Tourette's Stand Up, Round 2!

Hello friends! Remember the stand up comedy that I did a year ago? Well the same Lewis Black competition came around again, and of course I signed up and gave it another go. My goal this time was similar to my goal the first time, which was to tell jokes about Tourette Syndrome in a way that created positive advocacy. This time, I wanted to do the same, but to also broaden the spectrum and talk about not letting differences hold someone back. I think I could have chosen words a little bit better to get that point across clearer, but I'm still happy with the final product.

iPod frustration

Hello friends! I haven't posted for a while I know, but I found a Graph on Graph Jam I wanted to share:


see more Funny Graphs

Mohawk

So today in RA training, my staff did a skit based on the popular video game Guitar Hero. We dressed up like hard rockers - let's just say I got a little carried away!

Yes, the mohawk is real. No, I do not plan on keeping it for very long!

Beginning of the beginning of the second quarter of the way through college

Summer is finally wrapping up and Resident Advisors (RAs) like myself are beginning to move in to campus. It's great to see campus coming back to life after a summer of camps and frat boys. I was lucky and was able to live during the summer in the same room that I will live in during the school year. Basically, I don't have to worry about moving in on move-in day! I spent the day helping friends move into their respective dorms. It was really great to help people get settled in their new homes and to see old friends again. A few highlighs:

While I was in what is the first building of UNC (built in 1793), a friend and I happened upon a way to peek out from the roof. I got the following shots from my camera phone:

New East, and the Alumni Place parking lot.

Columbia street and Playmaker's Theater.

The lights in the background are Hamilton Hall and Davis Library.

Earlier in the day, Noah, Dirk and I were helping my buddy Bruce move into his new RA room on south campus. When we pulled up there was a seemingly abandoned car seat sitting at the edge of the parking lot. It was kinda (ish) near a dumpster so presumably left as trash, even though it appeared to be in perfectly useable condition. It even had two cup holders attatched to the side of it. It was the perfect chair to play video games in, so naturally Noah and I grabbed it and took it up to Bruce's room.

Noah and I went back to the car to get more stuff while Dirk and Bruce wrestled with the carpet in the room. When we got to the parking lot we saw a van parked next to our car and a confused and somewhat upset family of three standing next to a it, the father of which was staring intently at us. Immediately realizing what had happened and what awkwardness was about to ensue, Noah and I went with our first instincts: avoid eye contact and act natural!

As we drew closer the man asked us "did you guys see a van seat sitting here? We put it right in front of this parking space." Noah stepped up to the plate and boldly replied "um... I don't know..." From that point on, both parties knew exactly what happened, but the intricacies of social interaction got in the way of us fixing the problem. Noah and I mumbled that there was a chair that we though belonged to a buddy of ours, so I "went to the room to see if he had picked it up by mistake." By "went to the room," I mean really mean that I went around the corner of the building (I had no key) while I frantically called Bruce (twice) and told him to bring it down.

When I returned to where Noah was, the family had just opened the van door to show him what the seat looks like. "Yeah, that was it!" he said, with a pretty good attempt at acting surprised. Not knowing what exactly Noah had said to them and not wanting to contradict the story he may or may not have told them, I said the most vague thing I could: "They're bringing it down."

It was pretty quiet between everybody as we waited for Bruce and Dirk and Seat. Once the finally arrived, Dirk hit the nail on the head when he quietly sang "aaaawkwarrrd" in a high falsetto. The father looked kind of like a policeman taking stolen goods from criminals, while we felt like dumsterdivers who found out they weren't actually in a dumpster at all. And basically... that's what happened.

Tourette Syndrome Stand Up

It's no secret that Tourette Syndrome is the "funny" disease. If it's portrayed in movies, it's usually just a character blurting curse words. I knew that I could make jokes about Tourette Syndrome from my point of view that could raise awareness and be entertaining at the same time.

I got my opportunity back in April 2009 at the Carolina Comedy weekend at UNC. There was a comedy competition for students to give their best three-minute stand up routine; the winner got to open for Lewis Black that weekend. My goal was to just try telling positive Tourette's jokes and see if I really could do it. I did not win the competition (although one of the judges later told me I was in the top 5), but I reached my goal and I'm happy about that. I can't wait to do it again!!

My Tourette's History, Part II

So let's catch up. Last time you read, I had just gone to the emergency room for the first time. They gave me a CAT scan and some other tests, all of which all ended up negative. At this stage in the game, all of my twitches were of a purely physical nature - no vocal tics at all. So let's continue...

I went to quite a few neurologists and hospitals over the next few months. I was seen by pediatric neurologists in my hometown hospital of Mission Hospital and at Emory Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Not only did the doctors give me various unsatisfactory diagnoses, but they also gave different definitions of "Tourette Syndrome" and why I did not have it. Due to the irregularity of my case and my very persistent mother, I was able to be seen at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) , part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.

Just as an explanation of how cool that is, NIH only sees patients that were unable to be diagnosed or helped by other doctors around the country. They also do not provide treatment, except as part of an experiment. This way, they can focus on furthering the boundaries of medicine and not on routine procedures. I had the top 20ish neurologists in the country (plus a few interns) all focusing and talking about me and my condition. They took a video of my tics, and asked me and my family various questions about how the tics felt, when they started, and so on. By the time they came around to giving their diagnosis, the doctor assigned to talking to my family one on one (Dr. Ejaz Shamim) informed us that I had a tic disorder. "Okay, that sounds about right. Which one?" we asked. Apparently that was it... just a generic tic disorder with no real background, no character. They said that most likely the virus I had prior to developing the twitches managed to travel to my brain and mess up some wiring, causing me to have intermittent involuntary 'tics.' I did not quite have enough symptoms to be labeled as "Tourette Syndrome," but I was close.

It sucked for those few weeks that I all I knew was that I had a "tic disorder." People would ask why I was twitching and all I could tell them is basically what they could already see for themselves. The smart ones would ask "do you have Tourette's?" I would tell them no, but almost. It was difficult because I felt somewhat trapped by this incurable, undiagnosable thing that may or may not go away in time.

I remember the day (August 12, 2007) when we got the call from the doctor's office. My mother was driving me to take my driving test for my driver's liscence at the DMV. Apparently the doctors at NIH were so fascinated with my case that they consulted even more doctors and had finally decided that I did, in fact, have Tourette Syndrome. I was so relieved!! I felt like I had finally landed after falling for a very long time. People often ask me "were you sad when you found out you had Tourette's?" almost as if I hadn't noticed. "No way!" I tell them. "I'd never felt better!"

I performed marvelously on the driving test and got my lisence on the first try. As the final part of the drivers license routine, the DMV lady behind the counter asked "do you experience tremors, uncontrollable movements, blackouts..." She continued with a long list of medical issues that could perhaps impair one's driving abilities, but she had already said the important things first. My heart sank with tentative disappointment as I responded nervously with "um... I have Tourette's."

"Okay," she said with a questioning look. All that she asked was: "how do you spell that?"

(To be continued)