Rabid Krakens of the Mal de Tête

I’m not as fearless as I used to be. Maybe I am but, at the same time, I’m worn the fuck out. I’m sick of being ill, tired of this neurofibromatosis shit and truly struggling to gin up the energy to keep on rehabbing my ass off.

Also, I have a headache.

His headache was still sitting over his right eye as if it had been nailed there.
~ Ian Fleming, Moonraker

Yesterday was my last MRI for this go round. I should find out what’s what, more or less, when I see my neurologist on Tuesday. Is the chemo working? Is the proton radiation holding the mondo meningioma fucker (on my thoracic spine) at bay? Will I be doing time in the OR again this winter?

Is this goddamned brain ache due to stress? The unforgivably cold, dry weather? Maybe it’s the giant-ass tumor flopped out on my frontal lobe? Could it have been was sparked by all three.

What do healthy people in their mid-60s feel like? Do they rise with ferocious pains that aren’t caused by myriad, fuckfaced tumors who haunt their neurological system? Maybe normal folk get crinks and cramps from, dunno, sleeping in a funny position or overdoing it at the gym the day before?

A headache, I get the kind of headache God would smote you with in the Old Testament.
~ Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

I have Old Testament sized asshole headaches.

Taking a couple short backup swigs, Flint’s crippling headache started to release its grip, sort of the way he imagined an octopus would release an inedible bowling ball.
~ Cole Alpaugh, The Bear in a Muddy Tutu  

I have a colossal, rabid kraken of a mal de tête.

I’ll feel better (SURELY I will) if I just get out for a walk. It’ll hit the mid-40s around noon. Maybe the Tylenol and Ibuprofen will have kicked in by then.