Tourette's and Driving

    As I have mentioned in previous posts, Tourettes impacts every aspect of my existence. Combined with my co-morbid disorders, there's not a part of my life that isn't touched by this neurological enigma. Lately, but not for the first time, my driving skills and personal endurance are being tested. My tic cycle is in on an upward climb meaning my motor and vocals tics are taking a turn for the worse. To be more specific, when I climb into bed at night after a hard day's work, my body temporarily relaxes into the comfort of my own bed, my safe haven, before letting loose with a barrage of tics and unremitting premonitory urges that I was holding back whilst going about my work day at the hospital. Let me back up a little bit. I've recently begun a new career as a phlebotomist. I love my job. I'm busy all the time. It's fascinating because there's always something to learn, and I get to help people. I've entered a whole new environment which means getting used to a whole new audience to display my tics in front of. Talk about pressure! It's not as hard getting used to ticcing in front of my co-workers. At this point in my life, I'm fairly used to that and if anyone has a problem with it, they can either ask me questions (which I'm more than happy to answer) to educate themselves or they can mind their own business. The difficulty lies in expressing my tics in front of patients who are trusting me to skillfully insert a needle in their arm and withdraw blood with as little upset and discomfort to them as possible. My concern is not my adeptness at phlebotomy itself, but in encouraging confidence in my patients that they are in good hands and I will care for them to the best of my ability. I am still brainstorming on how to best deal with this personal issue, but in the meantime I will simply continue to perform my duties to the best of my ability.
    Anyhoo, back to driving. The stress from any new experience can be tic inducing, let alone a career change. Believe me folks, this one has been a doozy. I'm full time which means a lot of driving to and from work. Add on any additional errands or appointments and you've got a recipe for tics galore. Lately, I've been getting these unrelenting urges to blur my vision or cross my eyes. This also happens while I'm driving which can be 
terribly stressful and disheartening. I start worrying whether I'll have to stop driving for a period of time until my tics subside, because the urge to complete the tic is like an alcoholic wanting that next drink or a smoker craving that next cigarette. Until it's completed just right the premonitory urge does not go away. Even once I feel as as if I've completed the action just so, the relief is only temporary. It can last anywhere from a couple of seconds to several minutes.
    When these tics invade my activities, in this case my driving, I'm forced to slow down waaay below the speed limit and/or pull over. Unfortunately, there isn't always a place to do so, so I'm forced to press on and take it one step at a time. Other tics that accompany me while navigating the roads include: the urge to press down on the pedals as hard as I possibly can, the need to press or pound on the steering wheel, and of course my usual head snapping/shoulder shrugging/bird calling tics that I encounter on a regular basis. The pedal pressing can sometimes be quelled by stomping or pressing my foot on the floor as hard as I can and red lights can be a tourettor's best friend, because one can press down on the break pedal and it's not going to hurt anything because that's what you're supposed to be doing in the first place. I just like to put a little more feeling into it. LOL
    Let me be clear, driving is a privilege and a huge responsibility, not just for those of us with disabilities, but for everyone. Although, we experience extra distractions while driving, as long as we know when to ask for help and be conscientious of when we should and should not get behind the wheel, there is no reason that someone with Tourette Syndrome cannot drive. Have there been times when I've had to put my license away from a while, yes, but that's when my family steps in a picks up where I had to leave off.

School Days Flash Back

    These past few months, I've been taking classes at the local college studying Phlebotomy aka "hospital vampires". LOL Some evenings, especially if I've had a busy day, by the time I get to class at 6pm that night I'm worn out and stressed. This, of course, starts a barrage of tics consisting mostly of grunting, upper body shakes, head snapping, leg jerking, and hand spasms. On this particular evening it was especially bad and I ended up having to take some medication to get me through the class. As we all know, meds take a few minutes to actually kick in, so in the mean time I was left with the anxious task of keeping enough control to where I could focus on my class and yet let my tics out as needed.
    This brings me back to my home-schooling days after my tics came on full force and sitting for any period of time without some extreme mental focus was torture. Fortunately, my mother was a patient, understanding teacher who helped me work through my school days and helped me come up with numerous coping mechanisms such as frequent breaks to stand up, stretch, and get a drink which helped to break up the monotony of staring at textbooks and word problems that my very distracted brain often had trouble concentrating on. Twitching and squeaking or screeching every few seconds or minutes isn't exactly helpful to the learning process.
    Often, during the peak of my tic cycle, my tics would become so frequent and jarring that I was forced to come up with alternative methods to get myself through my lessons. These were the days before I even know about about pressure therapy and weighted blankets.What I would end up doing was scrunching myself down in my chair and pushing my body up against the table as snugly as possible. This served to provide some relief and comfort to the storm going on inside my body.
    Anyway, during this particularly difficult evening of class I was desperately trying to think of something to get me through it, because I was determined to make it through the entire session. Suddenly, it came to me. All those years of sitting at home doing lessons had prepared me for just this sort of occasion. So I scrunched myself down in my chair and scooted it up against the table as close as I could without hampering my ability to take notes and within a minute I began to experience some relief.
    In conclusion, when we become adults, we put away a lot of the things we used to do as children. However it's important to remember that some of those things had a valuable purpose and that doesn't necessarily go away just because we "grow-up".