I have come to a cross roads and I do not know which way to go...

I have always enjoyed the poem from Robert Frost...
The road not taken.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and sorry I could not travel both
and be one traveler long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth:

Then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was grassy and wanted wear
though as for the passing there
had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no step had trodden black
oh, I kept the first for another day!
yet knowing how way leads on to way,
i doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by
and that has made all the difference.

I would like to think that most of my life's decisions I have stood at that precipice (not just because I have fallen off two cliffs) and taken the road less traveled. It was not always for good, but I stand by my choices.

I have been conflicted for the past year now. It is over a full year since I became afflicted with my current state. A disease, a condition, a whatever you want to call it. Just over a year ago It hit me full on and I tried to hide it from everyone. This was difficult because I am close to my family and friends. I try to internalize everything. While the, we will call it a condition for now, condition has been with me for nearly three years off and on, only a year ago was when it started to interfere with daily life.

Since the last writing, I have gone back to work.

It feels great to be there, to have the socialization and feel somewhat productive. But at the same time it is quite humiliating. I feel emasculated. I watch others perform the job that I strove so hard to obtain and spent years working and I can not do it.

I know the reason why I can not do it is for the safety of everyone. If some harm came to me I can handle that, but if someone else came to harm because of my, condition, I would never be able to forgive myself.

So I am torn between wanting to be productive and being emasculated... again there is that diverge. So I chose to be emasculated every day rather than sit at home and do nothing... I am strong enough to let it roll off my back and take the humiliation. No matter how strong I am, it still makes me sad and down.

I have tried the ketamine again twice at home and absolutely hate it. I feel lost, confused, paranoid and angry while on it. I have to see if the ground is beneath me while I walk. I look into a mirror and do not recognize myself. Everyone looks just a bit off and when they talk it seems as though they were poorly dubbed from a Japanese Samurai movie. I do not want to take it ever again.

I do feel quite lonely at night though. While I am at work I do have some interaction with people, but it is mostly stupid stuff or them asking how I am feeling and what I am going through. It gets old explaining everything over and over again. After I am dropped off at home from work (because I can not drive) I sit there and do nothing. I know almost no one in the area, so I have no friends around and no way to get to my friend's house even if I did, and most of them have so much going on in their lives with family, work and such I hate to bother them.

I live in the middle of no where, with no public transit to speak of. I bought myself a road bike (Bicycle not motorcycle... that would just make me an organ donor sooner), but with all of the medicine I have been on my stamina is horrible (especially on hills). I am slowly getting back into shape.

I think I need some hobbies. I d like to learn how to cook more. Create a meal plan for the week, get all my mise en place (I think that is right) together and cook. I have been looking at stand mixers so I can bake my own breads and such.

I m starting off with the bike and working towards other hobbies. If anyone has any suggestions for someone who has visual disturbances, temporary blindness, not allowed to drive, and has fatigue... it would be helpful.

I guess my next posting will be my decision on telling everyone, instead of writing this anonymously

Wish me luck

Dark Side of the Moon

Comfortably Numb

Hello,
Is there anybody in there?   (Sounds like the doctors talking with me in the hospital)
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone home?

Come on
Now
I hear you're feeling down
I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again

Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves (After the meds kicked in)
Your lips move
But I can't hear what you're saying

I... have become comfortably numb

From my week in the hospital these lyrics were some of the most appropriate. I was on the ketamine drip, which I was told would be like a coma but for me it was worse. I was conscious... could see and hear everything but it was distorted. I kept on saying I lost my words... I can't find my words. That is how I felt. I felt held back, like everything was on the tip of my tongue, but I could not get it out.

Someone I used to work with texted me. She has been known to imbibe in hallucinogenic substances. It was always a point of contention between us. I have never so much as tried Marijuana, let alone anything harder and said I never would try it for fun. She texted me, with "I knew it was only a matter of time before you joined the Dark Side - of the moon that is."

It is not my scene. I like being in control, having control of all my facilities, understanding what is going on and being able to react. I do not like taking pain medication because of the dull feeling it gives me. I want to feel the pain, it is a feeling I know. The same coworker described me as a control freak (she is not wrong), but she describe that after I went out on a date with a Doctor (who dealt with sexuality issues and provided council for people who have been assaulted) but she was also a Dominatrix. Needless to say it did not work out between us because of both of us having dominant personalities and wanting control... hence the control freak comment.


Now while I was under I figured I would try listening to some Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors to see what was so special about it. Now I can recommend that when you are under sedation of something like Ketamine, do not listen to the Doors, The End... especially while watching Batman Begins where the scarecrow is making everyone freak out from his chemicals... It is just bad. But other than that I do not understand what people find interesting in it. Maybe if it was Peyote or LSD it might have done something for me, but since I will never try them I will never know.

I did get very paranoid during the treatment. I always felt like I was outside of my body looking at myself as a statue. I felt as though I would stay in a position until something called me out of it, whether it be a nurse walking in, my phone going off or something similar. I also had to call the nurse because I felt like I was going to die and not be able to find my body again. They dropped my medicine level at that point.

I did go through my phone to see some of the texts I sent. I actually asked a friend if the doctor was keeping me sedated because he wanted to take over the hospital and keep me from stopping him. I asked someone if Google was combining all of their services, and the only thing I could think of was the Anime Akira where Tetsuo started growing (if You haven't seen it you would not understand). I asked if my curtains were Cornflower Blue (Fight Club reference), and that I finally understood Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I also wrote that I felt like I could not catch up with time...

Those were some of the funny things that I was thinking about while under sedation, but there were also serious times. I spoke about how much I missed work and a doctor trying to get me to say that people in my profession were crooked. It was hard to see people. They seemed elongated in the face and distorted. Very hard to describe in my haze. I could not watch TV because it sounded as if people were talking very far away and that by the time the sound reached me the picture on the screen did not coincide. I watched the same episode after getting out of the hospital, and what I saw in the Hospital did not give away the story line for when I was sober.

Even after being out of the hospital and off the Medicine I was still out of it. I still had paranoia during the nights and felt sluggish. Now I have it as a prescription medication. Tomorrow I will find out how it effects me. I can take it 20 times a day but only 2 days in a two week period. I did meet the head of the program at the Hospital too... He said he is dealing with similar symptoms with two other people. So Maybe I am not alone in this world... well medically at least. New medicine will be coming from Canada because it is not approved here in America yet. They seem to be reaching for medicine to help me.

I think I need to start making lists of what I need to get done. Not a to do list, but a should do list. I need to get back into shape, so maybe giving myself a goal every day of certain exercises will help. 100 pushups and 100 sit ups a day for the first week? Running start off with half a mile and move up from there? Anyone with any suggestions let me know. I am happy to listen.

Now some good news. I will be going back to work, in a limited duty capacity... but still going back. I need to do something. Unfortunately I will be stuck at my house for any time I am not working. It is a start though, and one that is very much needed after being out of work for almost 9 months now. So hopefully a week from now I will be back to work and trying to get by on my own, out in the country with no car... What is life without some difficulties?

Thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting on this. It is greatly appreciated.

I'm Gonna Be Sedated

My tribute to the Ramones...

Twenty-Twenty-Twenty four hours to go I'm gonna be sedated
Nothin' to do and no where to go-o-oh I'm gonna be sedated
Just get me to the airport put me on a plane
Hurry Hurry Hurry before I go insane
I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain
oh no no no no nooooo
Ba-ba bamp ba ba ba ba bamp ba I'm gonna be sedated

Last time it was stone free, this time Sedated. So It has been a little bit since I last posted to here. Not much good news and very little news at all. I posted around Thanksgiving, after that December was kind of slow. No doctor's appointments, nothing of note. It was the first month since April that I was not on any medication, and I had no invasive tests.

The new year came and I was put on a machine to keep me breathing during the night. I apparently stop breathing 22 times an hour. The good thing about this machine is I do not sleep, so I effectively keeps me breathing. The downside is that I do not sleep, so I do not know if it is helping all that much.

But that is the least of my worries at this point. Tomorrow as per my Ramones Tribute I will be Sedated for a week. The Doctor who is scheduling this is hard to understand at times being from Spain and having an accent. She described it to me as not quite a coma, but I will be out of it. The sedation will be with Ketamine, a powerful horse tranquilizer... all of you Club kids are jealous? I will be sans glow stick, stupid dancing and Blade soundtrack though.

Now I am doing this because it is a drastic step in my treatment options. It was described as a chance to reset my brain and put it back to factory settings (for all of your computer nerds). Somehow, someway, something is jumping on my neural optic nerve (if there is such a thing) and causing these flashes. I have been told by doctors it is hard to understand what is going on in the brain and this treatment is one hope to get it fixed. Ketamine is used for people with severe pain (which I do not have physically but they believe the pain is being manifested as lights, shadows and colors in my field of vision). There are follow up treatments after that. I will know more tomorrow. I basically know nothing right now about this treatment other than I am to report to the hospital tomorrow at 10 am and everything will be explained then.

I will be incommunicado for approximately a week. If those of you who know me personally want to contact me, cell phone is probably the best bet. If I can not check it I will have a family member going through and giving updates if there are any. Please do not post anything on Facebook... I write things here so they stay private from my life. This is where I rant and I pick and choose who I want to read said rants. I thank you in advance to helping me with my anonymity.

When I get out I will write out my experiences here, if I have any. If I get put out and a week later am woken up with nothing to experience will I be able to write anything? We shall see...

Thank you all for reading this and if anyone is stumbling upon this because you have similar issues know that you are not alone.

I appreciate all of the kind words and support I gain from everyone in my life. While I put on a brave face most days and just plug along saying everything happens for a reason... Sometimes I am still scared when I go blind or have the Pink Floyd laser light show going on inside my eye lids when I try to sleep. I really do want to be normal (or as normal as I can be... or used to be rather). Most of you know I find it difficult to talk with. I tend to listen more than speak, so thank you for everything.