JO JO THE IDIOT CIRCUS BOY...
My Name Is Walter Moczygemba. And I am from Killeen. AndHello there sonny. I hope you are prepared for a tale. Or a long hypnopompic reverie.
Whatever...
See, I was born back in 1980. Ol' Runnin' Zorak they used to call me! NO! I mean my childhood
was juuuust peachy. I lived in San Antonio, TX then. An' I played in the dirtpile. Heh
heh.
So, 'ventually, my sister was
born and things went from peachy to keen.
And of a sudden we moved to San Francisco. In 1984 or
thereabouts. Yeah, I liked San Francisco. That's where my little baby brother was born. Trust me.
He was a baby when he was born. But no more. Alas, no more.
*sigh*.
And then we moved back to Texas, and from there to Hawaii (where the weather is nice and the beaches are jokes) (and most of everything else is a joke as well) (except the libraries) (they sure did have some fine libraries) (nurd's paradise) (amen)...
In Hawaii, I
like, discovered that, from birth, I had had a deformity known as os odontoideum, a
condition in which the odontoid process bone at the top of the spine is JUST NOT THERE.
So I had surgery. They cut a hank o' bone from the back of my hip, and used Great Modern
Science to use it to replace my spinal deficiency. They gave me morphine... huh... huh...
... Well, anyway. After the surgery was done, I had to take time to allow the new bone to heal
into the old ones. And to accomplish this, I had to keep my head and neck perfectly still. And
to accomplish this, they had to have 2 holes drilled into the front of my forehead, and 2
holes drilled in the sides of my skull, just above the ears. Through these rather shallow
apertures were placed large, nail-like pins designed to hold on a frame. The frame, of titanium,
was made to, of course, keep my head from moving. It was called a halo brace. I like the name,
especially in view of how ironic it turned out to be, seein' as how only the devil (without, of
course, any halo) could have come up with this device (had not mankind beaten him to it). I say
this because the GOLDURN PINS IN MY FOREHEAD KEPT PULLING OUT OF THE HOLES IN MY SKULL! AND
WHAT'S MORE, THEY CONSISTENTLY DID SO EVERY THURSDAY AFTER MY DEPARTURE FROM THE HOSPITAL!
Coincidence? Perhaps the devil did have a hand in this... But what was REALLY bad was that
every time the pins popped out (and lord, I tell you-- they didn't just slip out of those little
holes: they POPPED out and it HURT!) not only did the entire brace swivel about the two pins
still in the side of my head, but they had to re-screw those godawful things into the
forehead-holes. With a TORQUE. And it WAS PAINFUL. And eventually, they just said, screw it,
these pins will not stay in these two holes and they MADE NEW ONES which hurt more 'n'
anything (I hadn't felt the original drilling because of anesthesia, another miracle of modern
science, only this one surely angelic in origin). And the shots of local anesthetic to the
forehead helped NOT AT ALL, as the drilling dug into DEEPER nerves, ones which crisscrossed the
entire top of my head. Eventually, though, they gave up with this 3rd set of holes in my head
because I couldn't stop crying during the process (I'm not proud-- I cry all the time). They
relegated my neck-support to the care of one Mr.
Mucho-Simpler-Neck-Brace-The-Kind-That-Goes-Around-Your-Neck-And-Seldom-If-Ever-Hurts. And thru
this whole ordeal I was BALD!!!
Since then, we have returned to Texas. Where the weather is bad and the beaches are jokes. And now I am no longer a wee sleekit cowrin' timorous beastie. I actually have friends, now, yeah I do... I wouldn't lie... would I? (O GOD PLEASE CURSE THIS SAD LAMENT)
