Between 2002-2005 life went on.  Brenda and I had another child, Melissa and we were enjoying life up in NH. I had built up my private teaching to about 60-70 students a week and was playing in a great band every weekend. Things were going pretty good but there was one thing that was plaguing me and that was those damn headaches.  If you remember back to earlier in the story I told you about my headaches after the brain tumor surgery. They would come about once a week and totally wipe me out.  Nothing would get rid of them that I had tried.  All I could do was take Tylenol PM, fall asleep and 6 hours later they were usually gone.

Well during 2002-2005 the headaches increased.  They  happened more often and they became even more painful.  I am not exaggerating when I say that in 2003-2005 I think I had a headache about 98% of the time.  Sometimes it would only be slight but many other times I would be gripping my head and unable to handle it.  I remember countless times that I took my girls to the park.  They would be playing on the slides and swings and yelling for me to come join them and I would just be sitting on the bench holding my head.  As the headaches got worse so did my personality.  I  always tried to be nice and loving but I remember so many times where I would just snap and yell at the girls. Not because of anything they did but just because of the pain I was feeling.

Finally, I couldn’t manage anymore.  It was getting to the point where I couldn’t go to gigs or teach because  and was starting to call in sick. (One of the worst jobs is being a music teacher when you have a migraine…..Trust me! )  I went to my new doctor in NH and he  really had no answers for me. He ran a bunch of tests but was at a loss. He prescribed  me “Vicodin” for the times when it was really bad.  Now I went home and tried the Vicodin and have to say that it was my new best friend.  I would be in total intense pain and then take a Vicodin and the pain would just melt away.  I would feel completely happy.  Now before I continue you can probably see where this is going to go.  I mean the thing is, I had these headaches all the time so……….I started taking Vicodin all the time!  I’d go back and get more, and then go back and get more and pretty soon instead of it lasting a month, it would be gone in two weeks. Finally, my doctor said he couldn’t give me anymore. I was pretty upset. I could finally function. Go to work, play gigs, teach, play with my kids and go out with my wife. All I had to do was take a couple of pills and the pain would go away and now he was taking that away!  What would I do now?  How would I function?

I went home that day feeling pretty sad. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t depressed like before) The headaches came back and I just went on trying to live with them (not to mention coming off of Vicodin cold turkey which wasn’t that great either)

A few weeks later I went to see my doctor and this time I was adamant that we needed to figure this out because there was no way I could continue to live like this.  I have to say that of all the things that I had went through up to this point,  nothing compared to a chronic illness.  The worst feeling in the world is to have something that is chronic and have no cure nor any idea what it is caused from or how to fix it.  I have the most respect for those of you out there that struggle with a chronic illness.  I understand how hard it can be!

The doctor was making appointments with some specialist and on a whim I asked if I could see and eye doctor because the headaches seemed like they were always centered around my right eye. He made an appointment for me down at Mass Eye and Ear with a Nuero-Opthamologist to check out my eyes which as luck would have it was the best thing I ever did.  I went down to my appointment and the doctor checked my eyes after I told him about my headaches.  Within seconds after checking my right eye he told me that I needed to have a shunt put in my head to drain pressure from my head.  It turned out that my right eye’s optic nerve had extreme swelling and he knew immediately that there was too much intracranial pressure in my head. He scheduled a spinal tap and sure enough my pressure was very high. The doctor didn’t know why or what was causing it but he said the important thing is to get the shunt in place to decease that pressure ASAP.

A few days later, I went in for the surgery and they put the shunt in.  It would drain any excess fluid in my brain down to my abdomen whenever the pressure would reach a certain point. I had to go back for a few adjustment but once it was set right………my headaches were totally gone.  Now you have to understand that going from having severe headaches 98% of the time to none is like being releases from jail after 20 years.  I was free!  I was smiling, I had more energy than ever.  Right after this time is when I started my website, wrote all my books and started practicing again. From 2002 -2005 I couldn’t do much of anything because of these headaches but after the shunt the floodgates were opened.

One final story before I end this. A few weeks after the shunt was finally set up I woke up one morning and my youngest daughter came up to my bed and said “Good Morning Daddy” I looked at her funny because  to be honest, she sounded demon possessed.  I had heard two voices when she spoke.  Her normal voice and then another voice at the same time that was lower.  It actually freaked me out a bit.  I went downstair and sat at the table eating breakfast and all the girls voices sounded messed up.  I heard two voices every time they spoke.  Now this was alarming and weird but what happened next really scared me.  My wife put on some music and it sounded like garbage.  I mean it was the worst music I had ever heard.  I told her how bad it was and how out of tune the musicians were and she thought I was crazy. A little later I went to play my sax and that too sounded messed up.  I thought me sax was broke.  I played a G Major scale and half way up the scale the notes were incredibly flat.  I played a C major triad on my piano and it sounded horrible also.  All out of tune and like some dissonant chord from hell.  I truly flipped out at this point and went down to Mass Eye and Ear emergency room that night.  They had no answers for me but left me with………”Let’s see if it goes away”  You’ve got be kidding me I thought. I’m a professional musician and I can’t even listen to music.  As luck would have it the next day we were going to Disney World so I had no gigs for the next 2 weeks.

The next day my family and I went to Disney World in Florida.  The happiest place on earth and I was a total wreck.  For the 10 days we were there my hearing never got better.  My wife just kept telling me to let it go but of course it was hard to do that.  Finally the next to last day there I had to leave dinner because of a bad headache.  It was so bad that I was nauseous and had to go back to the hotel room.  Back in the hotel room I had a long talk with God.  I had learned over the past years to express my feeling and be real and I felt like I did that in prayer that night.  I was scared, mad and quite bewildred at what God was now putting me through.  After all I had been through……….my headaches were finally cured, I could now enjoy life and be somewhat happy and  now you take away my hearing so I can’t be a musician!

Now at the end of this prayer this is what I said “God, I’m going to try to have faith here and I believe you can heal me. I know you have always worked in my life through doctors and hospitals and I am glad you have.  I guess what I’m wondering is why you can’t just do a real miracle.  Why can’t I just pray for something and you answer my prayer.  Not with doctors, not with hospitals  but just you anwering my prayer so I know it is you and that you heard me and loved me enough to help.  I just ask that this one time you help me like I see that you did for people in the Bible.  I pray that you jut cure me so that I finally know that you really exist and I won’t doubt anymore.  Just this one time can’t you do that for me?”

• share:
• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recomend on Facebook
• Tip on Hyves
• Share via MySpace
• Share on Orkut
• share via Reddit
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post