safe mode...

in one of those countless moments of waiting in the e.r. after my seizure, i looked over at keith and said something about feeling completely as if my mind was some sort of blank slate and he said, "well of course it does -- your brain just rebooted."

too true. and i don't want to run afar with these computer analogies, but if a seizure is like the brain crashing and rebooting, then maybe these anti-convulsant meds are like running in safe mode. because i don't feel like i'm at full capacity, i'm not accessing all of my programs, and i might as well have the words "safe mode" framing everything i do.

here's the real deal, friends -- I. HATE. THIS. MEDICINE! and i want to get off it as soon as humanly possible. want to know what i did last night? i had a big long talk with keith about how i seriously think i'm losing my mind. i was crying, i was panicky, i was distressed. actually, change all instances of "was" in the before sentence to "am". i don't know how to describe it other than that i feel glitchy. like things aren't running quite right. glitchy.

now, things run with glitches in them all the time, but this is my brain. want some examples of the glitchiness? okay. how's this for you: on several occasions over the past week or so, i've had the very real and very realistic urge to pick up the phone and...wait for it...call my mother. call. my. mother. as if she were just hanging out somewhere at her job or reading the paper. as if i could just dial a phone number and she would be there on the receiving end. my mother has been dead for almost eleven years. i KNOW that i cannot call her. and this isn't like a feeling that it would be nice to be able to call her, this is a feeling just like how i could call my dad right now. or call krista. or call my brother. glitches.

and i keep confusing my 412s with my 215s, i fumble over the order of the streets in philadelphia, streets i've known for years. i catch myself quickly enough, but it's not automatic, not like it usually is.

and, glitch-in-the-matrix notwithstanding, i have weird deja vu feelings AT LEAST three times a day. i feel tired and then not-tired. and dizzy and then not-dizzy. and sad and then not-sad. this is neurochemistry all fucked up. this is your brain on drugs.

when i talked to keith about it last night, he said he's noticed that things have been different with me since i've been on these meds. he said i've been jumpier, kinda paranoid, my perspective on certain things has been unrealistic. and while one could argue that it's just him getting to know me, it provided some comfort to hear him tell me that. because maybe i'm not losing my mind and spiraling inwardly into some sort of brain tumor-induced hell. maybe it really is something external and fixable. keith said to me, "this isn't you. and you don't have to feel like this."

sheesh. i SO wanted all of this stuff to be behind me. and i SO thought that it was. but that's what i get for trusting a neurologist who won't respond to repeated phone calls and e-mails from a patient in distress. or maybe that's what i get for clinging too tenaciously to hope and idealism.

regardless, i've got an appointment on friday with dr. p, my neuro here in philly. friday. 10:00 a.m. that was the SOONEST they could fit me in. but so help me gods, i will not walk out of her office on the same medication and/or dosage that i'm on right now. i'll fight with her if i have to. i can't do this anymore. i feel crazy and sick and miserable and not at all myself. and i'd rather have seizures than feel like this.