Monday, October 31, 2011

Journal Entry 5

Happy Halloween. Today my joke was that for Halloween I was going as a mental ward escapee... minus the escapee. It was pretty legit. Today was lonely, my main buddy here left yesterday so the social dynamics have been different. I slept most of the day, although that was largely due to the fact that I received my first ECT this morning, I journalled about it soon after ((that entry is in the prior post)). How appropriate that my first electroshock treatment falls on this particular holiday, what with the image of ECT in many peoples' minds consisting of grainy black-and-white hollywood-style images of restraints and wires and electricity levers and bone-breaking convulsions. How different it actually is though, these days at least (thank god). I asked the doctor how we will be able to tell whether I am improving since I currently don't have any strong symptoms. Not that I'm complaining really, I always enjoy those periods of my life that lack significant suffering, obviously. As encouraging as it is that I still feel good despite being taken off of the majority of my medicines (only Celexa remains), I am sure it'd be helpful to have symptoms develop in order to gauge the effectiveness of my treatments. The psychiatrist told me we will do six inpatient treatments and then go from there, see how that lasts me I guess. I am authorized for up to a total of 12 treatments. He said he is hopeful of full remission with me, but I suppose that is always the best hope. According to the nurse I underwent anesthesia at 7:20 AM with the procedure having been performed soon after and lasting barely a minute. As I gradually became more oriented I thought to document the time and saw it was then 8:00. I've been told I awaken from the anesthesia quickly, and had already been regaining conciousness for a time before I thought to look at the clock. I wish I had a witty way to conclude this, but it's all factual for now. It's nearly midnight and in 4 hours the process will begin again, starting with a blood draw. So it's off to bed for me. Goodnight world!

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