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From: Jasper
Date: Saturday, February 24, 2007
Time: 06:54:16 PM
Jean, …I followed your instructions and found the word Neutransmitters. It appears to be the same thing I know as neurotransmitters. ………….I learned as much as I could about them many years ago when I was trying to figure out what happened to me in Vietnam to make the “barbarian switch” in my brain turn on and off as necessary. It worked appropriately in combat situations and in situations where I had to turn it off to do delicate mine clearing, booby-trap disarming or general demolition work. But sometimes it turned on inappropriately when I wasn’t in the field and it occasionally carried over into civilian life were the barbarian had no place at all. The weird thing, though, was that my ability to function well in extremely adverse conditions (the worse the conditions the better I functioned) didn’t change a bit until I suffered my first heart attack in 2001 and started taking medication. …………The medication made it impossible for my BRAIN to function worth a damn. Then my doctor proscribed something that made me feel worse. She told me that if I took it, and stuck to my horrible diet, and kept exercising as strenuously as I was doing every day I could live another 20 years or more. If I didn’t I would die in six months or less. ……….. Who wants to go through that crap for 20 years? I stopped taking all of the medication that I hated. Stopped doing the exercises, which I also hated and started eating food I liked. I downloaded the raunchiest porn I could find on the internet, watched a lot of funny movies, enjoyed my friends and family, worked like crazy on the board – and I got better – and better – and better. I knew that something in my brain chemistry must have been doing the job that the things that were supposed to be good for me weren’t. ……….The thing that got me interested in neurotransmitters specifically was my Army experience with a fractured bone and smashed tendons in 1970 The Army doctors removed the cast early to let me go to Jump School. For some reason they did not think my injury would be a problem. They were right. In training I felt no pain – none. And I DID NOT COMPOUND THE INJURY. Even when I was lying around waiting for the plane to take us up for a qualifying jump I felt no pain. I felt none in the plain. The only pain I felt was when I hit the ground wrong landed hard on my ass or busted my head. Once the training day ended I could barley walk because of the hideous pain in my foot. ……..When I got out of the Army in ’72 I saw a PBS special about natural pain killers produced by the body. They were among a wide range of neurotransmitters, each doing specific jobs of stimulating or inhibiting sensations such as pain and euphoria. Among other things, the function of specific neurotransmitters explained how some people can walk on hot coals without tricks, without pain and WITHOUT GETTING BURNED. ………All of the above prepared me to understand how the flip side of neurotransmitters and how the mix of drugs in Bill Wasz’s blood system killed him. In his case, it was alcohol that tipped the balance in favor of the Grim Reaper. That’s why I now expect to see something similar with methadone in the death of Anna Nicole Smith. –Jasper