June 17th, again. The anniversary of my diagnosis. I felt little sentiment today, though that may be in part because I felt like hell all day due to a cold. I went in to work and left a little over an hour later, after discovering that getting out of bed was probably the wrong choice. As I type this my cold still lingers. With a little luck I'll be able to sleep it off tonight. If not, I can afford to sleep in tomorrow.
So I had my routine four-month MRI, and again it came back clean, or as clean as it's going to get. It's almost certain those two little dots are scar tissue now. Or possibly very, very lazy.
Both of my parents accompanied me on my appointment, an unnecessary gesture. They always ask if I want them to come and I always express my honest indifference, but I think they interpret that as stoicism or bravery. Of course my mother also gets irritated with me when I schedule appointments to fit my schedule rather than hers. I suppose if I felt strongly enough about it I could just ask her - usually it's just her - not to come, but I worry that the ill will it may create would outweigh any minor benefit.
They also wanted to come into the exam room with me, to talk to Dr. C. We went over the usual, about how I'm recovering, and what I have done and can do in the future to help my body continue to heal and adapt. I read a news article about a study examining the body mass of marijuana users to the general population and found that they generally tend to be thinner, so I asked Dr. C. about any potential weight control benefits to the drug. He laughed for a good minute. He's heard of no such thing and said he wouldn't recommend I start taking marijuana or THC, not because he's against it but because he feels I have no need for it. Instead, he recommended more coffee, a prescription I am more than happy to fill.
I'd made a decision not to bring up my depression in front of my parents. It had subsided slightly since my last post but was still a concern, and Mom had started to have her suspicions. Perhaps that "light" in my eyes that so many people noticed has started to dim. But when Dr. C. asked if I'd like my parents to leave the room so that we might speak privately, I declined. In retrospect, I'm not certain why. Maybe some of that suspected bravery.
Now, Dr. C. has been treating cancer patients for longer than I've been alive. I don't know if I'm easy to read, or if he just has so much experience that he knows better, but he insisted they give us a few minutes. Once they were gone, I spoke with him openly and without hesitation. He did not seem surprised.
Several times during our conversation he reminded me that he is not a therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist, but what he said to me made a great deal of sense.
We've all heard the story. Car accident, child pinned in wreck, mother gets burst of strength to lift car off child, etc. Well, Dr. C. said that effect isn't limited to things so dramatic as a car accident, nor do the effects always wear off immediately. What I've been through has been, well, traumatic, physically and mentally. His theory is that I've been cruising on an adrenaline rush for the better part of two years. It makes a lot of sense. That would explain my focus and determination in fighting my disease, my quick and thorough recovery. Counter-intuitively, it might also help to explain why I've felt so calm these last two years: if I'm already running in "high gear" then wouldn't it take more of a shock to amp me any higher?
Only problem is I'm not sure if I believe it. There are reasons we aren't always high on adrenaline; reasons that mother can't flip cars whenever she feels like it. Our bodies are not made to handle that kind of stress. They'd break. Still, it's some food for thought.
He gave me the number of a local therapist that's covered by my insurance, and said (again reminding me that he is not a therapist himself) that I will likely benefit from a combination of medication and "insights." That's a nice word for it. I like it.
I'm not too crazy (poor word choice) about taking pills again. I haven't called this therapist yet, and I'm not certain when I will. I have been feeling better lately, if not as good as I'd like. I'm still on schedule at work, though my spotty update schedule on this very blog shows me that I'm still not as productive as I want to be.
So I guess that's about where I stand. Keepin' on keepin' on.
In other news, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that companies cannot patent naturally occurring human DNA, so that's pretty neat. Sounds to me like a pretty good compromise between research for the benefit of human kind and protection of property, since altered DNA can still be patented. Also means no one can sue me for copyright infringement for replicating my own DNA without a license, and I'm all in favor of healing as a basic human right.
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Monday, June 17, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
On Trucks
I've made no secret of the fact that I've never taken comfort in the platitude so often given to cancer patients that anyone could die any day, that they could step off the curb and get run down by a truck without notice.
So the other day I was driving home from work. What I noticed first was the truck's speed. A bright red pickup truck, I noticed it because it was going so fast. My first thought, "wow that guy's moving." My second thought was, "he is entirely in my lane."
He swerved to avoid the car in front of me, and would have stuck it head on had it not done the same. He was moving so fast that it wasn't until he was already gone that I realized what had happened, and that I could feel my heart pounding, my pulse racing. He must have been going over 100mph. Had he hit me dead on, there is no chance I would have survived. The same could be said for the car in front of me. I played through the possible scenarios the rest of the ride home. What I would have done had he struck me but not killed me. Whom I would have called first. Or if he'd struck the car in front of me.
But he didn't. He just kept on driving. I'm not normally the sort to hold grudges but I admit to looking for red pickups on my way to and from work since then. Once you start looking, they're everywhere. One belongs to a co-worker but is the wrong shade, and much older. Another looked about right and is an emergency vehicle - which would explain the speed - but they weren't going code the day of the "near-incident." At least a dozen others, scattered about in random driveways and parking lots. There's no sense to looking, yet still I look.
Anyway, none of that explains why I haven't posted in so long. The reasons are two-fold, the first being that I've felt unusually withdrawn lately. I haven't felt inclined to write, not here or elsewhere, or partake in most of my other usual hobbies and interests. I've wanted the world to just leave me alone for a time, but as the days turned to weeks I came to recognize this as depression rearing its ugly head again. I'm not sure what to do about it, but it was confirmed last week when I went to visit my parents and my mother asked me, seemingly out of the blue, if I was feeling depressed again. She said I'd seemed sad, though I'd done my best to be pleasant for them. I had a minor headache, I said, which was true. She let it go but didn't buy it.
The truth is that I don't see the point in telling her. If I do, she'll just tell me what she thinks I ought to do and then ask me every few days if I've done it yet. Our relationship is much better since before my diagnosis but I really don't need that. I don't need yet another task on my list, or another way in which I am not living up to her expectations. I know there's no shame in seeking help, and if I don't find my way out of this funk on my own by June I'll do something about it. That way I'll at least have a better idea if it's the cancer playing tricks on me again.
The second reason is that I caught word of a crackdown at work, where they're going to start monitoring internet usage quite closely, and restrict it to only things related directly to work. While they've had plenty of sympathy for me, they don't pay me to write a cancer blog. Not to mention I use an alias on this blog so that I don't have to censor myself, which I most certainly would were my boss reading it with full knowledge of who I am. So whereas I used to do most of my writing at work, I now have to wait until I get home, at which point I've usually lost my muse or decided it's far too easy to just put it off until tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow).
My muse seems to have found me, which is why I'm now up passed my bedtime writing a long overdue post. One that's costing me sleep I will doubtlessly miss come tomorrow morning. I don't think I've made any breakthroughs tonight but just the same, I'm glad I wrote it. I felt, finally, that it was something I could no longer defer. For this exercise, my sleep will be shorter, but maybe it will also be more sound.
So the other day I was driving home from work. What I noticed first was the truck's speed. A bright red pickup truck, I noticed it because it was going so fast. My first thought, "wow that guy's moving." My second thought was, "he is entirely in my lane."
He swerved to avoid the car in front of me, and would have stuck it head on had it not done the same. He was moving so fast that it wasn't until he was already gone that I realized what had happened, and that I could feel my heart pounding, my pulse racing. He must have been going over 100mph. Had he hit me dead on, there is no chance I would have survived. The same could be said for the car in front of me. I played through the possible scenarios the rest of the ride home. What I would have done had he struck me but not killed me. Whom I would have called first. Or if he'd struck the car in front of me.
But he didn't. He just kept on driving. I'm not normally the sort to hold grudges but I admit to looking for red pickups on my way to and from work since then. Once you start looking, they're everywhere. One belongs to a co-worker but is the wrong shade, and much older. Another looked about right and is an emergency vehicle - which would explain the speed - but they weren't going code the day of the "near-incident." At least a dozen others, scattered about in random driveways and parking lots. There's no sense to looking, yet still I look.
Anyway, none of that explains why I haven't posted in so long. The reasons are two-fold, the first being that I've felt unusually withdrawn lately. I haven't felt inclined to write, not here or elsewhere, or partake in most of my other usual hobbies and interests. I've wanted the world to just leave me alone for a time, but as the days turned to weeks I came to recognize this as depression rearing its ugly head again. I'm not sure what to do about it, but it was confirmed last week when I went to visit my parents and my mother asked me, seemingly out of the blue, if I was feeling depressed again. She said I'd seemed sad, though I'd done my best to be pleasant for them. I had a minor headache, I said, which was true. She let it go but didn't buy it.
The truth is that I don't see the point in telling her. If I do, she'll just tell me what she thinks I ought to do and then ask me every few days if I've done it yet. Our relationship is much better since before my diagnosis but I really don't need that. I don't need yet another task on my list, or another way in which I am not living up to her expectations. I know there's no shame in seeking help, and if I don't find my way out of this funk on my own by June I'll do something about it. That way I'll at least have a better idea if it's the cancer playing tricks on me again.
The second reason is that I caught word of a crackdown at work, where they're going to start monitoring internet usage quite closely, and restrict it to only things related directly to work. While they've had plenty of sympathy for me, they don't pay me to write a cancer blog. Not to mention I use an alias on this blog so that I don't have to censor myself, which I most certainly would were my boss reading it with full knowledge of who I am. So whereas I used to do most of my writing at work, I now have to wait until I get home, at which point I've usually lost my muse or decided it's far too easy to just put it off until tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow).
My muse seems to have found me, which is why I'm now up passed my bedtime writing a long overdue post. One that's costing me sleep I will doubtlessly miss come tomorrow morning. I don't think I've made any breakthroughs tonight but just the same, I'm glad I wrote it. I felt, finally, that it was something I could no longer defer. For this exercise, my sleep will be shorter, but maybe it will also be more sound.
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