Blog 18 – Baltimore, MS, and the Misuse of the FML

12/21/11
I know my updates have become sporadic at best over the last few months, but work and a fairly general lack of information have certainly slowed down the process. But I have updates!
By far the most prestigious Dairy Queen in the USA.
On January 9th, I will be in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins to finally decide for good if I will be closing my PFO and I will be tested for MS for real this time. Pretty cool, right? If I pass the test, I get to work at Microsof-
Oh, hang on. That doesn’t stand for Microsoft!
Lemme look this up on Google real fast, brb.
*Eclectic Muzak Versions of Hanson Classics Play*
Oh, that’s far less cool. Did you guys know that MS stands for Multiple Sclerosis? I wasn’t even aware I had one, let alone multiple Sclero’s.
Now that my terribly off-putting jokes are out of the way, we can move on to the information section of this particular bloggy blog. As far as I know, at this moment I don’t actually have MS, but Johns Hopkins people are from what I understand, like Stanley Tucci in-The-Core smart when it comes to stuff like this. When I was still at UTSW, MS was pulled off the table with, I think 96% certainty, once the stroke was accounted for, and the PFO discovered, it became very unlikely that I could have MS as well. Apparently, we did not fully rule it out (though, I have no idea what kind of test that is. I’m sure it involves butt-needles.) The Neurologist at Johns combed through all of my records and was not enthused to find that the lesions on my brain were never fully explained (or explained at all.) You can actually go back through the blog, and even I bring them up and soon forget they ever existed. I FORGOT THERE WERE LESIONS. ON. MY. BRAIN.
Everyone in Baltimore has already been informed everything I say will be an Omar quote.

Right. So, what’s on the table is: I might have MS in addition to a PFO that causes strokes. I’ve decided this is fairly uncool and even Charlie Brown wouldn’t go for it. Christmas time is here, after all.
I cannot mathematically believe there is any possibility of this being accurate. No one I have told this to has reacted with anything but a joke, and went right back to work. Either I’m getting really bad at letting people know I’m not joking, or no one else thinks this is possible either.
It actually is possible.
And for the people continuing to make House MD jokes EVEN when I walk with a cane every day of my life, freaking cool it with that shit. Seriously. (But for the awesome cane donations I have gotten over the past few weeks, I love them all!)
Before I go, I did want to get one thing off of my chest that I have a certain perspective on. Stop saying FML because it makes me feel weird. You guys are free to rule in however you want here, especially if it appears that I’m over-reacting (though, in my defense, I’m under some pretty serious emotional pressures.)
If you don’t already know, FML, translated from the Latin, means, “Fuck my life.”
If there are people on your Facebook under the age of 35, this is a fairly normal thing to see posted on your homepage and is generally associated with the most miniscule of quandaries. Some of my favorite actual quotes include:
“Just found out I need a root canal FML.”
You know, not actually that bad.
“Left my shopping list at home. FML!”
Pretty sure that people are trolling me at this point. That quote should probably read, “Left my shopping list at home. WASMIFM!” (What a seemingly minor inconvenience for me.)
I’m not trying to be a party pooper on the finer points of internet meme-based ironies, but every time somebody puts an FML punctuating a sentence, I get upset. I especially get upset when the ENTIRE BODY OF THE UPDATE on Facebook or Twitter is just “FML.”
I go down this rabbit hole of invented gypsy curses where I try to concoct a scenario where I could forsee myself every actually typing out “FML” and meaning it with any degree of truth. I came up with the following:
“Gypsies turned my eyes into diuretic frogs. FML!”
I think I would mean it with that one.


And I drank a lot today.