Month: May 2019

The Run for the Roses

Courtesy of
https://www.kentuckyderby.com

In case you don’t know, the Kentucky Derby is also known as “The Run for the Roses.” Why? You see, the winning horse gets draped with this beautiful rose garland. And what a crazy horserace this year’s Run for the Roses was!

First of all, the track was a muddy mess, making the outcome more uncertain; The Triple Crown races —The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes— are for young horses only (3-year-olds, teenagers really), and most of them don’t have experience with muddy tracks. Second, it was won by a DQ; In all of 145 years of Kentucky Derby history this has never happened. If you had bet on Country House to Win you would have collected a cool +$132 on your $2 ticket (one usually gets cents on this kind of bets). Most people think Maximum Security was robbed (myself included). It was so crazy even the Donald got involved.

I have a longtime tradition to watch the Triple Crown races (and making personal bets) with Mik —That’s my nickname for my beautiful wife; it goes back to when we were dating: I learned her maiden name and mispronounced it as MacFerren; she promptly corrected me to MicFerren— We watched the race at one of our all-time favorite places, Stadium Brew while sipping mint juleps. I asked the pretty bartender to dial a couple of sports screens to the race, so we could watch it. The manager went one step further and turned all the TV’s to the Kentucky Derby, with sound, which is not usually done!

Someday, Mik and I will attend all the Triple Crown races. She has promised to wear an extravagant hat; All I have to do is to get hammered and lose exotic bets. [Insert emoticon or emoji here] © Mik and I, had also agreed that this year we wouldn’t have a Triple Crown winner before learning about this development.

By the way, I came across this video while watching sports documentaries, during my early-day warm-ups with one of my caregivers; Even if you don’t like horse racing, it’s well worth watching for its amazing story.

Open Letter to my Neurologist

Courtesy of
https://www.amazon.com

I was referred to a neurologist to get rid of an abdominal pain right on top of my bladder; I wear a catheter: I used to wear a supra-pubic and switched to a foley, hoping to get rid of the excruciating pain associated with changing it every three weeks. My bladder stoma didn’t heal properly and my urologist gave me a referral after treating me surgically.

I will not mention my neurologist’s name to protect his identity. However, the events described are real and have cost me much pain beyond the physical ones.

Instead of treating my abdominal pain, my neurologist decided to treat me for psychological problems (real or imagined [Insert emoticon or emoji here] ©) aided by the insecurities and anxieties of my wife. He proceeded to waste weeks of my life administering unnecessary tests and prescribing dangerous drugs; To this day I still suffer from my abdominal pain. Of course, the main party to be blamed for this situation, it’s really me; I should have done something about it right away. And I finally have.

At first, I was very happy to get off the valproic acid improperly prescribed by a psychiatrist that my wife took me to see, under false pretenses; In my frustration, I would become belligerent whenever she wasted my time and money and I could not do anything about it —Valproic acid is a medicine given to epileptics; its organic compound is related to the ‘cicuta‘, a poisonous plant used since ancient times to kill people. It is a dangerous drug!— Instead my neurologist prescribed Lexapro, which is what was originally prescribed by Craig Hospital when I suffered my skiing misfortune (It’s part of Craig Hospital’s protocol for all SCI patients).

I am not a crazy old coot and I did not stop taking these dangerous drugs cold turkey. I did my research to safely discontinue their use. I am not against taking medicines, if one suffers from mental illness. But I am against taking psychotropic drugs to withstand life problems. Ultimately, life problems need to be confronted in order to resolve them.

I can remember one time when I failed terribly as a husband and a father! It was the late summer of 1998; After 19 years of hard work, three major software distributors had agreed to resell my software, AutoDISPATCH™ C/S, at the national level. My efforts had finally paid off! It happened in Cincinnati, Ohio at the Solomon Software Annual Conference; And the best part was that my beautiful wife was there to witness it and help me. At the end of this conference, Solomon Software surprised everyone and told all us re-sellers and developers, that they had just bought my main competitor —My competitor’s software wasn’t better, but they had the numbers and were creating major problems for Solomon customers— Who would you rather buy expensive Field Service Management software from? From some guy with a strange name and a small office in Newport Beach? Or from Solomon-Great Plains-Microsoft? Game over! I got extremely depressed!

In any case, I have decided that I will not spend the rest of my days on this Pale Blue Dot under the influence of psychotropic drugs. It’s been several months since I’ve been off Lexapro completely and I have not suffered a depression, even though I’m going through a very difficult and emotional legal separation. My BMP is down to the low 50’s; I’m 60 years old; When I was in great shape and much younger, my BMP was in the low 40’s. I no longer have nightmares; Instead, I have pleasant dreams, sometimes in Spanish. I wake up naturally just before light announces the dawn of a new day. And yes, my physiatrist (watch the spelling) knows all about it!

To my neurologist: Maybe you want to write off my actions as being delusional in order to justify your actions. Despite your battery of inconclusive tests and dangerous drugs, anyone can tell that I am not clinically depressed. And always remember why I was referred to you!