Publisher's Synopsis
I began writing this story of my experience with first order trigeminal neuralgia many times in the last ten years. This time, in committing it to print, I remain uncertain that I've got it "right." I begin yet again during a period of upheaval in the history of medicine. Politicians, lobbyists, constituents, and others continue to argue, debate, protest, and contest issues of healthcare reform. Even though this is not a book concerned with healthcare reform, the idea kindles a small flame within my Protestant background--reformata semper reformanda/reformed and always reforming, or so the mantra goes. In reality, what I hope is improved and constantly changing for the better along this journey are, as Pablo Neruda expresses, my many selves.
My sole purpose has been and continues to be the elucidation of my experience(s) with first order, or classic, trigeminal neuralgia and the attending associated thoughts, feelings, and reflections with a view to putting words to them that might be of some help, some benefit, even a kernel of hope to others who have suffered and are suffering with this strange and terrible phenomenon that goes by the clinical name, trigeminal neuralgia type 1, aka tic douloureux, Fothergill disease, trifacial neuralgia, prosopalgia, and the "suicide disease."
It is my wish that this extended reverie-cum-reflection-cum-realization will not be intruded upon and interrupted as was Coleridge by the likes of the person from Porlock. We begin sans Xanadu, sans stately pleasure dome, even sans decree or archive fever. Rather, we begin with a tent pitched in the Abyss. . . .
