Epiphanies

i dont know why I call them epiphanies but i do.

The most important/worst was the “botch epiphany” when I got a shot that was supposed to be Abilify, an antipsychotic medication; but it didnt look like it. This was recently on the Tower Unit in Reading. And it made my eyes go bizarre. After a while i just forgot about it. I dont know if they ever cleared. It brings to mind the hospital in Rockville, MD where I ran screaming into the dayroom saying “My eyes! My eyes!” Because they were spasming. That was in ’95, right after the Hopkins fiasco. A doctor pulled me into a private office and had me sit down and lifted up an index finger and had me focus on it and the spasming stopped. He said, “I can’t help you now…”

I dont have a picture for this but the next one I do.

The slope epiphany. When i was lost in the woods for 5 days in December on a slight incline, an open space in the woods. I almost froze to death. I played games with numbers, letters and card suits in my head to stay awake.

I saw hills I had to cross to get home; then the

the Rocky Mountains, then Mount Kilimanjaro

then universes to cross, all to get home.

I remember a fire satation in the woods where it was so warm. And a large Christmas tree. I dont remember being found.

Next thing I knew I was on the Tower Unit volunteering to go to Wernersville State Hospitalle but I got out of that.

“The Clamped Catheter Epiphany”

which i have burbled about all over town forever and ever, i almost died but not quite.

The pain was unimagineable. It’s all gone now. 5 years ago the last of the clitoral nerves slithered down my left thigh and for a while, a long while, i could only sleep with my legs spread eagle and my left foot dangling down the side of the bed.

There were other moments and other “epiphanies” but I will leave it at these three.

Somehow I lived and now I am out of pain. The “toxic brain syndrome” (too many medicines, too many hospitals, too many therapists) may further clear. The up to the minute miracle is that the “disorder of my reflexes,” characterized by stabbing pains to my body and brain from a complicated form of OCD that had me almost paralyzed for decades, has been clearing with increasing with increasing rapidity.

Thanking God and praying for more years.

My disease? HUPOMONE: a patient endurance in suffering.