We also have some pics from the NeenerPalooza (the party before the Walk) to be posted shortly (as soon as we track them down!).

If you’re jealous of the awesome time we had, there’s still plenty of time to get involved – you can still sponsor us, but why not sponsor someone on our new satellite teams? You can choose from Warren, Pa (Team N3RD), Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina (Team N3NC), or our BRAND NEW satellite team, the N3RDCast Queer Division in Chicago!

Thanks to everyone that helped! Oh, and now that we’ve given out our surprise gifts to our mothers, you can also get in on the secret gifts our wonderful friend Jodi made for us: Hope Necklaces. They’re gorgeous, and every necklace purchased also gets a donation towards the MS Society!

The Warhammer Online shirts also netted us over $300, with a matching donation from EA-Mythic! Props all around!

The drawing will be Saturday, April 12th at 10pm (EST) at the NeenerPalooza, so get your sponsorship in now! Make sure you include a comment about the drawing to ensure you’re entered. I’ll send acknowledgments to everyone that enters! If you’ve already sponsored us and want to be entered into the drawing, just drop me a line.

Thanks to the lovely and generous Sanya for the shirt donation – and SUPER HUGE PROPS to the peeps at Mythic for agreeing to MATCH THE BIDS ON EBAY WITH A DONATION TO OUR TEAM! Yaaay!

The lovely Sanya sent me a couple of spiffy EA Mythic shirts to put up for auction to raise money for Team N3RD. Having run the gauntlet that is ebay, I think can safely say I will NEVER EVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN.

Sweet mother of Gord. How is it that ANYONE does ANY listings with them? Given the choice, I think I would rather undergo some ordeal involving fire ants and my privates than try and figure out their ridiculous posting guidelines again. In case you’re wondering why I didn’t list these under their charity works.

In other news, Becky took another fall tonight. It wasn’t quite as nasty as the last time – this time she went head-to-head with the wooden coffee table instead of the cast-iron radiator (she’s learning!). But she’s still going to have one hell of a goose egg on her skull. Just in time to show Ben.

Update: ebay continues to do it’s best to frustrate me. For whatever reason, the shirts aren’t showing up under me; but here is the link to shirt one and shirt two.

“What?”

I try again. This is the second time we’ve had this conversation – the first time, she fell back asleep immediately.

“You’ve had a seizure.”

“Are you serious?”

I can’t even answer because I’m fighting back tears, so I merely nod my head. I take a moment to blow my nose and regain my composure and start again.

“While you were sleeping, you slipped into a seizure. I woke up to you thrashing and making noise. I’ve called your mom and the doctor. We’re going to take you to the hospital.”

We’re okay, I tell myself. It was a seizure, and it was scary, but it’s over now, right? No harm done?

And then she looks at me with fear in her eyes. “You’re going to think this is dumb… but what day is it?”

The part of me that was in control throws up his hands and the tears start flowing.

An Ordinary Day

Yesterday was nothing extraordinary. We did the N3RDCast till about 4pm, and then I set to work on unclogging our kitchen drain. I spent about five hours of very ineffective work on it, completely dismembering large swaths of our plumbing to try and get to the clog. While not exactly fun, it still beat doing homework for college (I’m between classes this weekend, yaay!). Then I went to work on the show notes, and that took me till about 2-3am.

Becky said she was tired, and spent most of the day on the couch, dozing. This isn’t unusual for MS: there are some days she’s just completely wiped and can do little more than make it to the couch. But if she was acting somewhat out of the ordinary in a way that would indicate what was about to come, I did not pick up on it. When I came to bed that night, she barely stirred, but again, this is not unusual. She is a heavy sleeper at the best of times, and tough days knock her out even deeper. I read briefly and then did my own crashing.

I awoke to the bed bouncing and a Banshee shrieking in my ear.

Enter The Banshee

Anyone that’s listened to the N3RDCast has heard me talk repeatedly about the Banshee from Darby O’Gill and the Little People, one of my favorite movies. The Banshee – and it’s wail – is a figure that struck my 6-year-old heart with an icicle of terror that has never been matched.

Until now.

The shriek that cut through my unconscious and launched me instantly into full-on wakefulness was the most horrific sound I have ever heard. I tell you in all seriousness: it is a sound that will haunt my dreams for years to come. I can’t even give you an accurate description of what it sounded like, because I have never heard anything like it. All I know is that I shot bolt upright and turned to see my beloved wife on her side with her head thrown back and her mouth as wide as it would go, shrieking in a rapidly rising and falling pitch. When HP Lovecraft used the word “gibbering,” this was the sound in his mind. This was the TRUE sound of the Banshee – the maddening wail that drives men to their knees just from hearing it.

And it was coming from my wife, who – up until a few seconds ago – had been slumbering quietly next to me.

Her eyes were screwed shut but tears were pouring out between the lids. Her hands were clenched into fists and jerking against her torso as her entire body shook.

In some part of my mind, I recognized logically that she was having a seizure. But the wave of terror that crashed over me wiped any sort of rational thinking from my mind. All I knew was the agonized expression on her face and that God-damning wail coming from her lips. I grabbed her shoulder and shook her, yelling her name, asking what was wrong. Her wail continued for twenty or thirty seconds – in my mind, it’s still going on, echoing around my head – before she began gurgling with huge globs of saliva shooting out of her mouth.

At this point, if she had sat up, levitated the bed into the air, spun her head around and declared that my mother sucks cocks in Hell I could not have been more terrified.

Finally, after about an eternity a minute of this, the convulsions faded away until she grew completely still. But that didn’t really calm me down. All I could think was that not just the convulsions were stopping, but all of her functions – breathing, heartbeat – were stopping, too. I grew even more panicked and frantic in my shaking and shouting her name. She responded finally by starting to snore in a manner that was completely normal for her.

Except that her eyes were wide open and unfocused.

I could not rouse her. I agonized over what to do next for a few seconds before calling Becky’s mom, Elaine, who is a registered nurse. I could barely talk to her to explain the situation because my hysteria was catching up to me and I was sobbing with great sucking breaths.

Thankfully, Elaine was much more rational than I and much MUCH more experienced with seizures. She explained that it was not unusual for someone to slip into a deep, deep sleep after a seizure. This eased my fear and allowed me to regain some semblance of self-control and rational thought. Elaine was already leaving for our house as I got off the phone with her, and we agreed that I would call Becky’s neurologist, which I did immediately.

I left a message with his answering service and set about doing a frantic version of morning preparation. I was dressed and ready to go in about .03 seconds, but while I waited for Elaine to arrive or the doctor to call me back I had nothing to do but sit by Becky and wait for her to come around. She often stirred, looking around but seeming completely unaware of me as I repeatedly called her name. Finally she closed her eyes and seemed to fall into a normal sleep.

After about a half hour, she stirred again. She opened her eyes and actually focused on me, and I am able to get a response.

“Baby, you’ve had a seizure.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

And she fell instantly back to sleep.

The Aftermashing

About ten minutes after that, she is awake again, this time a bit more focused. We have the discussion that started this story, and begin discovering the parts of her memory that are missing. While at first she doesn’t remember that it is Easter Sunday, nor that Elaine and her boyfriend were supposed to come up for Easter dinner with us, eventually pieces start to fill in. She is, of course, terrified. From her perspective, she just woke up and I was there, puffy-eyed and hysterical, telling her things that she had absolutely no recollection of. The previous day’s events still linger like a tenuous dream. She is vaguely aware of some of them, but most continue to evade her.

The doctor calls and after a brief explanation of events, he says we need to admit her to the hospital. They need to run a battery of tests on Becky to determine what could have caused the seizure, but he believes it’s simply a flare-up of MS. Still, we make plans to get her admitted and agree to meet later in the day as he makes his rounds.

Elaine arrives and we get Becky cleaned up and pack a bag for the hospital. We’re old pros at this by now, so we know what to bring (like Becky’s Nintendo DS, obviously). Then we make the trip to hospital and undergo a surprisingly easy check-in at the ER. Being early on a holiday, I guess we miss the rush. The ER doctor runs a CAT scan but finds nothing and is fully prepared to discharge her. I, in turn, explain that her doctor wants her admitted, and that any subsequent talk of discharge will result in the discharge of my bladder into his face.

Okay, okay – I’m a wuss, we all know that. But I do explain – a bit insistently – that her doctor wants her admitted, and I am not budging on that issue. If there’s one thing that 300-pound men do, it’s not budging.

The ER doctor gets a hold of the neurologist and things are worked out. Becky is admitted – not just to the hospital, and not just to the neurology ward, but to the BRAND NEW neurology ward! With private rooms that are HUGE and feature a PRIVATE SHOWER! Luxury of luxuries! I make the requisite phone calls to family and shoot a text to some friends to start the grapevine.

It’s a wonderful change of pace for our usual hospital experiences and a welcome relief. I slide a chair up against her bed, lower the “seizure-padded” railing, and we entwine our hands and snuggle against each other as best we can. We stay like that for a while, watching the Karate Kid on TV (quality programming!). As Daniel-san enters the tourney, Becky’s neurologist shows up and we turn our attention to him (with apologies to Daniel-san and his magnificent Crane Kick).

The first tests are back and they look positive. The CAT scan is unchanged from the last one she had a few years ago, so we can take comfort in that. They’re going to do an MRI, which will give us a much better image of what is going on in her brain. There is a slightly elevated white blood cell count, which is expected with seizures, but no other signs of infection or anything Really Bad (TM) going on. We talk about possible causes and are overall encouraged – oftentimes people with MS just have seizures. There’s no rhyme nor reason to it (other than the war being waged in their nervous system by their own body), so this is not an extraordinary occurrence that we should really be overly concerned about.

Which is easy for him to say, he didn’t wake up to the Banshee.

But the talk is good. We really like her doctor, so it is comforting to talk with him and he definitely makes us feel better. It’s a comforting feeling that lasts the rest of the night, even consoling me when I have to say farewell to my beautiful wife, looking sad and scared in the hospital bed. We kiss and hug, and she tells me good luck with my writing (because she knows the only way I can deal with my agony is writing). The fear is still there, but the doctor’s pep talk keeps me going.

Right up until it’s time for me to go home and face the bedroom by myself.

The Scene of the Slime

Elaine spent a good chunk of the day cleaning our house because she’s awesome like that. I know our sheets and pillowcases have been washed and will now smell of a spring breeze.

But I’ve been home for three hours and still can’t bring myself to go into the bedroom.

It’s not that anything particularly gross happened. I’ve dealt with my share of bodily fluids in the past (my share, your share, and YOUR share). That isn’t what is bothering me. What’s bothering me is the knowledge that we’ve just entered a new chapter in our life. After all my stupid, stupid bragging about how great things were going, MS heard me and threw us a curve ball. A curve ball that was actually a grenade.

When Becky was in the throes of her seizure, so many terrible things were flashing through my mind – things so terrible I can’t even face them to write them down now. That fraction of time that was MAYBE two or three minutes, tops. But it created more terror than the combination of the past seven years of relapses, hospital visits, loss of mobility, loss of bladder/bowel control, and the loss of dignity.

Every facade of confidence, every hope, every dream, every single prayer I’ve held in my heart was smashed in one brief flash.

And yet here I am. Despite my fears, despite the inevitable nightmares, I’m going to bed tonight. I may not sleep soundly (or at all), but I’m going. And then I will get up tomorrow, I’ll march into that hospital, and I will do everything in my power to cheer up that beautiful woman and bring a smile to her face.

Why?

Because at the height of terror, when that horrific wail escaped from my wife and turned the blood in my veins to ice and drove any rational thought from my brain, I reached for her.

As scared as I might be now, as heavy as my heart feels, as terrible as the future could be – there is no force on this Earth (or beyond) that will ever stop me from reaching for my beloved.

So you want to talk about creating a hero? How about “Kicks’ Banshee’s Ass Man.” Because as terrified as I am, as hard as this has been, as tough as it’s going to be to still coordinate things for the Walk MS, this isn’t even going to slow us down.

Walk on, friends.

I can’t do that this year.

It’s not that there haven’t been struggles this year – just last week Becky was bedridden with horrific diarrhea and vomiting that we were both terrified was going to be a relapse that would see her hospitalized again. We spent the night holding each other, trying to be brave and not bawl too loudly. But Becky recovered the next day and was back – if not bounDing, at least bounCing around the house. She was merely going through an “adjustment” as she switched from Beta Seron to Copaxone medications for her MS. But here we are, a week later, and I cannot get into a somber state of mind to write some sad story because Becky had me in tears today, I was laughing so hard.

I can’t imagine you will have much sympathy when I try to tell you how hard it is being in love with a beautiful woman who can make you laugh so hard you get dizzy. There’s not a lot of support groups out there for people like me, I’m afraid. I shall just have to endure!

Yup, We’re The Crazy Ones

Among the other teams at the Walk MS, Team N3RD tends to be noticeable without any help. Our team tends to “stand out” – sometimes it’s because we rent ice cream trucks as “support vehicles”, sometimes it’s because we’re dressing up like plumbers and throwing koopa shells at each other, and sometimes it’s just because one of us dressed up like a big fat pint of Ben & Jerrys. And consider yourself lucky I can’t find the pics from the Ninjas vs. Pirates year…

In a word, our team is the FUN team. We may not raise the most money, have the largest team numbers, and we’re CERTAINLY not finishing first. But when it comes to the team that gets up to the wackiest hijinks, has THE most fun, and has the craziest people, no one else even comes close.

Our team is made up of people so crazy, so absolutely insane, they travel across the country to join in. Sebine has flown (and one year even driven!) from Minnesota. Heather, Jesse, Nik and Dave drove down from the Boston area. Sanya drove up from Virginia. Mac, intent on demonstrating HE was king crazy, flew from California. WITH A LUIGI COSTUME IN HIS CARRY-ON LUGGAGE.

And keep in mind that’s not even counting our LOCAL crackpots who not only join us for this sort of nonsense once a year, but also regularly get together with us for no other purpose than to blow up some rebel scum. AND that’s not counting FAMILY, who has no choice but to be crazier than everyone else COMBINED.

Who are these crazy people, you ask? What makes them sacrifice their time, their money and their sanity for this (admittedly good!) cause?

They’re Gamers, of course.

Living Outside the Stereotype

Somewhere Jack Thompson is probably blowing a gasket, but the truth is that these people, our incredible friends – that regularly make huge sacrifices to help us and countless other people they don’t know – were brought together through our love of gaming. Sometimes it was a love of exploring ancient lands at the behest of an ancient wizard. Sometimes we were laying siege to enemy castles. Sometimes we were fighting evil-doers. Sometimes we dealt with rebel scum. Sometimes we simply needed to forcibly put down guerrilla forces. And really, since those days we’ve experienced soooo many other things, I can’t even link them all here.

That’s it. Those games were the bonds that brought us together, gave us common goals, gave us stories to share over drinks, gave us excuses to meet up with hundreds of other players, and gave us so many wonderful chances to meet a lot of great people. And that’s not even including the THOUSANDS of people from the other games we play (WoW, JG, EQ, PS, Half-Life, DDO, MxO, AO, M59 - do I need to continue?) that have come together to support us by pledging, spreading the word, or just sending encouraging emails.

And here we are again. While the media is currently full of ridiculous claims against gamers (with no other speculation than the inane ramblings of a madman), REAL gamers are here, raising money for a great cause.

Want To Be A Hero?

For our crazy antics this year, the theme will be “Lesser-Known Superheroes” (Captain Antartica, I’m looking at YOU…).

Apart from the incredible fun we have, Team N3RD is together for an important reason: we’re fighting against MS. Fun and jokes aside, that’s the cause that all of our fellow gamers, family and friends are getting behind. The money we’re raising isn’t just for Some Good Cause (TM). We’re raising money in the hopes that people like my beautiful wife don’t have to suffer ever again. We – team members and team supporters alike – are a new breed of heroes. And – now including fun and jokes – it’s about time we donned our capes and spandex in recognition of our hero status! Every single person that supports us – either by walking with us, helping to spread the word, or donating money – is a hero. We’re just giving you an excuse to put on the spandex!

This year we’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel for some lesser-known Superheroes on the Walk. And, because you can’t have Superheroes without a Supervillain or two, it’s possible we’ll encounter a few super throw-downs along the way…

We hope you’ll get involved. You can sponsor someone from Team N3RD here or sign up here to join our team. If you’re in the North Carolina area, you can sign up for Team N3NC here! If you’re interested in creating your own satellite N3 team, shoot me an email, I’d be glad to help you get started!

On behalf of all of us, thank you.

And just to cover some minor details: the Walk is April 13th at Clipper Stadium in Lancaster, PA. But ALMOST as importantly, the 2008 NeenerPalooza is Saturday, April 12th at East Coast Gamers! If we want to be in shape to do some walking, what better warm up is there than to spend a night eating and drinking tasty treats whilst rocking some LAN-party action? And there’s a very good chance we will be declaring a new Guitar Hero champ, so you better come prepared to ROCK OUT!