Air SupMRI – The search for brainzzz

Since August last year I have had a bit of a problem with headaches.

Scroll down the page if you just want the MRI Simulator video I made…… otherwise, read on….

For 12 weeks I had a constant headache around the back of my head. It didn’t really stop me doing anything, but it was bloody annoying. A series of medication knocked this headache out, so that was all well and good.

Trouble is, on top of this headache, ever couple of weeks I would get a short lived slamming headache hit me in the back of my head to the right…. and it felt like a 12″ nail being hammered in. The pain felt like it is in one very specific area, like a knife point.

These wonderful ‘extras‘ have been enough for me to get on my knees or lay down and physically scream out in pain as they’ve gone on. I’ve broken bones and had various injuries, but I had never experienced pain like it. Over the 20 to 40 minutes it lasted, it started off as unbearable, and then ramped up.

Tests were done to make sure my brain was okay, and all functions were firing… and they were. Increasingly strong migraine medication was given to me, but none of it made the slightest difference.

As one came on over Christmas I took a painkiller/muscle relaxant left over from when I put my back out. These pills knocked me out cold when I had the bad back, so I reasoned that it would be better to be unconscious whilst this bastard headache ran its course if I couldn’t actually get rid of it. Yes…. probably not the greatest thing to do, but it was back medication that was prescribed to me, and I took a normal dose.

The headache stopped.

I saw a specialist and he said it is most likely tension related. That is to say a muscle under tension might be trapping a nerve and causing the pain. This is why the back medication worked. It is not work stress or mental tension… it is a physical tension within muscles etc.

So… I can now easily control the headache with meds and stop it before it even gets started…. but we still need find what’s causing it….

I was sent for an MRI scan to see if there was anything brain with my wrong.

People will tell you that the machine “will make a little noise“… Ha…. yeah, and then some…

The MRI operators will often play music through headphones to you, to help mask the noise…. ah ha ha…. no… really.

To help you understand what it is actually like, you might like to try my simulator…

The sound is an MRI scan, with an Air Supply song being played to help take your mind away from the noise of the machine….

This video and music track will help you simulate an MRI scan in your own home!

Yes, all you need is a good bass speaker and a bucket (white would be best).

Now just follow the on-screen instructions…..
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If you have an MRI scan, you might be lucky and they won’t play music…..

Due to the nature of an MRI scan, you can’t have normal headphones. To get the music to you, they use a modern version of the speaking tubes used in days of old.

The music is played from a speaker away from the MRI machine and into a rubber tube. The tube splits off to your left and right ears.

Music is literally piped to you.

Unfortunately the MRI scan is so noisy, and the effectiveness of the sound tubes is so poor, the end result is, well…. crap.

Thank … God?

Okay… there are a lot of links in this blog entry. They go some way to showing what is involved, and who is involved, in parts of the following tale…. It is quite a short write up, considering how deep I could take it… so please bear with me…

The Scene…

A lorry has a tyre blow out on a major busy road in a hilly area of the country.

The trailer slides across the Tarmac & hits a car.

The car is smashed off of the road and it ends up upside down at the roadside.

A little girl inside is seriously injured.

In seconds, the traffic has stopped & other road users are phoning in the accident. They use mobile phones that have been developed over time by countless thousands of engineers who can trace telephone technology back to people like Bell and Marconi - or in this case, Dr Martin Cooper of Motorola with the first mobile phone.

These engineers went to school, college & university to study. They were taught by countless more lecturers & teachers who spent their lives learning their vocational skills and also attending schools, colleges, universities etc to enable them to go on and educate others. The same is said of the people who trained these instructors and… well, it goes on and on. Thousands of people lead to the witnesses of the crash being able to phone emergency services.

Of course, the emergency services couldn’t be contacted if there was no telephone infrastructure in place, and also if there was no way to generate electricity to power the systems that allow for the phones to charge and for the entire grid of communications to operate.

Again we have engineers, scientists and the initial inventors to thank for harnessing the power of electricity, into making it possible to give all the houses & businesses the ability to power their equipment… and go in all of the cars, lorries, boats, aircraft and so on… that all need batteries to start/run their engines, motors & electrical systems. And again there are the instructors, lecturers etc that teach these skills to enable this resource to develop and operate safer & more reliably day after day…. and the people who taught the people to teach…

Thinking about it, those teachers need somewhere to teach… so we must remember architects, builders, plumbers (ooh, the Romans for their work on plumbing), electricians, carpenters, roofers etc… and all the people who taught them… and those that taught those that taught them… etc.

Oh Hell, mustn’t forget the workers (and those that died progressing their areas of employment, working to provide for our prior generations, and those to come) in foundries, mills, mines, quarries who supplied the materials to build the schools… And don’t forget the people who taught them…. and here we go again….

So far we have a witness calling for help over a mobile phone, and someone from the emergency services taking that call & passing it on the the relevant rescue services… and we have thousands and thousands of people who helped make that call take place…. So many people who are each owed something for what they brought to the table on this day, so to speak.

Wiltshire Air Ambulance

Rescue and emergency services head out to the crash site. The rescuers included countless Police to divert traffic & control the crash scene for starters. Then the ambulances & fire engines come along. Paramedics & firefighters to cut the victims from the wreck & give emergency aid to get them stable for the urgent ambulance helicopter flight to an airport so that the girl can be transferred to a faster aircraft to get to the hospital.

I've worked on this aircraft at GAMA - I'm part of this huge chain that helped.

Think of the technology, the training, the skills and dedication involved in all of this! Even down to the rescue services “Jaws of Life“… the hydraulic cutters used to remove the roofs off of cars to allow people to be removed from them safely…

Heck, we need to thank the ancient Greeks & Chinese for their initial work in hydraulics, and Blaise Pascal (1600′s) for his work in modern hydraulic principles, that eventually lead to generations of teachers training generations of engineers to eventually come up with, and make “The Jaws of Life”.

All of those emergency vehicles have engines that developed from steam engines to internal combustion engines… We owe Karl Benz for some of the first practical motor cars… Nikolaus Otto is to thank for coal/gas burning reciprocal engines.

Then there’s the gas turbine engine in the air ambulance helicopter… this goes back to Bernoulli and more practically, Sir Frank Whittle… Oh yeah, the helicopter goes back to Leonardo da Vinci… and the modem father is Igor Sikorsky.

The technology that went into making all of those car, lorry, helicopter systems etc… is owed to an impossible number of inventors, scientist, scholars, boffins…. teachers, foundry workers… and on and on….

Almost forgot Babbage & the calculating machine he created, or the first simple mechanical computer of Thomas Fowler in 1840! … or the many variations of the abacus… or the efforts at Bletchley Park with Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers… regarded as the fathers of modern computing… Without this line of thought & engineering, the computer reliant vehicles (ground and air) would not function… or be able to be designed…

Do I have to go into how many people have helped progress THIS side of technology! MILLIONS! Don’t forget all of those ancient mathematicians that developed theories, rules, formulas etc that allowed ANY engineering to take place… Archimedes, Aristotle, Pythagoras… some of maths many fathers…

So yeah… The little girl is cut from the car & her condition is stabilised. She is put in the helicopter & flown to the hospital (by trained pilots who have spent years training etc and so on… you know what I mean by now…).

She arrives at the trauma centre, which was an idea first established in the 1960′s by R Adams Cowley, and is rushed into surgery (developed from around the 1500′s by countless scientists and researchers in medicine)… and I think if you have half a brain cell, that you’ll know where this is heading….

Trained staff, technology, inventors, scientists, infrastructure, upper tier staff, lower tier staff, buildings, services…. allowing the paramedics, doctors, nurses & other specialists to save the little girls life, using equipment that has been developed over generations of medical and non medical research, by people whose names you can’t help but recognise, including the likes of Florence Nightingale, Marie Curie, Hannah Myrick, Louis Pasteur, Alexis Carrel and Henry Dakin, Joseph Lister…. the list is endless…. or at least it may as well be, because every branch of medicine or medical research was generated from a different branch, or developed into others…

Research has expanded and helped us… and with that expansion comes the need for more people to teach, to learn, to think, to progress…

Millions of people and their ancestors all helped

The above list doesn’t touch the surface of all of those that were involved in that one little girls life being saved, but as you can see, the human count in this pyramid that ends with that little girls life contains millions of unsung heroes. People who worked just to find answers. Some were imprisoned & forced to work. Some were slaves, some were kings & queens… All walks of life through the ages.

And then there’s the press who interview the parents after the girl has been saved…. and the parents… they turn to the camera and say into the microphone…

“Thank God our daughter survived…. We knew he was looking down on her all the time…”

No mention of the Doctors, the nurses, the pilots, the Police, the rescue and emergency services, the witnesses at the scene… let alone the millions in history that allowed it to all play out….

Even if you are religious, then sure, thank your God, but don’t forget the physical people who did all the hands on work.

If you do want to thank ‘God’….. Don’t forget one tiny little thing…

…Who do you think allowed the crash to happen in the first place?

Yes, you guessed it....

You live on the shoulders of millions who lived before you.

Don’t ever forget that.

Oh, and before you go and say “It’s all a test God has set us“… then please read THIS…

A brief pause… and ZOMBIES!

Christmas came and went. New Year landed.

Lots of fun time was had with Chris and Alex as we spent quality time together. Thank you to those who sent greetings and/or gifts, they were greatly appreciated. Alex has had a wonderful time and is really getting into the Christmas thing.

Tesco, Earlier today.

Anyway… ZOMBIES!!!

At the supermarket  earlier I was surprised to see so many vacant eyed mouth breathers wandering around masticating on gum with their mouths open. Some even doing it as a family…

I wondered what was happening… and then it clicked… 2 days into the New Year and these were the New Year ‘resolutionary’ non-smokers.

I give them a week at best.

You see, the way I see it is; if you have to wait until New Year to set a resolution, then you probably don’t have what it takes to make it happen anyway.

If you really want to do/quit something that much, then why would you wait? Just do it.

You don’t believe me?  Tell this to someone who just set a resolution and watch them break sweat and reach for a cream cake and a cigarette as they realise that it is absolutely correct. See the realisation creep into their eyes as they understand how weak they really are, and how the resolution was never going to work….

I gave up smoking many, many years ago. At my worst I used to smoke 20/40 a day…. I simply decided enough was enough and stopped. No gum, no patch, no hypnotherapy. I used that long lost tool humankind seems to have let wither and almost die…. “Will Power” and “Getting the Hell on with it“.

You can do it – gum, patches, self help books, plastic cigarettes – these things may help a few people, but mostly they are there to make money off of you by convincing you that YOU ARE WEAK AND CAN’T QUIT WITHOUT THESE PRODUCTS….. they just want your money… You ARE strong enough… all you have to do is dust off that back bone and get on with it – and it’s in this area that hypnotherapy can really help. Yes… use it to unleash that will power – You don’t need drugs or patches or other gizmos…you already have it in you.

Ali kicks in

I’m finding that my boxing and kickboxing (Southern Martial Arts) is really helping with my fitness. I have come to live with the fact that my cardio isn’t the greatest (lung issues), but my overall fitness is improving. The weight I lost is going back on, but my waist size is staying the same… so that suggests I’m getting some muscle back… or at least getting some muscle…

The kickboxing is really helping my flexibility, balance and co-ordination, and that’s good because that’s what I am in it for. I’ll say that right now, if you asked me, that I am not going to do any competitions. I don’t need to do things that could put my health at risk and cause me to have time off of work. Family comes first, and with that I must think about income security… and anyway, much though I enjoy it all, I’ve not got the stamina to compete (not yet, at least) - I’ll leave that to the guys at SMA that have those skills – and they DO have the skills.

Anyway, I like the training, but really need to practice in-between classes, and where shadow boxing/kickboxing is all well and good, there are times when you need to put out the full force and make contact with something…. so I purchased a kick/punch bag from BLITZ SPORTS via SMA .

I filled the bottom 18″ is filled with builders sand (in a couple of bin bags to avoid any potential leakage), and then the rest is off cuts of leather and fabric which was cut down into small swatches. The leather forms the core and the leg section, then the fabric is used to fill the sides of the bag because the leather isn’t soft enough to fill the contours around the bags curves. It is designed to allow for lower leg, body hits and upper cut work. Once filled it weighed in at 80kg.

Alex likes to know what I do, so he knows I shoot and box/kickbox. He also knows that shooting people and fighting people is bad (rogue dinosaurs and evil pumpkins are fair game though), and that there is a difference between sport and bullying (he’s a bright lad!). He wanted to help me fill the bag, so I hung it up and put his step next to it so he could reach the top to put leather in…. the thing is that help didn’t last long as he wanted to try it out whilst we were still filling it!

He really enjoyed giving the bag some punches and kicks – and I hope that he’ll become interested enough to take it up. A local gym (Maximus Gym) offers a class for 5 to 14 year olds, so maybe that’s an option. I’d like him to take it up so he learns self control, how to defend himself and also the co-ordination and flexibility it offers.

He’s a gentle lad, but can put his strength down if picked on or if he gets carried away – and due to his size I don’t want him seen as the aggressor, but because he is such a caring child I don’t want him to become a victim either. I’d like him to have the skills so that he doesn’t ever get picked on – but if he does, he can deal with it cleanly. Man… he’s only 4 and a half, but you have to think ahead.

Most importantly though…. he seems to enjoy it!

Boxing and Kickboxing – Not what I expected

So you must ALL be aware by now of the cat attack I suffered…. (If not, wake up!!! Where have you been – Catch up HERE).

Whilst in hospital I shared a ward with some very interesting people. Inventors, photographers, programmers, war veterans and a martial arts chap…

I’ve kept in contact with a few of these people – and I have plenty of time for them, for although my cat bite was a serious thing (although kind of amusing), I count myself as very lucky to what other people were in with. Lots of respect to them.

One particular person has had a real major effect on my life. I was never the most sporty of people, mainly due to a knee cap break whilst at school that was fashionably diagnosed at the time as “growing pains”. It stopped my running, swimming, and sports interest in general. 15 years later and an X-ray showed a 15 year old badly healed knee cap.

Add to this my dodgy lungs (of which my January flu pushed over the edge and left me with asthma) plus joint issues, and you start to see I was never exactly at the peak of physical fitness.

Top it all with a back that put me out of work for 3 months and then that cat bite (which has left ongoing issues – including a sporadically weak wrist and potential to land me in hospital again with reinfection even years later), and you start to get a pretty good mental image of where I WAS….

I took up Nordic walking, running, mountain biking to try and help, and to a point it did. I lost a lot of weight, but the general fitness wasn’t improving as much as I liked… then I ended up in hospital opposite John Devaney of Southern Martial Arts.

He told me that he was setting up a boxing exercise class, so would I be interested. I blame either the painkillers I was on, or the hospital food… or more likely the fact of John being a very inspirational man (a snapped leg caused by weakness from chemo from cancer treatment… and he’s still someone who you would really want on your side in a dodgy situation) – but whatever it was, I agreed to go.

Lets face it… he was STARTING a boxing fitness class… I would be in a class as a newbie with a load of other newbies… What could go wrong?

The boxing fitness class was pretty much started for all the SMA martial arts people to improve their fitness levels… So yeah, I turned up and pretty much everyone knew everyone else, and they were all fit. Bugger….

It wasn’t easy… In fact I didn’t think I’d make it past the warm up… but I did. Everyone there made it a great experience, and John is a top notch instructor. I felt the benefits within a few days… so turned up again a week later… and have not looked back.

Then he suggested I join the Kickboxing class he runs. I said no, as I had some pretty valid reasons (in my head)… but then found myself in his kickboxing class and realising how useful it was for me – both physically and mentally. Encouragement from John and other class members got me there – and are keeping me their. Thanks to them all!

The kickboxing is really helping with co-ordination, general fitness and flexibility. After my back went I lost a lot of what (bad) flexibility I had – but SMA kickboxing has totally changed that. I even managed to briefly get my chin to my knees on an assisted stretch at the last session – and my splits are getting a whole lot lower than I ever could do them when I was younger… and I’m 37 now!

Intense energy sessions and press ups still cause me grief due to the lung and wrist problems, but it’s getting better. You can go at your own pace, but you are pushed to better yourself. Lets face it – there’s no point doing something if you are only going to go at it half heartedly.

You get out what you put in.

You can contact Southern Martial Arts at:

JOHN DEVANEY
8 Union Road,
Farham,
Surrey
GU9 7PT

Tel: 01252 821 417

e-mail: johnd@southern-martial-arts.co.uk

Facebook: Southern Martial Arts

Why do I train?

For those I train with – Why I do it… (from 2008): Fitness Starts HERE 2008

Almost immediately after I started getting into this keeping healthy lark I ended up with a work related (badly) screwed back, which I used Nordic Walking to recover from… only to then get hit by a severe infection (leaving me asthmatic on top of the lung problems I already have) and the feral cat attack (through which I met John Devaney…. bloody cat).

Each set back just makes me want to come back harder, but each time I find it physically tougher, although that won’t stop me trying… Next step, KICKBOXING!!!!

I already go to a boxing class run by SMA, where the positive attitude of everyone really helps push me. I’ve never been good at fast, hard training (lungs again…), but if I am to fix that problem (and the dodgy wrist left over from the feral attack), then this class is really a kill or cure. It’s a tough class, no word of a lie!

I’m now going to go to the kickboxing class that SMA run. This should help me with stability, coordination and even more fitness/health issues… Kill or Cure, Kill or Cure!

I will be ready to take on that Arctic Survival for my 40th….

.

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The Lucy Palmer Guest Spot

Once in a while I come across a friend on Twitter who raises awareness in things that often go by unheard of unless people are involved in them (either personally or via a friend/family).

Lucy Palmer is one such Twitter friend. Inspirational in her tweets (and amusing, cutting, serious, educational etc…), she is fighting with endometriosis – and also raising money for Endometriosis UK.

This is an excerpt from her charity page:

Some of you are aware that I, Lucy, have endometriosis. For me, it means a LOT of PAIN. So, it hurts, it stops me being able to do normal stuff, like working, driving, having holidays, planning simple things… many things maybe you take for granted and can do without thinking about.

Endometriosis almost completely controls the lives of millions of women and girls and, sadly, they aren’t always listened to by their doctors or family or friends. Luckily, my Ma, Pa and brother have never doubted me, likewise close friends and my GP. It took 14 years to be listened to by consultants, to be diagnosed, during a laparoscopy, and to receive the appropriate treatment for this horrendous disease/condition.

I aim to run or jog my way round the 5k course in Hyde Park on Sunday 5th September this year. The training is already hard for me to do. The treatment I am receiving, called decapeptyl SR injections, causes joint pain, and for me, that’s in my knees. Constant fatigue from endo and its treatment and HRT, plus the medication for depression, does not make this an easy task for me. It is hard work. It hurts me. A lot.

On top of all she does, she also publishes a blog about how she copes with endo. In a rare blogging moment, I am posting an entry from Lucy as a guest blog within my own.

Please read her blog, visit her charity page and follow her on Twitter…. and spread the word.

Is this the endo my pain?

Probably not, no.

I was lying in my hospital bed on Monday 15th March this year, after the laparoscopy, when the consultant I had seen several times since 2008 came to see me. He had been “in clinic”, over the other side of the hospital. He hadn’t been able to perform the surgery; he was meant to on the previous Thursday but various occurrences meant my operation had to be postponed.

The decision was made, by me, to have a laparoscopy to find out, once and for all, “if” there was anything “wrong” relating to my womb, ovaries and/or ladybits. Some of you may be aware that, from the age of 18, I have been continually told there was nothing wrong and my irregular, heavy, prolonged and insanely agonising periods were something I would “grow out of” or that would “settle down” in time. The pain before and after periods and the bleeding between them was also not something I ought to concern myself about.

Not only have I been told that my pain was “psychological”, I was also told that I was “too young for anything to be wrong with (my) ovaries, darling”. And, that the only thing which would cause the sharp, tight, stabbingly-sharp pains in my lower right abdomen was “endometriosis of the ovaries, which you don’t have”, the non-surgery-performing-but-bed-visiting consultant said.

Still in immense pain after the laparoscopy with my awesome Ma beside me, I was told, by the NSPBBV consultant, that during the operation, the Mega-neat surgeon discovered that there “was endometriosis on both ovaries”. We found out later in the patient copy letter from the Mega-neat consultant who performed the surgery, that it was also present on the posterior uterine wall and the left pelvic side wall. In the letter, it states that the larger right side (ovary) had to be drained. This accounts for, not just the pains with periods and between them (every day, in fact) but also the amount of pain after waking from surgery; he used diathermy to remove the endometriosis he found. That essentially means my innermost ladyparts were burned, hence the incredible agony I felt, not to mention the utterly horrendous “wind” pains in my right shoulder and chest. I mentioned it. Oh.

Less than a second after the NSPBBV consultant said those ground-breaking words, I sobbed. My right hand somehow hurled itself to my eyes, which then started leaking, as well as my nose. Messy. I wasn’t crying because I’d finally been told what was wrong with me, or because I knew what it meant from now, onwards. Rather, I cried because I was so disappointed, I had been so terribly let down by people whom I trusted to help me, but instead, they neglected to do their job. They neglected me, allowed me to suffer so much unspeakable agony for so many years. I knew what was wrong with me, I knew, completely, that endometriosis was the cause of my pain. I’d tried to tell “them” so many times what my pain was like, but I was stopped mid-sentence, ignored, patronised and insulted.

What happens now? What do I do? Zoladex injections, every 28 days andPremique. What are they? Well, click the words and find out! Or, I can tell you, not very coherently. It is late as I type this and really need to sleep, but this is the third draft of this post and I just want to get it done. So, Zoladex will halt to ovaries for a few months, inducing a menopause. The break from periods occurring should (hopefully) give me a rest from feeling so tired. All the time. From aching, head to toe, and feeling like my womb is trying to cut its way out of my abdomen. And the Premique is a form of HRT, to try to counteract the menopausal symptoms.

There are no guarantees with this (unfairly-named, to my mind) “disease”. I prefer “condition”. It is not curable, but can be managed. However, “can” does not mean “will”. Some women are lucky, and have no pain, while others have immense pain which can not be controlled. And even hysterectomies and double oophorectomies are not certain to stop the pain. Some women have hormone treatment for some months and are free from pain. But the condition will still be there, it just may not “happen” again.

Since my surgery (with MEGA-neat stitches and wounds, and now scars. Did I mention? Super stuff! Tiny entry sites. Amazing…), I have had a period – on the Wednesday, just 2 days after the operation. It was bloody painful, if you excuse the pun. Less painful than I expected but still enough to wake me at 5am and make me nearly fall down the stairs to get a Keral in my face. Took much longer to work than the 20 minutes the NSPBBV consultant told me but hey, never mind, EH? It actually took around 40 minutes to work.

And now, I await another period. I haven’t had a day or, indeed, hour without pain. Apart from sleep. If there was pain, I haven’t noticed it, so bedrugged am I with anti-depressants and codeine. (I shan’t go into details – although it may be too late, now – but the amount of codeine I had made for a toilet situation vaguely similar to that experienced by Lisa Lynch in her ASTOUNDING blog, AlrightTit. I am also so stupendously proud to call Lisa an actual real life friend of mine, all thanks to the wonder that is Marsha Shandur, via the world of Twitter. (I went to Lisa’s Super Sweet 30th birthday party in London in September last year with the equally AMAZING Amanda, but didn’t get to meet Marsha. Good news for her…)

For 10 days I have had the familiar pre-period pains and heavy, dragging, relentlessness of my womb and parts. It would seem, then, that the surgery to remove the endometriosis was partially successful; bits were taken away/burned, but the pain of it all is still happening. Bugger. Today is day 30 of my “cycle” and I don’t have a clue when it will start. It may be another 2 days, or 2 weeks. I’m not just impatient with my body (even though I know I can do nothing, actively, to stop it hurting); the sooner the period starts, the sooner the Zoladex injections can be started. Must be administered, subcutaneously (in the stomach), within 5 days of a period starting. As the NPSBBV man said, “(my) body needs a rest”. NOW.

So, altogether now… HURRY FUCKING UP!!