Well, that was fun...

The good news is, I had a job interview Saturday. I think it went fairly well, considering I was in the middle of an MSG attack.

I haven't mentioned this before in this blog, so I'll update everyone now. I don't like MSG. And that is about the biggest understatement that I can think of. For me, MSG poisoning is potentially fatal. I have come close to dieing on several occasions. Sometimes the reaction is relatively minor and I simply feel thoroughly miserable for day or so. Sometimes it gets absolutely unbearable and can last for days.

I started carrying a couple pieces of paper in my wallet. This one outlines what happens to me and asks for help. I carry this one because when I'm having a bad attack I can't speak and I'm too incoherent to know what to do. I can give this to someone to help me. The other paper is a description of the severity of what is happening.

Early Saturday morning I received an email from a potential employer. He wanted to set up a meet so I agreed to meet him at 2:00. I had already started feeling a little down and was going through my mantra of affirmations. But I just couldn't "feel" them. I didn't know what was going on. I started working harder, focusing, but was having trouble. Finally around mid morning I realized what was going on. I asked a friend for help but she wasn't available. I was feeling like absolute crap. Late morning it "peaked" and began to subside. By 2 I could still feel it but was feeling relatively stable. The interview went well, I think. Hopefully I didn't say anything too stupid. I was doing ok, but really wasn't myself.

After the interview I went home to OB. I shop at People's Organic Market and thought they would like to know about some hidden MSG in one of the products they carry. They were very appreciative.

This is where it starts to get interesting. I thought it was over and I was getting better. After all, the attack peaked late morning and there's never more than one peak. I started feeling a little worse while at the market and wrote it off as an "after shock". Guess what? Turns out the late morning peak was just a "pre-shock". These attacks are different every time. This one had two peaks. That's never happened before.

After I got home I was feeling A LOT worse. I decided it was time to go to the hospital. Never done that before. From all of my research the medical industry will barely even admit the problem exists, little lone know what to do about it. But I felt I needed some help of some kind.

Wanting to talk to as few people as possible, it seemed reasonable to seek out some sort of authority figure to ask where the nearest hospital was. The main life guard tower is within sight of where I "live", so I went there on my bike. By the time I got there, I couldn't speak. I gave them the first paper mentioned above and managed to communicate that I just wanted directions and I would drive myself. They wouldn't let me leave. The symptoms come and go so I could communicate some.

I went to the hospital by ambulance. I told them I couldn't leave my truck where it was because I would get a ticket there. They knew I was homeless so, although they're not supposed to do this, they agreed to move my truck for me. Very kind of them. On the trip I had a wonderful conversation with the ambulance attendant, all be it a somewhat broken and likely not overly coherent conversation. Her distraction was a big help in calming me down.

In the hospital they poked, prodded and x-rayed for hours. All their tests came back exactly as I knew they would - all normal. As luck would have it though, the doctor I had just happened to also have bad reactions to MSG, so he was one of the extremely few people in the medical world that knows anything about it.

I have studied this subject for years. When something has the potential to kill you, you tend to learn as much as you can. And do your best to find a solution. I have yet to find one. When I found out my doctor had some knowledge of MSG, I asked if he knew of anything. He too had looked and found nothing. No antidote, no treatment. Just avoid it and ride it out when it happens.

When I was released, around 8:30, I was still very confused. They gave me two bus tokens to get home and pointed me to the bus stop. I ended up asking several people several times where the bus stops were, what bus to take and when to get off. I was relieved, and somewhat surprised, when I was able to find my truck. I was very glad to get to bed. I think it was around 11:00, I'm not sure.

I had been sweating most of the day while my body was attempting to get rid of the toxins. I smelled pretty bad. I was very happy to be able to take a shower this morning.

Now, about 3:00 in the afternoon, I'm still pretty fuzzy, but getting better. This should be gone in a day or two.

The plan was to go to the interview Saturday morning then set up my table down by the docks to sell another bowl. So much for that idea. Even today there's no way I could think straight enough to do it. Now I'm out of money and have no way of getting any. My gym membership is up in five days so I won't have access to a shower anymore and I have just 6 minutes left on my phone. Maybe I'll be able to think better in the next day or two and come up with something.

One other thing that MSG does to me is cause me to be very negative. Not good when a positive attitude is required to find a solution to something. I will be more positive when this is over. Then I'll find something.

Do I feel bad about the government footing my hospital and ambulance bill? Not in the slightest. They're responsible for approving this crap. They can pay for the aftermath. The number of people who are affected by this stuff is far, far higher than people realize. There are millions of people diagnosed with things every year that can be fixed just by cutting out the chemicals, especially the MSG.