My Treatment, My Options Part 2

Yesterday I explained a little (or alot) about what was going on with me. Today is the follow up, two other options my therapist placed on the table. The first is TMS (transmagnetic stimulation). First they take an MRI of your brain to see which areas are most active or inactive. Then they will construct something of a helmet where magnets are pressed against those inactive areas of your brain to stimulate them. My therapist says it sounds like something in a sci-fi novel and it does. How does this even work? Osmosis? But I got to keep faith in science, because (besides God himself) it is sometimes the only thing I can have faith in. Unfortunately it sounds like an inconvenience because you have to do it five days a week, for an hour each day for weeks at a time. I didn’t ask if you could do anything during that time (like read or watch TV) to stave off the boredom that would come from lying there for an hour. I’m suspecting you can’t.

And then of course your classic ECT- electroshock therapy. When I was in the hospital I was rooming with someone who went for ECT everyday. She returned in a wheelchair, her memory fried. My therapist said many years ago he had actually brought up ECT to my present psychiatrist (I have been with them a while) but because they were worried about my age and my brain development (I was nineteen) they decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Now that I’m twenty nine it is back on the table.

So I don’t know yet what path I will take. My therapist needs to speak to his colleague and they both need to speak to my psychiatrist and my parents. In the meantime I have designated special checking times so I am not running up and down the stairs all day to my room to make sure everything is where it needs to be. Trust me, I’ve burned so many calories through this disease. It’s like it comes with it’s own Stairmaster. Waiting until checking times is so hard. It sounds so ridiculous but it has reduced me to tears. I wish, I wish, I wish God had granted me with the little bit of OCD everyone else seems to have. But maybe relief is in the future. I can only hope.