Nonsequitur Life

When I was a baby I had an episode where my eyes rolled back in my head and I stopped moving as if I was having some sort of seizure. After tests and drugs and shrugged shoulders they determined I had a “Left Temporal Irritability” and nothing more was ever said of it.

Google it.

Let me know if you find anything.

Because as far as I can tell no such thing exists.

All that to say, I get to go see a neurologist.

For what?

Good question.

When Dr Psych inquired about my progress I told her it had been a miserable month and regaled her with my whine-fest of side effects and misery—numb and buzzy fingers, weight loss, nausea, vision problems, and everything else I filled up a piece of paper with that had been nothing like my first venture with these drugs. She asked me more questions about the phantom smoke smell and if I had ever been sick as a baby, if I had been premature, and other things. I mentioned the Left Temporal Irritability. She wants a neurology consult for several reasons, but the smoke smell is apparently a red flag to her. Also my apparent sensitivity and/or odd handling of any medication could also be somehow related to something off up in that train wreck of a brain. Phantosmia is associated with mental illness, but it’s also associated with a whole lot of other things that are far more complicated. So…I have no fucking clue.

First I have to go see my regular doctor so he can tell me where to go for a neurologist. Because again—I don’t have a fucking clue. I’d also like to hear if he has anything to say about it. And maybe by some freak chance Park Nicollet has something in my file from way the hell back regarding the Left Temporal Irritability. I won’t hold my breath, it was 30+ years ago. But there’s always a chance.

To be perfectly honest, I’m also not holding my breath for answers from seeing a neurologist either. I fully anticipate spending a whole fuckton of money to have more people look at me, shrug their shoulders and say, “I don’t know.”

In the meantime, I get to stop taking the Prozac and the Trazodone cold. And I get to wean off the Topamax for two weeks. Once I’m clear from that I get to start taking Vistaril which is an antihistamine used to treat anxiety. It doesn’t have a long list of side effects and I won’t be on it for very long by the time my next appointment comes up, but we’ll see what it does once I do start taking it.

Dr Psych told me it’s probably going to take awhile to figure out what’s going to work.

That’s encouraging.

I just know that I’m not looking forward to stopping TWO SSRIs cold.

I’ve done that before.

Twice.

It was NOT A GOOD TIME.

1.) Get yourself a fresh 9-volt battery.

2.) Stick the live end on your tongue.

3.) Don’t argue with me. Just do it. It won’t kill you.

4.) Get a nice little zap? Now imagine that magnified by about a thousand and put it on your brain at random, unpredictable intervals. It will stop you in your tracks and make you question your very existence.

5.) Welcome to anti-depressant withdrawals.

I need a vacation.

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Kinks Shirt Matt Nathanson