Vertigo, or "How My Spinning World Finally Stopped"

I recently read where a MLB baseball player went on the disabled list because of vertigo. For some reason I found this funny. I have since found out it's not funny, especially if it happens to you.
For the last few months, I have been experiencing chest pains, headaches, eye pain, itching, breathing difficulties, ringing in my ears, vision problems, and other things. My doctor even hospitalized me for extensive tests, including a cardiac catheterization. The good news was my heart was unchanged since my last 2 heart attacks, the bad news was they had no idea what the problem was.
Ten or 12 days ago, I went all dizzy. I couldn't walk, my head ached, I was sweaty, and my vision was blurred. I recognized these to be symptoms of vertigo, so off I went to my good 'ole buddy Google to find a cure, or at least to see if I really had vertigo. I indeed did display all the symptoms of vertigo, so I read further to learn the cause of this malady. As I scrolled down the list of causes, going past brain tumors and other scary possibilities, my eyes fell upon what I INSTANTLY knew to be the cause of my sickness.
I been a diabetic since 1990, and as all of you that are familiar with this disease, it requires an enormous amount of self-care to continue with a somewhat higher quality of life. You have to monitor your diet closely, maintain your blood sugar levels with medication and injections, and get as much exercise as possible. Therefore, I never used added sugar to anything, and always used a sugar substitute instead. I freely used these little packets in my coffee, cereal, and anything else I felt the need to sweeten up. I thought this is great stuff, a diabetics dream, you might say. It was in fact poisoning me.
Nutra-sweet, phenylalanine, whatever name it goes by, is commonly called aspartame. It is used in a long list of commercial products, including diet sodas, or anything low calorie or sugar free. When I read that one of it's MANY side effects was vertigo, I immediately stopped my use of this product. Within 48 hours, my vertigo symptoms mostly stopped, with the double vision lasting another day or so. My ears have stopped ringing, I have stopped itching, I breath a lot better, and most wonderful of all, my chest no longer hurts. That throbbing pain that I had endured and worried about for months had disappeared.
Now I know what you are thinking. I'm thinking the same thing, believe me. A few days isn't enough time to attribute my problems to aspartame. I found one medical website that said it takes 30-60 days to rid yourself of this poison, so time will tell. I do know I feel better right now then I have in years. Meanwhile, I have spent the last few days researching this poison, and I have found numerous case studies supporting the belief that this stuff is toxic.
I will be reporting back during my ongoing recovery period and maybe we will all be a little better educated on this topic. Thanks for reading.

'Japan Question"

I took a world of shit on a question I posted on Facebook Friday night. I asked a rhetorical question as to weather people might be offended that the U.S.A. is offering aid to Japan after the earthquake, beings they bombed Pearl Harbor. I mistakenly wondered weather people might feel this way.
Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I in NO way feel we should not offer aid to these people. I harbor NO hard feelings toward the Japanese people. Some of you may not know or have forgotten something about me. I am a LIBERAL. I care about the welfare of all people. You are probably now thinking I assume all conservatives don't care about people. Not true either, we just have differing ways on how to express these views.
Live and let live is my motto. I don't care if you are gay, lesbian, green, brown, red or orange. I still love you. Though if you are orange, you might want to see a doctor.
Unlike most liberals, I do not support abortion. I had the unfortunate experience of seeing my unborn child miscarry and the resulting removal of the 15 week old fetus. It was a life changing event for me. I will never forget it.
I was born in the early 50's. I went to school in the early aftermath of Pearl Harbor. One of my teachers was held in a concentration camp just because he was Japanese. I personally saw how offended and hurt these people were. So this goes out to all those self serving bastards that want to go off on me. Unless you are at least as old as me, you need to shut the fuck up, because I have some first hand knowledge of at least some of the misery these people went through. I didn't reach this age and not learn a few things. I read at least two newspapers a day, sometimes more. I am very up to date on current events.
My heart goes out to the Japanese people. I remember how we all felt after Katrina, how the president sat on his hands while an entire American city drowned. I can only imagine the horror they felt.
I now know how former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak felt a few weeks when a simple social network removed him from power. Listed below is a sample of the messages I received...

This is from someone named Mike Evans...
But all of me wants to scream "why are you so damn ignorant?" try having some compassion for people once and maybe feel better about yourself.
p.s. you might want to make your facebook more secure so it doesnt show up on openbook again, that way you can be ignorant as you want and only have family members like your son call you out for it, instead of the thousands of people browing "pearl harbor" on facebook.
people like you make me ashamed to breathe the same air as you.

From Dan Jensen...
But there's a pretty large part of you screaming ignorance. They got what they deserved with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is a natural disaster no one deserves.

From someone calling himself "Agent Jerry"...
please kill yourself you worthless piece of shit, and YOUR Tax dollars will be sent to Japan, after they killed Americunts at pearl harbor. haha fucker

From Omar H. Freeman...
Hey moron, what are you talking about?
paybacks a bitch?
After pearl harbor, the US destroyed two of their cities.
I think that paid them back more than 50 years ago you clueless twit.
Those cities had thousands of civilians, far more died in those nuclear blasts than the entire pear harbor attack which was a military attack not an attack on civilians.

And finally, the one halfway decent post...from Dillion Votaw... I'll ignore the dickhead remark.

here's some perspective, dickhead

"After Katrina, the Japanese government offered material and monetary assistance that surpassed $1 million and that included tents, blankets, power generators and portable water tanks. Japan also provided $200,000 to the American Red Cross to aid hurricane victims. In addition, Takashi Endo, a private businessman in Japan, donated $1 million from his personal funds to Katrina relief efforts."

Well, you get the drift. I try to keep this somewhat a family blog, so I'll just delete the others.
Please understand I'm not the person some people believed me to be. We can have differing viewpoints. We can just agree to disagree, no problem. Healthy, stimulating conversation is good for everyone, we should ALL welcome all viewpoints, not just your own, and consider them. It would be a sad world if we didn't.

*** Thanks Everyone ***

All my thanks to everyone for your well wishes, kind words, thoughts, and concerns during my hospital stay. As I said at my birthday, I'm overwhelmed at the warm and thoughtful people in my life. I am truly a lucky guy.

"Hospitals, Nurses, and Frank Rodriquez"

I know we need hospitals, but why do they need to so intrusive? I was in there for about 48 hours and it seemed like a lifetime, or more.
Nurses? Ha, every guy knows what I'm thinking here.
Frank Rodriquez, I'll deal with him in a minute.

Hospitals are SUPPOSED to make you well, but why did I feel more sick when I left?
I was in as a heart patient, and I understand their reasons, but seriously, how much blood do you need from one person? Almost immediately, they pulled 6 or 7 vials of blood from me. This alone made me question their sanity. I asked if they could conduct multiple test on one sample, but they said the system didn't allow that. I'm thinking they need an improved system.

On the second day, they took me to a big room with a 2 million dollar machine sitting in it. They slide me across to the table, and give me a drug to make me woozy. This was the first truly positive thing they had done for me. Hospitals have some TRULY amazing shit they can pump into you. Made me forget all about that asshole Frank Rodriquez, who was in the other bed in my room. At this point, I didn't have a care in the world, which is really good because they were about to cut a hole in me near my groin, and shove a tube up my vein, through my chest and into my heart, and pump some radioactive stuff into me. This sounds far worse then it really is, or at least the aforementioned drugs made it seem that way. They then watch 4 big monitors that show all of my heart, and they can tell how everything is working. They then ship you back to your room where you then have to deal with roommates and nurses.

On the first night, a nurse came to the room multiple times an hour. They have a job to do, and I understand this. What I don't understand is why this nurse felt the need to wake me up at 1:15 am to get my weight. They had weighed me a few hours before and posted it on the board in the room, in plain sight. I pointed to the board and she said it might have changed. For the first time in my life, I told a nurse to please leave, and rolled over for my next nap, which is what you do in the hospital, you don't sleep. You take a series of naps.

Which brings me to Mr. Rodriquez. This loud, obnoxious bore came into my room in the afternoon and preceded to just start flipping the channels on the TV, without saying a word to me. This would have been alright except for the fact I was watching a program at the time. He had several nurses around him because he had just came in, and all he wanted to do was play with the TV. He couldn't even see the TV for the people. I decided to just let him have his way, as it seemed to be more fun anyway. And it was. This guy was a true asshole that only cared about his perceived needs. It was all about him. He talked at the top of his voice, barking out instruction to the nurses, his companion, me, and anyone else he could find. He had them turn the TV away from me so he could see it better, without even asking if it would bother me. While I don't even care, I was just amazed that he didn't even seem to be aware of the people around him. None of this really bothered me much, I'm just mentioning it because of what REALLY, REALLY pissed me off about this guy.

When MY nurse, we had separate ones, came into the room to consult with me, tell me about my meds, shots, or whatever, this asshole would interrupt her and start bitching about something he needed or wanted. He would interrupt her in mid-sentence EVERY time she came in. She would tell him EVERY time when she was finished with me, she would help him. This made no difference to him, he continued talking. This absolutely clueless bastard could not understand it.

All in all, though, they think I'm fine. No further damage to my heart has been detected since my initial heart attacks. I will know more in 2 weeks or so. Frank Rodriquez, I will hope you somehow wake up, but I doubt it. In your 70+ years of living, you haven't learned a thing about caring for other people, and this is sad. I do wish you the best, however.

**Top Ten Reasons You Shouldn't Use Facebook**

#10 - We don't give a damn if you're going to bed now, unless it's with someone we know.

#9 - We especially don't give a damn if you got drunk and puked. Why is this special? Any moron can do this.

#8 - They call it a "Social Network" for a reason. Be sociable. Don't use it to trash people, unless they using it for one of these reasons.

#7 - Most criminals can read, at least a little. Rapists, thieves, and muggers love knowing when you are going to
the store...etc.

#6 - If Facebook is your life, get a life. See reason #8. If you meet someone interesting, tell us about it.

#5 - Your boss and teacher can read, and read your Facebook they WILL do. Remember this the next time you call in sick so you can go have fun instead.

#4 - People will analyze everything you say in great detail.

#3 - You think Mark Zuckerberg is rich enough.

#2 - You were wondering how that long lost, forgotten medical bill found you? Now you know.

And the number one reason you shouldn't use Facebook --

#1 - You are so obsessed with drama you think no one will notice that you changed your relationship status. Get over yourself NOW. This is a PUBLIC website. If you go off changing your status after a little tiff, to draw attention to yourself, to have people feel sorry for you, to get everyone to talk about YOU, you are this...

An attention grabbing, self obsessed media hound who wants the whole world to know about them. We don't feel sorry, we feel pity.