Really?… Me???

June 2018:
For your sake, I’m hoping that you stumbled onto this page by accident. Or you followed a link I sent you because you care and are trying to understand this netherworld I’ve fallen into.

A world of invisible giant wasps that dart out of the night and stab me through my cheek, upward through my chin or vertically down through my skull. Entering the tunnels they have hacked out behind my right eye, threads of electric fire. Sometimes, viciously picking an alternate path, testing other spillways inside my head. Planning for the future?  HMoG.

I hope you aren’t a sufferer yourself.

If you are, my commiserations. … No, ..”My commiserations” is piss-weak. Let me give you a hug and tell you that you’ve walked in under a sign over the door: ” “TN Warrior,  I know, I understand, I feel.”   And please stay with me. I am glad for your company.  This world of pain is a pretty lonely place. And yes, with numbers like ours, we’re kind of invisible, right?  Staying together makes sense for more reasons than for just the company.

If you’re family, friend or “an interested party” :  (and here, everyone’s family),   you may have already learned of the nature of this condition from me. If not, do have a quick look at this section and come back . My wailing and gnashing of teeth will make more sense then. (And I promise, I’ll keep that down! 😉

So the phrase “TN Warrior” may sound like hyperbole.
It’s not.

You develop this condition and in the flash of an eye – a sad pun intended – you find you have been  drawn into a battle waged on many fronts: the fight to make people understand just how horrendously painful this condition is, the fight to engage the medical research community, the fight to stave of the depression that’s endemic to the essentially incurable – and of course the war against Pain, the relentless foe.

Salman Khan, the Bollywood actor who is apparently a TN sufferer is quoted as saying that he would not wish it on his worst enemy. Ha ha. A telling statement in  an industry that makes a lot of enemies and has a lot of haters.

Thanks for being here, and please do browse around. I’ve just set up this blog and it will doubtless evolve with time. The decor and furniture will shift around, the soul will stay the same.  I needed to get this up and going in a hurry – and I’m already bumping my head against WordPress limitations. Experimentation looms.

I’m doing this for diverse reasons: To record my journey through pain-land, to allow the people who care about me to know where I am along the way, to disseminate information about the condition and hopefully to share my experience(s) with others who have TN. And as I was just telling Prasuna, (one who does care), that writing here is cathartic.

And far more useful than howling at the moon because I rolled over in my sleep and came awake at 4am with crackles of lightning blazing inside my head.

Ish Rashad
June 2018