The Poster Child For "Scar" Daddy part A

Here it is. The story of the largest scar on my body at a length of 9 inches long and one inch thick. This “accident”, as I’ve referred to it previously, is how I’ve measured my time since 2015. I have to think about all my experiences and remember if they happened before my chest was split open or after. It’s annoyingly interesting and I wish I had a better memory to track experiences by. Oh wait, I do. Before I was married or after I was married has been a good tracker as well.

Moving on.

I was diagnosed with epilepsy in 9th grade. I have multiple-seizure disorder. This means I’ve got a lot of different types of seizures. It began with the muscle spasms which would cause me to drop a glass in the kitchen or a cereal bowl or even throw them. My mom was completely confused and I would tell her that I just had a seizure. Of course no one believed me, I didn’t even know what was going on. I also had seizures within the brain which would happen in my sleep or randomly throughout the day. It affected me more internally than externally and I had no idea they were happening. It would stop me in conversation or disrupt my daily missions. I would forget what I was doing or why I came in a room all the time. The type of seizure that finally caused me to go get tested was the grand-mal seizure.

I was at a climbing wall and gymnastics place as a scout.

We had a really cool opportunity to have a “lock in” which is where you spend all night at a location. I was stoked and had a love-hate relationship with climbing walls already. I personally didn’t like the hot lights at the top but loved to climb. I’m sweating and shaking just sitting here typing about it. We climbed a few different walls, learned how to balay which is the guy at the bottom making sure you don’t plummet to your death. It was about midnight or late 11 pm when I went up for a climb. I was getting the shakes but was very close to the top. The lights were so hot and blinding and I had to use all my energy to hold on to the hand and foot holds. I can promise you I was clenching muscles I wasn’t even using which drained my energy even more. I began to get light headed, dizzy, and I just couldn’t think straight. I rang the bell at the top and then dropped. I just let go and fell. I was one of the heavier guys of the troop, not huge but I could hold my own against most of the other guys. This wasn’t true for my balayer. He had to keep me from hitting the ground and hold onto my rope without getting pulled up with me like in the cartoons. I’m sure the leaders came to his aid right away. I hit the matts at the bottom and crawled over to a small sitting area. I remember my leaders loudly asking me questions. “Nathan, are you okay? What’s going on? What’s your name? Can you tell me who I am? Do you know where you are?”

I heard every question.

I watched my friends staring at me. I watched little girls doing gymnastics staring at me shaking and sweating. That made me super sad and I hope the girls were okay and don’t remember this night the way I do. My father was called and came and picked me up. Sitting there at the gym I had never been so tired and exhausted in my life. I got out maybe up to five words. Mostly just yes and nos. My father carried me to the car, I went home, crawled, literally crawled onto the living room couch and passed out.

Since then.

I have been in and out of doctors offices, white coats, dark rooms with MRI machines, sticky glue in my hair from EEG's, and ideas... ideas from every "certificate on the wall" holding professional that thought they might have the answer. Changing doses, times, medications, dietary habits and such over and over again. I, like many of the patients that find themselves in the healthcare system, continue to bounce in and out of the quiet halls and magazine filled rooms full of tests and procedures waiting to fix what is broken... only to find that it never will be. All the kings horse and all the kings men am I right? Anyways, part B is the full scar story coming soon, stick around.