Sickness. In October I started having pain in my head and neck, the pain wouldn't go away. Heather, the wonderful wife that she is, took me to the doctor to get help. The doctor gave me all kinds of muscle relaxer and pain killers and nothing worked. Finally they got me something that relieve the pain for about an hour. I would take it have relief for an hour and then wait another three hours before I could take it again.
I lived this way for about a week. I didn't get any sleep and we kept going to the doctor or the emergency room, because the doctor would send me there. Finally I got out of the bath at around three in the morning, the bath was the only thing that gave me any real relief but I can't sleep in the bath I would drown. Anyway I got out of the bath got dressed and lied down in bed. That was the end. I don't remember anything that happened after that.
Heather woke up and noticed I was blue! She couldn't wake me! She called the ambulance they came and took me to the hospital. The doctors told Heather that I was probably brain dead and she would have to start deciding when to take me off of life support. An hour after they told her this I woke up.
I came to with a tube in my throat and my hands tied down. My first thought was "yes, I finally got some sleep". Then I tried to reach up because something was in my mouth and guess what my hands are tied down. I was a little pissed off. Anyway they told me what happened and then I started my long road to recovery. So what happened? Well I stopped breathing. It is called respiratory arrest. My heart never stopped beating luckily but I had no oxygen in my system.
Well as it turns out I had sleep apnea, and on top of that I had taken ton of depressors to deal with the pain, that my body relaxed to the point that when my air way collapsed like normal I couldn't wake myself up. Sleep apnea is when your throat becomes blocked by itself usually your body will wake up enough to restart your breathing.
Now you are wondering what the pain came from in the first place huh. Well that I can not be sure of. We have a theory, a pretty good one, it is a sulfa allergy. Not a normal sulfa allergy where you get a rash everywhere and a fever no. A sulfa allergy that causes my bodies systems to shut down and causes me great amounts of pain that cannot be masked be normal pain medication like ibuprofen or Tylenol. My neurologist believes that the allergy caused my body to go autoimmune and attack itself. He says this can take from a couple of months to a year to clear up. He also says that every time I get sick in the meantime it will lengthen the healing process because my immune system goes on the attack when I get sick and everytime it does that that autoimmune response continues.
Now you are thinking what is sulfa and should I avoid it? Well sulfa is a chemical bond between sulfer and nitrogen. It is found in proteins in your body. It is the structure that everything is wrapped around so normally it is never exposed in your body. However it is a bond prevalent in many medications. More abundently in antibiotics of a specific family. Anyway it is not found in normal foods so no need to worry about that. Unless your protein like cow and chicken and milk have had medication given to them..... Well lets just say you might want to switch to organic grain fed meats. More expensive yes but that is the prce you have to pay to be safe. Me I can't afford it so I eat as little meat as possible. You can get many of your proteins from beans and nuts. So just do what you think is right. Man I didn't mean this post to get preachy about food and nutrition.
I am still recovering. I am still in pain. I have a persistent cough that won't go away. My brothers laugh at me and call me Golem. Oh well. So things are going better. Slowly I am recovering. Slowly I am gaining strength. Slowly slowly slowly says the sloth.
