![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgI was asked a reasonable question this evening, vis a vis medical investigations: What happens next?
I still have the -oscopies scheduled for September 1, and a review of all results after that, but really nothing in the meantime. Nothing in the results leads me to expect any comment from the specialist ahead of that schedule. I will no doubt tinker with my diet a bit, and reproduce some trials with supplements, but I'm in a bit of a limbo.
Limbo is grimbo. Forewarned and thus hopefully forearmed I hope to avoid the inevitable bout of depression that follows a worked-out vein of medical inquiry. If I'd been firing on all cylinders today I would have requested a referral to a neurologist while at the GP, which might have served to fill in the gap in the schedule. The irony being that the lack of cylinders is *why* I need to see a neurologist.
I can't multi-task like I used to; I can't juggle multiple concepts in my head at once to make them fit together. My lateral processing capability has gone south. My working memory capacity is close to nil. I can make conversation, jokes and banter, but these are cheap in terms of cognitive load. I can do stimulus-response wit; but I can't hold the contents of a technical chapter in my head to restructure it for best effect. I can't plan a sequence of diagrams to identify and teach a series of technical concepts in the most efficient way. I can't bridge two chunks of text so that the different concepts flow in to one another. Sometimes I am completely unable to make even simple decisions: I can't model the two things in my head at the same time to compare and contrast. Word recall suffers under these conditions ("press conference" defeated me for days). If I can't do all this *properly* then I can't do it at all.
I've made several attempts to lower my expectations and try to structure work in such a way that I use the capabilities still left to me, but this just means I do the simple bits of writing or editing and come to an abrupt halt when the work becomes more complex and beyond my current capabilities.
I still think I might be able to rattle off a short story under these conditions, but a quality novel would require my mind to be in several places at once, and that's off the menu for now. Neither would constitute a replacement for work for a very long time. Spoon preference MUST go to struggling with paid work. Or must it? Perhaps I should take a holiday from my suspended job and pour all those spoons into that short story for a few days at least.
Flowers for Algernon gives me nightmares.
So, perhaps a return to therapy to sort out this fear is in order. It's come up before, but usually in the context of fear of loss of physical capabilities and energy. I like the idea of taking a break from the fear and yet being in some sense productive. Hell, it's why I write this blog; it makes me feel like I'm achieving something, sometimes. I prefer to educate and entertain; but I need to entertain.
I think also that I should be more open to the possibility of having fun with some of my limited spoons. Allow myself to work on a craft project once in a while. Read something longer and more challenging without feeling like it's stolen time.
This new regimen will at least give my body a bit of time to respond to the diet and supplement changes I plan to make. Is it time to finally embrace my illness? Is it time to stop saying that I hope and plan to go to work every day next week, at least without a backup plan? For example: On Wednesday I would like to go to work. If that's not possible perhaps I'll have the energy to go to the zoo. Failing that I could stay home and spray the weeds, or sweep the porch.
That's it! Every day must now have tiers of plans to correspond to the spoons available. A middle tier plan might involve housework, but the day is not lost if I drop to a lower tier plan involving posting a letter and reading on the couch.
It's a plan. I must unshackle myself from the desire to put every fraction of energy into work, and refocus on feeling the best that I can feel. Work will follow.
I still have the -oscopies scheduled for September 1, and a review of all results after that, but really nothing in the meantime. Nothing in the results leads me to expect any comment from the specialist ahead of that schedule. I will no doubt tinker with my diet a bit, and reproduce some trials with supplements, but I'm in a bit of a limbo.
Limbo is grimbo. Forewarned and thus hopefully forearmed I hope to avoid the inevitable bout of depression that follows a worked-out vein of medical inquiry. If I'd been firing on all cylinders today I would have requested a referral to a neurologist while at the GP, which might have served to fill in the gap in the schedule. The irony being that the lack of cylinders is *why* I need to see a neurologist.
I can't multi-task like I used to; I can't juggle multiple concepts in my head at once to make them fit together. My lateral processing capability has gone south. My working memory capacity is close to nil. I can make conversation, jokes and banter, but these are cheap in terms of cognitive load. I can do stimulus-response wit; but I can't hold the contents of a technical chapter in my head to restructure it for best effect. I can't plan a sequence of diagrams to identify and teach a series of technical concepts in the most efficient way. I can't bridge two chunks of text so that the different concepts flow in to one another. Sometimes I am completely unable to make even simple decisions: I can't model the two things in my head at the same time to compare and contrast. Word recall suffers under these conditions ("press conference" defeated me for days). If I can't do all this *properly* then I can't do it at all.
I've made several attempts to lower my expectations and try to structure work in such a way that I use the capabilities still left to me, but this just means I do the simple bits of writing or editing and come to an abrupt halt when the work becomes more complex and beyond my current capabilities.
I still think I might be able to rattle off a short story under these conditions, but a quality novel would require my mind to be in several places at once, and that's off the menu for now. Neither would constitute a replacement for work for a very long time. Spoon preference MUST go to struggling with paid work. Or must it? Perhaps I should take a holiday from my suspended job and pour all those spoons into that short story for a few days at least.
Flowers for Algernon gives me nightmares.
So, perhaps a return to therapy to sort out this fear is in order. It's come up before, but usually in the context of fear of loss of physical capabilities and energy. I like the idea of taking a break from the fear and yet being in some sense productive. Hell, it's why I write this blog; it makes me feel like I'm achieving something, sometimes. I prefer to educate and entertain; but I need to entertain.
I think also that I should be more open to the possibility of having fun with some of my limited spoons. Allow myself to work on a craft project once in a while. Read something longer and more challenging without feeling like it's stolen time.
This new regimen will at least give my body a bit of time to respond to the diet and supplement changes I plan to make. Is it time to finally embrace my illness? Is it time to stop saying that I hope and plan to go to work every day next week, at least without a backup plan? For example: On Wednesday I would like to go to work. If that's not possible perhaps I'll have the energy to go to the zoo. Failing that I could stay home and spray the weeds, or sweep the porch.
That's it! Every day must now have tiers of plans to correspond to the spoons available. A middle tier plan might involve housework, but the day is not lost if I drop to a lower tier plan involving posting a letter and reading on the couch.
It's a plan. I must unshackle myself from the desire to put every fraction of energy into work, and refocus on feeling the best that I can feel. Work will follow.
