It Doesn’t Stop Getting Harder

Listen, I had a seizure today.

I don’t really want to tell you that because these seizures are old news by now

Adam and his seizures. Adam and his scans. The A&W MRI Day Selfies.

The syndicated episodes of our lives triple shared to instagram, Facebook, and Threads.

But the seizures: they are the oldest of the old news.

I miss events, cancel plans, sleep in the other room when something’s going on.

The past couple of seizures, probably two notable ones in the past couple months included involuntary movement, especially in my torso, left arm, and left leg.

I guess I get tired of droning on about these things. I continue to drone on anyway, so maybe I’m not that tired. The truth is, I’m tired of these things happening, and I want you to know that.

I’ve been thinking about what I want you to know. Why do I share openly and feign demure when people draw attention to what I share?

Aside: I genuinely used “demure” there in the natural flow of my typing and only after pressing the spacebar did I chuckle, “Very epilepsy; very brain cancer; very demure.”

I guess some of this is my love to kvetch. Who doesn’t?

But the real lesson is that life doesn’t stop getting harder.

It’s one thing for the doctor to ask, “What do you know about your condition?” as a way to level set expectations and reveal how informed a patient or care partner with respect to their illness. It’s another thing to be nine years deep familiar and want to both scoff and sob at the melodrama of the exam room and vitals check. Oy. “Can I run this scan for fun?” I want to ask. The level setting is that this is the level or its been or level, and can I change levels, please? Do I have to fight the boss? Am I fighting a boss?

Brain cancer is absurd.

A tumor inside your fucking brain?

What the hell? That’s so freaking stupid.

We’re like, we can cut it out, shoot a laser beam at it, or let you swallow this poison from 1976.

“Slash, burn, and poison.”

And anyway, as shitty as they are, I can’t help but crack up at these seizures.

My left arm gets super weirdo like it’s breakdancing to pass the beat to the left. I hold it down with my strong right arm.

Funny, after surgery, I had to move my paralyzed left arm with my functional right; now I have to hold it down when it’s convulsing. Life is strange.

Anyway.

Point was that this doesn’t stop getting harder.

But I’m writing about it. So as hard as it may get, it’s not so hard that I can’t still gather up the experience, process it, put it in a post, and release it to y’all.

Things get harder, guys, just stick with it. I mean, obviously resolve things that are unnecessarily difficult. But I’m reminding us that things get harder, and we can stick with it.

Gather up those esxperiences. They’re bound to help somebody.