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9th grade over and over again� I flunked 9th grade because I was too sick to keep up at school. Also the boarding school wasn't accredited, so my time there didn't count in the real world. I was transferred to another local high school, this time a public school but not the one where my friends were graduating. I was sicker than ever before, if that was possible and somehow it was, so I spent as much time as I could out of classes seating my aching inflamed body down outside to watch the trees and nature beyond the fence. My size 9 and 1/2 feet and watermelon ankles sent spirals of pain throughout my body along with every other inch of my throbbing agonized being. Somehow, I was almost 18 years old and still in the 9th grade. Time no longer made sense to me because this had been going on for too long. I was confused and angry. My parents were crazy. The schools were crazy. The psychologists, neurotic Dr. "M" and wannabe killer for thrills Dr. "S," were insane. I hadn't seen Dr. "H" yet. The first allergy doctor was a nasty old pervert. The second allergy doctor never heard a thing and I was regretting my stupid silence. I should have been diagnosed, treated, cured and out of this flipping stupid pointless high school getting my GED and enrolling in some college somewhere. But then maybe I wasn't smart enough for college anymore. Maybe the disease had eaten up my brain with all the fever and everything. Maybe my brain was swollen too. I didn't know what to think anymore. Why me? What was happening? All I wanted to do was die. Die or get cured and get my whole-lost life back. The school nurse decided that I had a TMJ problem and she kept pressuring my mother until my mom finally took me to Dr. "G" a TMJ specialist. Dr. "G" examined me and took x-rays and he confirmed that I had a severe case of TMJ. So severe in fact that my jaw joints were as damaged as those of a patient in his/her 40's that had had TMJ all his/her life without treatment. Now I knew why I couldn't hurt the rapist when I had tried to bite him. That made me feel slightly better, slightly validated, because now I understood that I really had tried to bite that monster and make him stop and it wasn't really all my fault that I couldn't hurt him and stop him. My jaw was just a mess. Dr. "G" said that the TMJ was making my neck crooked by causing spasms in my neck muscles and it was causing my eyes to recede. It was also causing headaches and ear aches and it could be responsible for the dried blood I was always finding in my ears. The TMJ treatment went perfectly and my body responded quickly. My facial width really began to shrink down to its previous size. Dr. "G" was a nice man except for one small problem� As the swelling in my face started to diminish Dr. "G" decided that I would make the perfect mistress for him. I refused and Dr. "G" and I spent countless hours behind the locked doors of his office with him talking about his miserable marriage and me encouraging him to get professional marital counseling. When Dr. "G" would explain that he'd tried that many times before, I'd tell him to go to a different counselor. When Dr. "G" said that it was hopeless I'd suggest he consider a divorce. Dr. "G" had too much money and didn't want to lose any significant portion of it in a divorce. We went around and around like that. I always felt that he and his wife should try again with a new therapist. This continued until my TMJ problem was repaired and I no longer needed treatment. Dr. "G" wasn't threatening or perverted, he was simply a lonely and miserable man as well as a brilliant TMJ specialist. My jaw and my neck straightened out. My eyes stopped receding and returned to normal. The Charley horses behind my eyes became a rare occurrence. However, I was far from completely cured. The principle of the latest high school eventually talked my mother into letting me drop out. She did this by telling my mom that I was never going to succeed anyway. When I was finally released from high school I was permanently and officially labeled an unsalvageable failure. My TMJ problem would return later, though never as bad as it was the first time, and I have come to understand that it's just another symptom of the greater problem, which includes intermittent joint swelling and other troubles. Only it all lasted for years at the maximum level when I was a child. Along with this joint swelling is a form of muscle atrophy that I still don't understand. However, I now have permanent and untreatable damage to my neck muscles. Who knows what else is wrong? Certainly not me� |
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