A Rough Couple of Days for Debate King and Me

Its's been a rough few days for me and for my brother this past week. I am continuing to deal with my strained eye muscle and bad cold and last night at 5AM I woke up pretty much gasping for air because I could barley breathe thanks to this darn awful cold. I quickly got some Afrin spray which helped a lot, but once I wake up, get out of bed, and get moving, my tics wake up too. It took me quite a while to fall back asleep because of what I call my "fish out of water" tic. The fish out of water tic usually only happens to me while i'm lying down in bed, and basically what happens is my muscles in my legs, neck, back, stomach, and chest will all tighten and jerk so that I end up in very strange contorted positions and I kinda look like i'm a fish out of water. If I lay on my back, my body will usually just jolt up and if i'm laying on my side I usually end up doubled over or scrunched in a ball.

It took me quite a while to get back to sleep, but I eventually did fall asleep again. Today i've been quite tired and ticcing a whole bunch. My vocal tics have been quite loud and have been attracting a lot of attention and stares today. After lunch I started with my gagging tic where I start gagging, coughing, and gasping for air. It's really not a lot of fun. My strained muscle in my eye is started to feel a bit better at least. 

While I've been dealing with all this, my brother, Debate King, has been in the process of his first ever round of finals. He is exhausted from staying up late, angry at just about everything, super stressed, and just about as ticcy as I've ever seen him. He's been going around the house punching furniture, chairs, and just about anything else that finds itself in his way.  And he's been doing a lot of hard blinking, stomping, and even some subtle head jerking. He told me many times last night that he hates me and he hates everything and that he's mad at everything. So we're both having a rough couple of days here. But I know we'll both get through it. We'll both soon be doing a lot better when winter break starts on Friday. Thank goodness for winter break!!

I wanted to share a few videos today also! These videos are various video's of Brad Cohen, the movie that was made about his life, Front of the Class. Brad started the Brad Cohen Tourette Foundation, is a 2nd grade teacher in Georgia, wrote a book about his life with TS which was made into a movie, and started Camp Twitch and Shout in Georgia for kids and teens with TS. I actually met Brad in September at an event with my cousin, Twitch, who is a CIT at Camp Twitch and Shout. He's a big inspiration for me and for others with TS so I wanted to share these with you all. :)