A Reasonable Solution

I talked to my neurologist about the aphasia I experienced and she increased my dosage of oxcarbazepine from 600 mg a day to 900 mg a day.  Since I increased the dosage, I have not had any aphasiatic episodes, though it's only been two days.  Still, I have reason to be hopeful.

A Worrying Series of Events

I've been on my new medication, oxcarbazepine, for nearly a month.  For the most part, I feel great.  It's the other times that have me worried.

While my depression has mostly dissipated, my anxiety has taken the opportunity to rear its ugly head again.  I don't know if my anxiety was always there and I just didn't notice it because of the depression or if only one can be experienced at a time, but whatever the case, I'm forced to maintain behaviors that will help me control my anxiety.  Thankfully, many of the same behaviors that work against depression also work against anxiety.  Also of benefit, while my anxiety has returned, I don't believe it's any stronger than it was before I started taking levetiracetam.  As far as my emotional health goes, I'm happy with the change.

Unfortunately, that's not the only issue.  Yesterday while I was at work, I experienced aphasia.  It was relatively mild, but it has me worried.  While I can chalk up the seizure I had two weeks ago to the transition, can I do the same with the aphasiatic episode?  I called my neurologist, but I haven't heard back from her yet (she works out of the local hospital and they suck at delivering messages).  Maybe the episode was due to something we can fix (maybe my dosage is too low or I have stop eating cheese or something), but it definitely has me worried.

My concern lies not only with the fact that aphasia may be a precursor for seizures, but also that I may have to switch back to levetiracetam and return to struggling to live my life.  Hopefully, I'll hear back from the doctor soon and we'll be able to solve the problem in a way that doesn't require me to switch back.

Tuesdays with Media: Pasta

My new story is made possible thanks to my big sister, Margot, who helped me brainstorm and work out some ideas.  Thanks, Sis!

The Tongue Says: I'm Bored

I like to cook and I'm good at it, but by the time dinner time rolls around, I'm usually pretty beat.  My strategy I have been using is to cook a bunch of food at once and reheat it as necessary, but reheated food never tastes as good as when it's fresh.  Last week, I tried preparing the ingredients to dinner ahead of time so all I would have to do is cook everything.  That worked pretty well, but I only prepared one meal and I got bored of it after a few days.

This week, I planned ahead better.  I came up with four different recipes (well, I found two on the internet and came up with the other two) that I can cycle through during the week.  I bought all of the ingredients on Saturday and did a lot of chopping, mixing, cooking, and mashing on Sunday.  I haven't sampled anything new yet, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how well this experiment works out.

The Unrelenting Manager from Another Department

There was a bit of a kerfuffle at work this week, but the story actually started a few weeks ago.

One of my responsibilities at work is to copyedit documents that address changes to products or policies.  The change is usually something small, like a product made in the factory in China will now be made in the factory in Mexico.  These are internal documents, but if customers need to be informed about the change, a letter will be drafted for them, though they’re usually just like the internal documents but without certain details (because the information is irrelevant to customers or it’s something the company doesn’t want made public).  I do not write either of these documents, I merely copyedit them.  The document author is usually an engineer and a non-native English speaker, so some wording hiccups are expected.

This is not one of my main responsibilities and I’ve even been instructed to not copyedit anything beyond these documents (unless instructed by one of my direct managers) because as the only English-speaking technical writer in a global company, I could easily spend all of my time copyediting and still never finish everything.  However, the internal documents and customer letters are the exception.

A few weeks ago, I went through the same process where I copyedited the two documents and sent them back to be approved and distributed.  This time, however, I left in some company jargon in the customer letter because I didn’t recognize it for what it was.  When some of the upper managers saw it, they panicked.  I got a call from a manager I had never heard of (apparently, he’s right below the VP for my segment) to go over the letter.  He was polite and didn’t blame me for what had happened and was instead focused on how to fix the problem.  I quickly made the changes he asked for and submitted it.  So, an unfortunate mishap occurred, but we quickly fixed it.

A couple of days later, I got an email from the new manager of Product Information (they handle document coordination and archiving) asking me and the other people involved to explain our roles in the process of handling these documents.  I noticed that my boss, Magda, had not been included in the conversation, so I forwarded her the email and told her how I would respond, to which she agreed.  I explained my role to the head of Product Information (PI) as I did above and I thought that would be the end of it.  Well, the next week I get another email asking for a more information: not only was I to better define my own role, but I was supposed to also define the roles of everyone else involved.  Again, Magda was left out of the loop.  After we talked and made sure we were on the same page, I wrote my second response (and had Magda read it to make sure it had the right tone) and I sent it off.

That brings us to last week.  I had my seizure on Monday and only worked the second half of the day, but I had emailed Magda about what was happening and she was very supportive.  When I came into the office, I saw that I had missed a meeting, even though I knew I had no meetings scheduled.  It turns out that I had been sent a meeting request around 1 AM on Sunday and my calendar updated automatically.  I don’t check my work email outside of work hours, nor am I expected to, and sending me a meeting request to Skype at 9 AM the next day is at least the very least discourteous.  Guess who called the meeting?  The PI manager.  I was too out of it to care, so I ignored it and moved on.

Monday of this week, I got an out-of-the-blue Skype request from the PI manager to discuss what the meeting was about.  Apparently, my role in the document creation process is going to significantly increase.  Now, I’m supposed to still copyedit the internal document, but write the customer letter by having a conversation with each product engineer.  According to the PI manager, the engineers don’t like writing and I should help them more.  I protested and said that I had other responsibilities and I don’t have time to take on these extra roles and even if I did, I don’t know the company jargon to know when to challenge if something was appropriate to share with customers.  She said that I would need to learn the jargon through these conversations.  Remember, all of this came from a meeting I didn’t attend because I didn’t know about it and I was recovering from a seizure.  She didn’t know about why I came to work late, but she was still dumping a lot of work on me when I hadn’t had a chance to be a part of the discussion.

While I was Skyping with the PI manager, I sent Magda an instant message to let her know who I was talking to.  Once again, my boss, the person who actually decides how I spend my day, hadn’t been involved.  Magda said she wanted to talk when I was done.  So, my conversation continued with the PI manager and every time I explained that something wasn’t my role, she simply responded that it made sense for it to be.  I decided to stop fighting (she wasn’t listening anyway) and just let her talk.  At the end of the conversation, I said “I assume you’ve already talked to Magda and [Magda’s boss] about this.”  I knew she hadn’t and I thought that was a reasonable way to call her out.  She said she would email Magda right away so that she could get onboard.  Finally, the conversation ended.

Magda had left for a meeting, but before leaving, she left a note saying that I call should her cell as she was driving.  I was really hot-blooded at this point, so I went for a walk outside to cool off and called Magda.  Unsurprisingly, she was mad too.  The PI manager had crossed the line from being discourteous and was firmly in unprofessional territory.  Magda explained that she would talk with her boss, but assured me that the PI manager wouldn’t get her way.  The next morning, I walked into the office and saw Magda talking with her boss.  While they weren’t talking about my ordeal when I passed them, Magda later confirmed that they had discussed the situation and agreed that my role won’t change.  My position exists to support the office I work in, not the entire company.  I have done work that has impacted the company on a global scale, but that was because I was trying to solve a local problem and it was easier to make a major change so that other segments wouldn’t be working against us (it can happen with companies our size).  I help out with the internal documents and customer letters as nice gesture, but my main responsibilities are not on a global level, nor were they ever meant to be.  Magda sent the PI manager an email explaining everything and hasn’t heard back yet.

If history has taught me anything, this isn’t the end of this ordeal.  Here’s hoping that I’m wrong.

So That's What the Floor Looks Like ...

One of the worst things about depression is that it takes away your motivation to do even essential things.  Like when the weekends came and if I didn't have plans to meet anyone, I would stay inside, desperately in need of a shower.  Well, the same thing happened with my apartment.  In fact, I can't remember the last time I even vacuumed was.

Until Sunday.  You see, now that I'm off of levetiracetam, I'm cleaning my home again!  Even in my depressed state, I kept my kitchen clean, but the rest of the place went to pot.  I made a big step in correcting that this past Sunday.  After I got home from Church, I started doing laundry.  Instead of throwing everything in a "clean pile" when it was done, I folded and put it all away.  I cleaned up my living room enough that if I have impromptu guests, they'll have a place to sit.  I even vacuumed.  Not only does everything look nicer now that it's all clean, I've noticed that I'm able to feel the spirit more.

Now, I'm not done cleaning.  I have a lot of piled-up junk mail to throw out and I need to toss some grocery bags, but at least I've gotten started.  It feels good to be productive again.

The Tale of the Picky Theif

Last week, I had the inside of my car detailed.  It's not that I'm fancy or rich or anything; it's just that my car was pretty dirty.  In addition to the backseat being covered in crumbs from Clara and Henry sitting back there to and from Chicago for Thanksgiving, I spilled a still-cooling cherry pie on the passenger seat soon after I bought the car.  I don't begrudge my niece and nephew being messy -- at their age and for as long as we were in the car, I expected it -- but with the mess they made, the mess I made, and the car just getting dirty though normal use, I decided I'd rather pay someone to deep clean it rather than spend the time myself and not do as good a job.

After calling a couple of places, I decided to go with one in particular due to the combination of good pricing and a convenient location.  I even coordinated with a coworker so I could drop the car off during lunch and pick it up at the end of the day, so I wouldn't need to wait around.  I made sure to remove most of my personal items from the car, as I had been instructed.

When I came by to pick up the car, the crew was finishing up the last few touches.  I should say that the "crew" was just one guy.  Not the owner, though I got the impression that he does plenty of the hands-on work himself.  No, the crew was an uncomfortably-thin looking man with at least one tooth missing, a couple of tattoos on or near his face, and one gauged ear.  The man had made a lot of bad life decisions, is what I'm saying.  After paying and driving away in my car, I was impressed with the job they did.  They cleaned up the cherry stain so well that I couldn't tell it was ever there.  The inside looks like new!  I was very happy with the job they did.

That's where I was expecting this story to end, but there's a little more.  On Saturday, I went to a grocery store that locks up their shopping carts.  You insert a quarter and it unlocks, you lock it up when you're done, you get your quarter back.  Pretty basic and it eliminates the need to send an employee out to collect the carts.  I keep a bag of change in my car, mostly just as a place to store it (I see change as more as an inconvenience than anything else).  I reached into my glove compartment, pulled out the bag, and found nothing but pennies.  I laughed out loud.

While it was frustrating (and a bit disappointing) that one of the people at the detail shop stole from me, I thought it was hilarious that they went to the trouble of just stealing the silver coins.  Apparently whoever stole from me (I assume it was the crew member) has high standards of what they're willing to pilfer and pennies just do make their cut.

Kitchen Blunder

You know what's great?  A perfectly seared Ahi tuna steak.

You know what's not great?  Being an idiot and plunging your searing hot skillet into water to cool it down, only to cause the pan to irreparably warp itself.

At least dinner was good ...

Number Four (Maybe)

I think I had another seizure.  I was asleep at the time and I didn't bite my lip or tear any muscles this time, but I woke up around 3 in morning on Monday feeling, well, feeling like I had just had a seizure.  One thing that was different about this time compared to the previous seizures is that I was medicated when it happened.

So, what caused it?  I think this time it was caused by low blood-sugar.  On Friday, I was still dealing with the worsened depression that came on when I started transitioning to the oxcarbazepine and I ordered a pizza and ate the whole thing.  I felt awful (a bit emotionally, but mostly physically), so I decided to try doing a juice cleanse to help pass the excess food.  In doing so, I was starving most of the weekend (I broke from the diet and got a vegetarian burrito on Saturday).  It was the worst on Sunday, but I drank my last portion of juice right before bed with the hope that I would be okay.  I wasn't.

After I woke up, I couldn't sleep for about an hour or two (when I'm recovering from a seizure, my brain becomes more alert while simultaneously becoming exhausted -- it's not fun).  I emailed my boss and told her what happened, adding that I would need some time to recover.  Even though she approved my absence, I made it into the office after lunch.  I had fitfully slept the rest of the morning (after making sure to eat some cereal and fruit to bring my blood-sugar to a safe level) and I was still pretty of out of it, but I'm glad I made it for the second half of the day.

While I think I was at risk because of the transition, I will watch my blood-sugar moving forward.  And in case you're wondering, the juice cleanse didn't even work.

Rough Start

As I posted about on Friday, I'm in the process of changing my seizure medication.  Even though I've only been taking the new medication for just a week, I can already tell a difference.

When I first started the change, my depression actually got worse.  I had trouble sleeping, I was constantly distracted, and I couldn't find enough motivation to go to the gym even once during the week.  I was starting to wonder if I had made the right choice to make the change.  And then on Thursday, I was able to do some light cardio at home in the morning.  I still didn't make it to the gym during the week, but I went on Saturday.  Saturdays have been hard for me for a while, but I did just fine: I exercised at the gym, I ran my errands, I even hung out with my friend Erin.

I didn't expect that changing my medication would have such a profound impact, but so far, I'm happy I made the change.

Transitional Period

I started my new medication on Monday.  Instead of levetiracetam, I'm switching to oxcarbazepine.  Because of how anti-convulsants work, I have to ease off the old medication while starting the new one.  For this first week, I take the oxcarbazepine every morning and evening while I take only levetiracetam in the evening.  Next week, I'll take oxcarbazepine just as frequently, but I'll take levetiracetam only every other evening.  The week after, the transition will be complete and I'll only be taking oxcarbazepine.

Why the transition?  While I don't know the mechanics behind it, one thing that all anti-convulsants have in common is that if you stop cold turkey, you risk having non-stop seizures (which is why the two seizures I've had since I was diagnosed with epilepsy were when I didn't get my prescription filled in time).  In fact, I made the mistake of taking the levetiracetam in the morning on Wednesday (I've gotten used to taking my medication in the morning and I wasn't thinking and kept up the habit), so I had to go longer without a dose -- while still taking oxcarbazepine regularly. Thursday afternoon at work, I started to have a minor aphasiatic episode.  Thankfully, nothing happened: I just felt it coming on before it dissipated (similar to how migraines are often preceded by halos).  I made sure I took both meds on Thursday evening.

So far, I can't say that I notice a difference.  I haven't had any seizures, but I still feel tired in the afternoon.  As for my depression, I won't be able to say if there's a difference until the weekend.  Hopefully, I'll be more motivated than I have been the last several months.

Easter Break

I did something different for Easter this year: I went to visit my sister, Margot, and her family.  I was only there for a couple of days, but I had a great time.  I helped make dinner on Saturday, I baked goodies, and I played with my nieces and nephews.

While I was there, one of my nephews, Cooper, was baptized!  His dad, Bryan, performed the baptism and I got to join in for the confirmation.

It was a fun trip, but a tiring one.  So instead of detailing everything that happened, I'll share some pictures.

Making blue cookies for Cooper's baptism.

Phoebe was my helper when I made brownies.

The funny thing about this one is that I'm the only one with a bow in my hair.

Cooper and his parents before his baptism.

Cooper and some of his extended family (we took a bunch of pictures and I guess Cooper is a bit over it in this on).

Tuesdays with Media: Text

I wrote another short story, which I posted on my story blog.  Give it a read and let me know what you think.

General Conference, April 2016

With another Conference came another opportunity to listen to the apostles and other General Authorities.  Here are my thoughts:

The main theme that I saw was the broad topic of "eternal families."  This included family life, genealogy, temple work, resurrection, eternal marriage, proper parenting, and more.  Nearly every speaker touched on this theme, even if only briefly.

One talk in particular that I liked was Elder Hales' talk on the Holy Ghost.  It was simple and straight forward, but it really stuck with me, perhaps because I found it so relatable.

Outside of Conference, it was great to spend time with Ian and the kids.  I made breakfast both days -- French toast and bacon on Saturday and biscuits and scrambled eggs on Sunday; the Clara and Henry helped both times.  The kids had trouble paying attention, but they both got excited when President Monson got up to speak.  (Side story: I asked Henry what we would call someone who was a high ranking military officer with the last name Conference.  Because of his lack of knowledge of military ranks -- and his slight speak impediment -- he said "Sir Cumference!"  The kid beat me at my own game ...)

That's what I got out of Conference.  How about you?

Thirty-third Year

My birthday was on Wednesday.  Birthdays aren't a big deal for me, so I wasn't expecting much and I was not disappointed this year.

When I got to work, I found a gift bag on my desk.  Inside was a rather nice looking cookbook focused on baking.  What was really clever was that each person in my department had placed a post-it note on the page of the treat they wanted me to bake for them.  I thought it pretty funny: my gift was a book, while their gifts will come later when I use my present.

That evening, I met with the Bishop and the Ward Clerk to discuss one of my responsibilities in my new calling.  The meeting lasted longer than I expected, but I was happy to be available to serve.

While it might not seem like much, the celebrating isn't over.  When I visit the Larsens over the weekend for General Conference, we'll share the cake that Ian baked for me, the first one he's made from scratch.

If birthdays are decent, I consider it a win.  With this year's being better than that, I'm more than happy.