The first test is an undignified process of having head measured and cap fitted and a strap put under ones arms to which the cap is attached to pull down for a snug fit.
Then a needle of sorts pushes conductive gel through holes in the cap to make a connection. There are about a dozen holes that have to get a good reading. Then the machine is switched on and your brain waves are recorded. A combination of high tech and medieval grotesque. It's done sitting in a chair in a small office.
A week or so later I am back at the clinic. This time with Julia. I have wires like straps around my ankles and wrists and one around my head which annoyingly scratches the top of one of my ears. I am comfortably on a reclining treatment bed for the duration of the visit. I don't enjoy the 'patient' state I have gone into. I guess what was happening was I thought I was going to have a reading taken. Like the last time, I have had to answer a lot of questions again. Maybe that's a good process, in case something new comes to light. But I feel little like now I am creating a story of my symptoms. I don't like answering the questions from the bed. It makes me feel passive. I wish I were in a chair.
Here's a thing. Since seeing Dr P and her suggesting fatigue I have been feeling quite tired. I worry that I am overly suggestive. I am, I know that. Alternately, I wonder whether it's because I have been given permission to feel the fatigue rather than fight against it. Dr P or Julia mentioned something about adrenaline. The injured, limping brain fights against its own disability by trying harder - that's how I understand it. And is doubly fatigued, from the impaired function and also from the fight.
I have been more at rest on the tube, a feeling of not trying so hard, or not being so self-conscious (hyper-vigilant?), as if before I felt on show at some level (even as I tried to exclude the anonymous others) and now I am just there, simply taking up space. As I know from Chi Gung practice less extraneous energy is good. And from my own teaching right energy, more relaxation, empty mind is best. So this must be a good thing (even if 'worry brain' tells me it a greater excuse for laziness and babying self and inaction). Perhaps it's a moment of surrender as one does - 'ah, diagnosis has been made and cure is at hand', that has to have a big psychological impact.
I didn't realise that Julia is prescribing homeopathic remedies. I am concerned that it is an unexpected added expense to this already expensive procedure. I have read articles recently that say there is really no scientific evidence for the efficacy of these medicines. The Homeopathic hayfever cure never worked for me. I figure out that what she is doing over there at her desk is reading the output from my wiring and then going over to the cabinet to get various remedies and popping them into a little box which is part of the circuit and that is affecting the readout. She calls Dr P on the phone and even calls her in and keep saying that 'she's asking for this or that remedy'. Julia is saying not brain stem but scarring. I will be given remedies to break up the old scar tissue.
My other adverse reaction to Homeopathy is my beloved coffee. I know I shall have to give it up. I feel resentful, or the addiction does. And I am so tired, lying there on the bed. What I am not appreciating is that I have worked all or part of the last 3 weekends. I had two days off the previous week but it really hasn't made up for it yet, it seems. I am now really feeling that I am allowing myself to slump into being in love with having a problem. I remember how happy I was in a way when I was diagnosed with cancer in 1996 (now all clear). It was a delicious excuse to stop. It was terrifying financially and psychically and identity-crushing and often anger-making but so many aspects of it were comforting. Not least the drugs they gave me as pre-med. I felt a well-being that I realised even normal healthy or at least pre-diagnosis life had never afforded me. Just writing that now I realise, of course, that's some opiate - but st the time I took it as a sign that I was living life wrong, or not having the perfect life, when I should be feeling that all the time. Despite all the darn meditation I was doing.
Julia is telling me about all the different remedies and when and how I take them...I feel more stupid than usual - again, is it because I feel I have an excuse now that my brain has flopped into inattention. Or is it that I feel I don't have to pretend here and so I am not employing my usual social maskers: 'Ah,' said cheerily and eagerly, 'let me just jot this down so I've got it.' Or when I get off the table, can we go trough that again. I don't like what has happened to me on this table. Julia did say at the start of the session that I could rest and gosh I certainly had and look what happens then - no resistance to fatigue, impassive and can't think straight.
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