The Conservative Cat

It used to be Bruce didn't have the attacks because he was in pain all the time from migraines. (Migraines mostly attack women, but Bruce is special.) About 14 years ago he visited the Diamond Headahce Clinic, and they fixed the migraines, and it wasn't long before the anxiety attacks came out to play. The closest thing to a diagnosis was that "Bruce's brain is not blocking pain correctly." This was because a flurry of MRIs failed to reveal any sort of cancer or brain lesion. (The neurologist was very depressed about that, because it would have explained a whole lot of symptoms.) An attempt was made to control the problem with anti-depressants, but anything powerful enough to block the attacks resulted in a sort of drunken stupor that prevented him from working, or eating, or remembering that he has something cooking in the oven and smoke alarms are a bad thing. Calcium channel blockers helped, but they were causing liver damage. Beta blockers were tried, but after a month or so, he started hallucinating at night. The giant spiders and the gold-plated chicken wire were scary but could be managed; however, the first time he awoke to discover his wife wrapped in chinese wisteria vines, a decision was made by the whole family that the beta blockers had to go. Perhaps an ordinary man would have thought the wisteria is on the front porch and I'm on the second floor, so this can't be happening. Bruce is no ordinary man, so he knew he had to get the vines off now before she suffocates. That was it for the beta blockers.

So, the anxiety attacks are here to stay, which means when he's forgotten something, the brain whacks him in the head, and then he goes nuts trying to remember it. Our hope is that the new Treo 650 Smartphone he got for his birthday will fix these problems. So far, he's only spent two days configuring the thing, and he says it should only take a few more hours to get it fine tuned.

I figure Thursday at the earliest.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat