Well, here I sit, waiting for Doc Chao to call.
Our call time is between 3 pm and 5 pm, and it’s 4:30 pm, so I am becoming concerned.
I just need to remind him about the cortisol test and how he needs to fax the prescription for the pills I have to take beforehand to my pharmacy.
Otherwise, they would just be testing my normal cortisol level, which I bet varies a lot between people so you need something to compare it to.
I also want to share my latest thinking on my mysterious condition with him. To wit :
Lately I have been bummed out about the results of my neurologist’s office visit. It was clear to me that all of my muscles tested out to be perfectly healthy, and not only did that raise the long dead (I thought) specter of psychosomatic (attic insane) illness and undermine my sense of reality, it left me with even less of an idea of what the ever lovin’ fuck is wrong with me then when I entered Doctor Madhani’s office in the first place.
But it has occurred to me that perhaps the problem is not muscle weakness, but muscle pain. I have been describing it to medical folk as muscle weakness because that is what it feels like to me.
It feels like my muscles are not strong enough to hold me up properly.
But maybe the problem is not in the neuromuscular system at all. It could be an unusual cardiac symptom, or a hormonal issue like Cushing Syndrome, or god forbid some kind of brain issue, like maybe I had a mini-stroke at some point that damages the neuromotor center of the brain and it’s not producing enough signal any more.
The important thing for me to remember is that I am not out of options yet. Sure, the muscles seem to be fine, but a lot of other things could be fucked up instead.
And I just can’t believe that the whole thing is psychosomatic (attic etc.). It’s too pervasive and bizarre for that. And it came on gradually over a span of years, and psychosomatic (etc.) illnesses tend to come on suddenly.
In fact, I was just thinking about the whole progression of the disease and how I ignored the symptoms for a long time out of total denial.
And it was easy to deny because I got around the apartment OK and I spend most of my time sitting down or in bed anyhow, so the problem didn’t come up a lot.
But then the incident that landed me in the hospital for 16 days in August 2022 happened and I could ignore it no longer.
Well he finally called…. late.
Well why should phone appointments be any different?
Still processing it all. One takeaway : apparently Doctor Madhani ordered a whole lot f labwork for me.
I did not know this, though it seems obvious in retrospect.
I can be such a dope sometimes! Derp.
I will look in the papers she gave me and get’r done if I can.
More importantly, apparently her report did not say it was all in my head. She thinks it might be a form of ataxia caused by the nerve damage in my feet spreading up my legs.
Apparently, the thing that was all in my head was the overly negative conclusion I leapt to based on what I thought she thought.
Man does it suck to be crazy.
More after the break.
The necessity of opposites
I’ve come to understand how futile it can be to always push for the middle.
Balance is key, but trying to achieve it purely via self-control is ridiculous. That is not how the teeter-totter of life works.
True balance may well require you to forego moderation and face a large problem by putting a large amount of its opposite on the other end of the scale.
And I think that’s been my mistake. One born of the larger mistake of playing by reality’s rules instead of giving myself permission to put my thumb on the damned scale if what I am getting from the world just ain’t enough.
You don’t need to embrace Jesus for that, although I’m sure it helps.
The solution, therefore, to far too much depression is not to hug the midline, like dysthymic depression tells you to do, while telling you that it is perfectly acceptable to forego the highs in order to forestall the lows.
But it ain’t.
Because your soul is starving. It needs the highs and lows in order to stay healthy. Hugging the middle means you never reach a point of renewal, and so you fall apart inside instead of participating in the cycle.
Obviously, people with bipolar can skip this discussion.
Mental and spiritual health requires participation in the highs and lows of existence. And that means letting go of the illusion of control that false moderation can bring.
Trust me, instinctively fighting and suppressing all strong emotions, even the positive ones, is not real moderation.
It is cowardice on a profound level. Real moderation means actively dealing with your emotions, not just stuffing them down and burying them and pretend they never happened. And then acting like that’s any kind of solution.
You have to open yourself up and let the big feels happen. And if that means a loss of “control” that leads to (gasp!) acting on your emotions, so be it.
There are far worse things than acting on impulse. And soul starvation is one of them.
Impulses must be acted on at least some of the time in order to stay healthy. Otherwise, you end up with the classic “lack of motivation” because your impulses have grown too weak to actually move you to do anything.
Believe me, I know this firsthand.
So if you find yourself stranded in the doldrums, try acting on your impulses in small ways. Pick a YouTube video entirely by gut instinct. Browse Wikipedia by clicking the first link in every article and seeing where you end up. Type a genre you are completely unfamiliar with into Spotify and give it a listen.
Above all, keep those impulses of yours fed so they can grow up big and strong, and you will never lack motivation again.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.