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Re: Repo's ULL

Graeme2 — Sat, 6 Sep 2014 10:17:50 GMT

Author: Graeme2

Posted: 09/06/2014 14:17

Can I just echo what skinny said really well. All the best with tackling this.

Re: Repo's ULL

Skinny — Sat, 6 Sep 2014 10:07:27 GMT

Author: Skinny

Posted: 09/06/2014 14:07

I have only just noticed this. Fuck. Probably the most harrowing post I've ever seen here, but also one of the most beautiful and eloquent, and ultimately heartwarming. It really puts shit into perspective to read something like that, but it also provides hope and encouragement. My thoughts are with you and your family. I hope everything goes as well as is possible.

Re: Repo's ULL

pa — Sat, 6 Sep 2014 09:58:28 GMT

Author: pa

Posted: 09/06/2014 13:58

your post was so unexpected Repo,
I'd like to say that I really like you, your posts and your charts.
and I'm so grateful to you for your kindness and to be here with us.

Re: Repo's ULL

NowhereMan — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 18:09:22 GMT

Author: NowhereMan

Posted: 09/04/2014 22:09

RepoMan wrote:

^^

No one was more positive and happy than me back in the day so I know it’s bullshit, but a lot of patients take these philosophies to heart and blame themselves. Plus, I can't tell you how many people have lectured me how I am at fault for my illness. It's crazy. I hope to one day change that because these people have suffered enough, and they are not at fault for their illness.

I reckon it is my optimism and positive outlook on life that has helped me cope with my Cystic Fibrosis - to not let it rule myself and take it in your own stride. Not to let the condition and other conditions dictate you as a person. Yes - you are going to have to limit your activities on occasion and may not be able to keep up with the speed of the life of peers, but I find that as long as you laugh, smile, do not complain, cry in private and think rationally then what can seem pretty grim circumstances can become suddenly manageable.

I advise all with their own troubles to take note.

Apologies if this sounds flippant at all.

Re: Repo's ULL

Anonymous — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 18:00:59 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/04/2014 22:00

^^

Thanks, everyone for your support! It’s been great to feel part of a community again. One of the hardest things over the past five years was losing most of my friends when I no longer could be the same active and outgoing Repo. Especially since most of my friends were doctors who are crazy busy. Also, because my illness took years to diagnose because it’s so rare and strange, I lost a lot of friends along the way. Doctors in particular can be very judgmental especially when it comes to pain.

But interestingly, the alternative medicine community is probably just as judgmental if not more so. That community has really embraced the Law of Attraction and You Become What You Think philosophies over the last couple of decades. While they provide nice soundbites and their is a kernel of wisdom to be found in them, these ideas have become grossly distorted & overly simplified and now these viewpoints are often used to judge and blame the sick. Blaming the victim I call it. I honestly feel that these philosophies may be causing more harm than good. It’s an extremely Calvinistic take on things. If you’re healthy, it’s because you were thinking good thoughts. If you’re sick, it was because your were thinking bad thoughts. It’s incredibly overly simplistic and just bullshit. Chronic pain patients in particular fall victim to these axioms. No one was more positive and happy than me back in the day so I know it’s bullshit, but a lot of patients take these philosophies to heart and blame themselves. Plus, I can't tell you how many people have lectured me how I am at fault for my illness. It's crazy. I hope to one day change that because these people have suffered enough, and they are not at fault for their illness. I have a lot of goals to shake up the medical world if I ever conquer this. It’s been an enlightening journey, but one I wish I never had to take. Understatement x a million. LOL.

Ignorance is truly bliss, Mecca!!!

Re: Repo's ULL

eyezayzay — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 14:57:09 GMT

Author: eyezayzay

Posted: 09/04/2014 18:57

I'll try to do a quality job in your place.
I don't know what exactly is happening to you health-wise, but I hope it all works out.
Let me know if you need anything, outside of just BEA duties. 🙁

Re: Repo's ULL

NickVolos — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 14:54:52 GMT

Author: NickVolos

Posted: 09/04/2014 18:54

Fuck! And I thought I had my share of pain in this world... Hang in there mate. Best wishes for a miraculous recovery.

Link

Re: Repo's ULL

WindowAbove — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 14:35:54 GMT

Author: WindowAbove

Posted: 09/04/2014 18:35

😢 this should never happen to anyone, especially not you RepoMan <3. I hope it stops soon.

Re: Repo's ULL

Antonio-Pedro — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 14:32:29 GMT

Author: Antonio-Pedro

Posted: 09/04/2014 18:32

CubaZed wrote:

:cry: I'm unbelievably sorry. If there's anything I can do to help please feel free to Pm me.

Re: Repo's ULL

Anonymous — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 14:24:11 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/04/2014 18:24

😢 I'm unbelievably sorry. If there's anything I can do to help please feel free to Pm me.

Re: Repo's ULL

NowhereMan — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 13:21:51 GMT

Author: NowhereMan

Posted: 09/04/2014 17:21

I'm so sorry. 🙁

Re: Repo's ULL

Anonymous — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 13:14:34 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/04/2014 17:14

Please, tell me that's all a well written fiction!

I'm very sorry for that.
I have serious healthy problems too, but I think I can't fully understand what you're passing anyway.
I just can bring to you all my most deep solidarity.
Don't know what to say, I'm afraid to sound stupid, as these are really big things.
Thank you for sharing that with us, anyway: that means we are really part of your life.

A big hugh!

Re: Repo's ULL

Norman Bates — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 12:52:34 GMT

Author: Norman Bates

Posted: 09/04/2014 16:52

RepoMan wrote:

So this couldn’t be happening to me, right? Right?!

Man, so sorry. No other words for now I'm afraid. Fuck that's raw.

Re: Repo's ULL

Anonymous — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 12:38:37 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/04/2014 16:38

😢

Re: Repo's ULL

meccalecca — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 12:06:39 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 09/04/2014 16:06

RepoMan wrote:

It all became clear. And sometimes clarity sucks.

Fuck! Dude, I have no words for this. While this post is a beautiful, well-written account of tearing open your rib cage and pouring out the depths of your emotional and physical struggle, it's also really sad too hear.

And as depressing as it is, there's a really well made point about knowing too much. Your knowledge has basically become a curse. And I think this applies to many things in life far beyond health/science. Ignorance is bliss, and sometimes it's hard not to envy the ignorant.

Re: Repo's ULL

Anonymous — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 08:58:59 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/04/2014 12:58

eyezayzay wrote:

I had no idea you were upset about it. I don't have to take over anything, if you'd prefer. I was just looking for something to do that on BEA. 😢 Given you understand the project more, it might be better to have you finish it through and I can pick up something else.

No worries, eyezayzay. I wasn't upset about it. Maybe a little bummed that Happymeal didn't consult with me first, but that's the extent of it.

I should have made myself more clear. The ONLY reason I'm bowing out of this project is to focus on my health. As Norman Bates can attest, I even sought his help to fill my role in this project last night (Malaysian time). So when I woke up this morning (Malaysian time) and got your PM, the time seemed right to let go of my involvement. That's all.

I have not been feeling well over the past two months which is why I had to leave my family to go back to Malaysia. Anything that is not helping me return to my two little girls has to put aside.

I should have taken more time to explain.

Peace.

Re: Repo's ULL

eyezayzay — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 06:11:36 GMT

Author: eyezayzay

Posted: 09/04/2014 10:11

I had no idea you were upset about it. I don't have to take over anything, if you'd prefer. I was just looking for something to do that on BEA. 😢 Given you understand the project more, it might be better to have you finish it through and I can pick up something else.

Great ULL, very interesting take on it. �'�

Re: Repo's ULL

Anonymous — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 06:04:31 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/04/2014 10:04

I’ve been debating whether to share what I’m going through with you guys for a couple of months now. Having to back out of helping with the Genre Extravaganza thread was the final straw as I owe you an explanation. It certainly had NOTHING AT ALL to do with any complaints that were brought forth - I didn’t take offense at all to be honest. That kind of stuff doesn’t bother me too much in the grand schemes of things. No, I just haven’t been feeling well and Happymeal unilaterally bringing eyezayzay, someone who had just been bashing our project and multiple genres just hours before, into the mix without discussing it with me first, made it fairly easy to finally let my involvement in the project go. I really needed to focus on…

I didn’t feel the pin. Clearly he was doing it wrong. He must be doing it wrong. This couldn’t be happening. Not to me. Not now. Not ever.

“Do it again,” I pressed nonchalantly despite the worry and pain that was coursing through my body as it had been for a few years now.

Again I didn’t feel the pin. The reassuring jab of pointy metal causing a jolt of pain. The doctor again walked the pin up my foot and lower leg and gradually I felt its sharp teeth sending the familiar yip of of pain to my frontal cortex as he reached my shin.

The neuro exam. It was an exam I had performed thousands of time in the past. On other people. On other patients. I never imagined that one day I myself would be sitting on the rumbled, crinkly sanitary paper. Waiting expectantly for what felt like an eternity to be seen by “the doctor.” Waiting for someone else to pass judgement on my life. On my prospects.

I could bluff and say that was the worst part. The loss of control. But I’d be lying. Because nothing could touch the pain. I would have done anything to stop the pain. Day in & day out without any relief in sight. I’d already been on high level pain meds for years at this point. Not your Percocets or Norcos that I could take like candy at that point with no effect. I’m talking Morphine grade prescription drugs. The strongest stuff at the strongest doses and still nothing could dull the pain at times. Especially when I’d wake up in the morning literally feeling like I’d ben hit by a truck. Or that stakes had been nailed into my shoulders and hips over night. Most of the time I couldn’t even localize where the pain was coming from. My entire body was eclipsed in pain like a full body migraine.

We all think we know what pain feels like. What we don’t realize that there is no end to the levels of pain that we could be in. It's like Dante’s levels of hell, just when you think it cannot get any worse, you drop another level. As a doctor, we always made fun of the patients that would come in wailing that there pain was an 11 or 15 or a 30. We grade pain on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the worse pain imaginable. Well I’d had gone way past ten. I could never have imagined what I have had to endure. We all think that pleasure and pain most be at least somewhat commensurate in this life. Well that’s bonkers. On the pleasure - pain continuum I came to realize that pain end of the spectrum goes on for miles compared to pleasure’s mere meters in comparison.

And I knew pleasure. I’d had surf waves up and down both coasts of the continental US as well as Hawaii, moshed at thousands of concerts headlined by a veritable who’s who of punk and indie rock, graduated from an esteemed Ivy League college and medical school, and gotten married on a mountain top overlooking Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. And best of all, I was a Daddy to two wonderful little girls.

So this couldn’t be happening to me, right? Right?!

The doctor struck the tuning fork against the bony part of his hand as I had done a thousand times before. He pressed its end against the bony part of my big toe. And again, I felt just a muted buzz where there should have vibratory buzzsaw.

It all became clear. And sometimes clarity sucks.

Everyone of course assumes that being neurologist and knowing exactly what was going on would be helpful in such a situation. Well, bullocks to that. Because there was no ignorance or uncertainty to soften the blow. I knew exactly what this meant - I was fucked - and exactly what my prognosis was - I was fucking FUCKED.

You see now everything made sense - the inability to pee, the constipation, the struggle to breathe, the severe pain that wracked my entire body, and the bizarre wasting and atrophy of my muscles. The sensory nerves that made up the autonomic and peripheral nerves of my body were dying. Being attacked by my own antibodies that had mistakenly identified my own peripheral and autonomic nerves as the enemy. It was a big misunderstanding. And it was going to kill me in the most horrible way imaginable - a slow, creeping, crippling and unimaginably painful death.

On the ride back home from the doctor’s office, I felt surprisingly nothing. I just went numb. I think I might even have laughed. What else was there else to do? There were no cures. No colorful pills that would make everything better. No surgeries to ease the pain. My disease was one in a billion so there were no experimental treatments line up. And the drugs to minimize and ameliorate the symptoms range from ineffective to harmful. In short, there was nothing that Western medicine could do. And who better to know that than me, a trained neurologist at one of the finest rehabilitation hospitals in the world.

As my wife drive us home, she kept looking over at me. Waiting for some kind of reaction. But I felt nothing. Just emptiness. I felt sadness for my little girls who now seemed destined to grow up without having a Daddy. I felt sadness for me. I felt sadness for everyone in a similar plight. Everyone who came face to face with the reality that life is often meaningless. That no, everything doesn’t happen for a reason. Sometimes life is just fucking cruel.

I walked into the house and headed straight downstairs to my sound system. Normally, I would have just put on The Cure’s Pornography, but instead put on this record I had just bought the day before...

Link

If you want to come as close as you can to knowing how I felt at that moment, I encourage you to give it a spin. I surrendered into its nothingness which was a mirror to my own. But underneath that nothingness was something more. Some spark of being part of something bigger than myself. I resolved to not give up. To not surrender.

Because, when the shit hits the fan

Link

I Rise Above!

Link

Re: Repo's ULL

pa — Tue, 2 Sep 2014 06:51:36 GMT

Author: pa

Posted: 09/02/2014 10:51

hey I've just got the Black Flag records but I've been working a lot so I've had the time to listen to just one album:

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

My War by Black Flag

it's so nice !! and now I understand why you wrote:
"My War had a seismic impact on grunge, stoner rock, sludge metal, noise rock, etc."

I guess that I'm gonna save your thread...

Re: Repo's ULL

Anonymous — Mon, 1 Sep 2014 15:29:42 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/01/2014 19:29

Just wanted to chime in and say I've been following this closely, as it is almost certainly my favorite ULL so far. So personal. Great work RM 😄