to the Saints, and to the city who refused to give up on their team.

I realized last night that going to school this morning would mark the first Friday of classes I had attended all semester. Because first there was the failed myelogram attempt, then the myelogram, then the spinal fluid leak/blood patch. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to being at school all day Friday, but I was feeling especially proud of myself for making it through this week. It hasn’t been easy, to say the very least.

At around noon I was sitting in the last part of my morning lecture, totally engrossed in what was surprisingly interesting material, presented by my very favorite instructor, when something just went wrong.

It was as if the entire room moved around my head. But not in the way that I usually get dizzy. It was such a foreign feeling that for a moment, I was sure I was having a seizure.

The spinning continued for what felt like an eternity, but was probably really only 10-20 seconds. And then my vision normalized and the room was still once again.

But in the still room, my heart began to pound. I assumed it was anxiety and I slouched down to try to make myself flatter and took big deep breaths. I’ve done the racing heart thing before, I thought I could manage it. But nothing I did seemed to matter. It just beat faster and faster.

I finally grabbed my friend who was sitting next to me and asked her to feel my pulse. She put her hand on my wrist for a second and before I knew it, she was pulling me out of class and into the hallway. On her way out she grabbed two of our instructors (who are health care professionals). When I got into the hallway, one of the instructors tried to take my pulse. But it was literally so fast that she couldn’t keep count, she guessed it was probably near 200 beats per minute, but she couldn’t get a good count. I tried to focus on my breathing and on relaxing, but even after a few minutes of calm breathing my heart rate wouldn’t normalize and before long I was lightheaded and losing feeling in my fingers and toes.

The laid me down in the middle of the hallway, made me drink water, put a cool cloth on my neck and very very slowly, my heart slowed. To 150 beats per minute (my normal resting heart rate is between 60 and 70, when I exercise, I have to really seriously focus to break 110).

The decision was made that I would go to the student health center to be checked out, but not before the entire second year class, all 96 of them, got out of a class in the room next to ours and walked by. Because all I really needed was a heaping pile of embarrassment on top of the rapid heart rate, lightheadedness and trembling that I couldn’t control.

We got to the student health center the instructors had to leave, so it was me, all alone in a room, waiting for the doctor. My blood pressure was high, my pulse was still 120 and I was alone. I am still pretty impressed with how I handled the anxiety, but there were moments where I thought I would surely pass out alone in the room or have a heart attack and no one would be there to help me.

After an EKG, urinalysis, an intramuscular injection of an anti-nausea/dizziness med, 2 failed and 1 successful attempt at blood work, we found the likely source of the problem. I’ve been fighting off a small cold all week (one I had almost successfully convinced myself was allergies, but no) and I had developed a mild sinus infection, but the bigger problem was that through the production of massive snot quantities and my body trying to recover from last week’s spinal fluid leak, that I was dehydrated. Nevermind that I’ve been upping my fluid intake and taking super good care of myself, my urine sample showed that I wasn’t just dehydrated, I was really dehydrated.

We are still waiting on the bloodwork to make sure that there’s nothing else going on, but it would appear that I need to deal with the sinus infection and dehydration and all will be well again. If I get dizziness anything like today, my heart races or if my headache gets dramatically worse I’m supposed to go to an ER post haste. But I think I can speak for everyone in my life when I say that we really don’t want to do that.

I’ve relived the unpleasantry of this morning in my head about a hundred times today. The feeling of helplessness, the terror of the room spinning, the heart beating so fast I thought it might burst. It certainly wasn’t the worst thing I’ve experienced, but the way it caught me off guard, scared me and completely incapacitated me, was terrifying.

It was horribly scary and frustrating all at once. I missed yet another class, I drew attention to myself that I DID NOT WANT, and even though I’ve been trying so hard to take good care of myself, I’ve failed again. I know it’s not a huge deal but I have worked so hard this week to do what needed to be done, to get enough sleep, to pace myself so I’d have the energy for 5 full days of class. And despite all that, I had a heart rate so fast that a medical professional couldn’t count it and vertigo that has left a nightmarish memory I may never shake.

It just seems like making it through one week of school really shouldn’t be this complicated.