Ten years ago I was in and out of hospitals every month being scanned, poked, and prodded, trying to figure out the cause of my strange neurological symptoms (fainting, ataxia, myoclonic seizures, loss of speech).
There were two especially unpleasant exams that stick with me.
One was an electromyogram. They take a thin needle and pierce it down into your muscle tissue and measure an electric current through your nerves from another location causing all the muscle fibers to painfully spasm. Like an electric charlie horse.
The worst part of it was that they would reuse this needle over and over and over again, dulling each time, piercing it back into different muscles all over your body. The feet and hands were the most painful. I'm not stranger to needles, but there's a special something about feeling a dull needle pressing hard enough against your skin until it 'pops' through. Ughghgh.
The second exam was a tilt-table test where they strap you into an upright position and then flip you from supine to upright again to see how your heart pumps blood back up into your head with the shifts in blood pressure.
As part of the test they give you two nitroglycerine tablets under the tongue to force your blood pressure to lower as a kind of stress test. As for me, three minutes after taking the pills my I lost consciousness and my vitals were unreadable.
As my senses started to fade back in from the void, I could hear my voice screaming in the distance. I guess that's just what my body does on autopilot when it thinks it's dying. It screams. Good to know. At the time I felt very embarrassed.
As I regained control of my body again, I could feel that my entire body was drenched in sweat. I apologized to the nurse who looked a little shaken. She unstrapped me from the table and I was sent on my way. It was weird feeling walking out of the hospital wondering if I had just died a few minutes before.
Shaking Things Up
After I got a diagnosis equivalent to a medical shrug, I was put on the medication merry-go-round trying to find at least something that could allow me to attend my university classes. One of the drugs I was given was "Depakote", an anti-convulsant that is also used to treat bipolar disorder. I remember three specific side effects from that drug:
- I lost the ability to feel "full" when eating. I gained a lot of weight.
- My emotions were muted, and I felt like a robot just going through the motions of life. Although people around me just described me as "chill."
- My hands were very shaky and difficult to control. It was as if I had drug-induced Parkinson's.
The shaky hands were a real problem.
During periods of stress it got worse. I remember many times I struggled to write my own name during university exams. I was taking a few higher level classes as well that required a lot of sketching straight lines and grids. I always had to draw them extra large while holding the pencil with both hands to keep it steady.
At that time I was also working at a cell phone repair shop. One wrong move while connecting tiny delicate pins into the circuit boards could destroy the phone. My shaky hands definitely cost the business a pretty penny.
My least favorite task was removing shattered ipad screens. You had to heat the edges of the screen up to melt the glue enough and then take a spatula and start scraping the shards of glass away from the metal frame. I'd always come home with tiny glass splinters poking me somewhere. One time my hand slipped forward and a particularly long shard pierced through my protective gloves and slipped under the nail of my thumb. Nightmares.
There were times when it was quite peaceful. If I wasn't doing a repair I was able to man the counter, study, read, meditate, or browse the internet. I consumed a lot of Buddhist literature and fantasized about becoming a monk.
Unberryble
Back to the present day. I had been trying everything in my might to heal this stubborn keto rash, but nothing I did worked. So I gave up and reintroduced carbs in the form of some celery + lemon juice as well as some mandarin oranges and blueberries. Lots and lots of blueberries. Lord I love blueberries.
My skin immediately started healing up, which is great. My blood sugars are a mess again, which is not so great.
I realized that the last time I tried (and failed) eating animal based with fruit, I had also introduced dairy and cheese with it. I think that might have been what was causing all of my constipation and painful bloody guts. Maybe. So I'm avoiding dairy this time and just doing fruit + meat. I'll find out soon enough how my insides fair. Besides the chaos of diabetes, it's been good.
Going Ham
I've been wondering if my recent eye sight problems are due to a nutritional deficiency. I went around looking for what kind of deficiencies might have cropped up in the big carnivore groups online. There were only a couple, but the primary one is vitamin B1 (thiamine), which is primarily found in pork.
Even though I'm neither Jewish nor a Muslim, I have a lot of friends who are, and just tend to avoid eating pork since I have socially labeled it as 'unholy' in my brain. But! I decided to commit blasphemy anyways and WOW I forgot how good ham tastes. Uncured black forest ham with minimal ingredients. Holy moly is it good. I find myself craving it every day. I'm going to have to try to get some uncured bacon soon too.
The first night after eating the ham, I got this huge energy rush. I felt awesome and even ended up springing up wide awake at 5am the next morning. I'm definitely noticing some slight improvements in my eye sight. I don't know if it's a deficiency issue in the first place, but I know it can take a few weeks to correct deficiencies if there is one, so I'm just going to keep the ham train rolling. It also makes me wonder if I might benefit from a multi-vitamin, but I'd much prefer to get nutrition through food. Eghk. I'll figure it out over time.
Job Job
Applications: 283
Rejections: 30
First Interview: 2
Just putting in the work every day. This week I'll be doing the first round of interviews with DataJoint and Ramp.
There are times when I find myself especially stressed about this job search. Sometimes I play around with different perspectives about it in my mind. This morning I imagined what it feels like to be a devout religious man with a strong faith in God. I imagined that there is a plan for me and a destined job will come my way and I just have to go through my motions within the universe to let the plan unfold through me.
It is an odd thing to believe and not believe at the same time. I could feel the comfort of letting go arise from the spiritual let-it-be side of my mind, and the tug of despair coming from the gonna-die-must-survive side. It's like having one foot in heaven and another foot in hell. Very human.
Song of the Week
NieR is a fantastic video game with a fantastic soundtrack.
This is one of my favorite songs.
Thanks for reading :)
-Jason