The End is Near

The State of Maryland has a website where you can look up the current status of open legal cases.  Unfortunately, the site only says what forms have been submitted by involved parties or what notices have been issued by the court.  To put it another way, I highly suspect that the final hearing in my divorce has been set, but I don't know the date of it yet.  I should get the official notice in the mail in the next few days.  Until then, I eagerly await it, hoping that it will be sooner rather than later.

Experimenting

I talked to my neurologist yesterday.  I explained to her what I've been going through and how I wasn't sure if the levetiracetam that I've been taking for over the last two years was affecting me negatively.  She listen to me and offered an alternative anti-convulsant that is also sometimes used to treat depression.  I'm a little wary of taking an antidepressant with my normal medication, but one medication that works as both?  That doesn't sound so bad.

Now, just because my doctor approved the medication and her office called in a prescription for me, it's not an easy change to make.  First off, the new medication does pose the risk of liver damage, so before I can begin, I have get some blood work done (along with every six months thereafter to monitor my vitals, particularly my liver).  When the results deem me healthy enough, I can slowly make the transition -- in addition to drowsiness and increased anxiety and depression, levetiracetam also has this side effect (from the primary manufacturer's website): "Stopping a seizure medication all at once can cause seizures that will not stop, a very serious problem."  While I think that calling "seizures that will not stop" a "very serious problem" is putting things a bit mildly, it's also misleading: while many anti-convulsants have this effect, not every one does.

Now I'm just waiting for the paperwork so I can go to the lab for the blood work.  Once I'm cleared, I'll begin the transition, which will take two weeks.  While I am optimistic, I also need to watch for any other potential problems.  Even if my depression eases up when I switch, there may be other changes to my mood or behavior.  But nothing will change unless I try something different, so here's hoping this new medication works better.

Tuesdays with Media: Satori

As I did last year, I'm dedicating the month of March to instrumental music that I think is awesome.  Up first is John Danley playing his guitar with a paintbrush:

I love the the fact that Mr. Danley is being so creative with his instrument: he plays the body like a drum, he slides the paintbrush down the coiled strings, and he hammers hard enough with his left hand that he never needs to strum or pluck.  The song itself, "Satori," is mostly in a minor key, so it sounds dark, but never in a scary or evil way; more mysterious, if anything.

Danley's also good at crowd work as can be seen when he tells a fun, meandering story before playing a more traditional song.

I find music especially fun when you get a chance to see a musician perform a song and they are clearly having a blast with it.  John Danley does that in spades.

"Satori" is from the album Cemeteries, Missed Trains, & Blues Skies, distributed by Apriori Records.

Imbalance

I saw a new neurologist on Thursday.  This was the first time I'd seen a brain doctor since I was first diagnosed with epilepsy back in December of 2013, so it was nice to get a second opinion.  My doctor said that based on my history, that my current medication (levetiracetam) appears to be working well and that as long as I don't miss a dose, everything should be fine.

Since the meeting, however, I've been thinking more and more about the side effects of my medication.  The most common one is drowsiness and/or sleeplessness, which I definitely deal with, though I don't know how much of that is due to the meds -- I have a sleep study scheduled for a week from today, so maybe with the right kind of CPAP machine, I'll be fine.

The next most common side effects are increased levels of anxiety and/or depression.  This is the one that has me the most concerned.  Right after I started taking levetiracetam (or Keppra, if you want to use the brand name), I went through the worst depression of my life.  The problem, however, is that the circumstances of my life were pretty depressing: I had just been diagnosed with epilepsy, I had lost my job, and my estranged wife refused to communicate with me when I turned to her for emotional support.  It was a tough time in my life.  Since then, I've gotten a much stronger grip on my life and my emotions.

But I still struggle with anxiety and depression on a regular basis.  I even picked up a new hobby as a way to combat these negative feelings (which has helped quite a bit).  Even so, I was unable to find the motivation to leave my apartment on Saturday and when I went to bed, I had a panic attack for a couple of hours.  This resulted in me sleeping through my alarm and missing church the next day.  I wasn't scheduled to teach, so at least I wasn't shirking any responsibility, beyond that of keeping my basic covenants.

Since I couldn't sleep anyway, I looked up how often people deal with these sorts of side effects and I found the answer: around 0.8% of users.  Less than one percent of people using levetiracetam feel anything other than fine.  And even if I'm one of the unlucky few that got more than he bargained for, other anti-convulsants have their own risks (many of which include possible liver damage).  One big problem is that I don't know if the meds are exacerbating a problem that already exists or if I'm just not handling my brain chemistry properly.

The first step is to follow up with my neurologist.  I have an appointment to see her again in July, but I'll send her an email later today (I'd have done it already, but I left her business card in my desk at work).  Maybe she has a go-to medication that can take the edge off the side effects.  Maybe she'll ask me to see a psychiatrist, which I may want to do anyway.  Maybe she'll ask for more test to be conducted.  All I know is that I've been dealing with these problems for a while now and I just want my life back.

I Cost Too Much

The other day at work, I was talking to my manager, Magda, about how I was having trouble with the copyediting work I was doing.  In the instance in question, I was having to argue my case for the edits I made to two separate managers who are not native English-speakers.  This wasn't simply a matter of using a dashes instead of parentheses, but of using the wrong word.

The document I was proofing was explaining how some new packaging would secure the product better during transit and kept referring to the bottom layer as the "lower wedge."  I can see why that word was picked since wedges are sometimes used to secure things (like a door stop), but there were no triangular shapes to be found anywhere in any of the diagrams or photographs of the packaging.  I finally quoted a dictionary and highlighted why the word didn't fit.  Finally, the product manager saw the light and we compromised with "pack bottom."

When I related the story to Magda, she pulled up an email that she thought was similar.  In it, one of the people from product information (the group that I met with back in October) was dealing with a similar back-and-forth over several emails and finally got fed up.  "I cost too much to be spending so much time on this project," he wrote.  Magda made it clear that his choice of words was too strong, but she agreed with the sentiment.  My time is valuable and if people are arguing with me over something, I need to let them know that they're wasting the company's money, albeit gently.

I must say, I really enjoy having a boss who clearly has my back, almost as much as I do knowing that I'm a valuable commodity for my company.

A Little Rock and Roll Music

Friday night after work, I went to Ian's place for another jam sesh.  The first time was a lot of fun, but this second time was even better.  I'd been practicing and had improved enough that Ian said that the change in my skill level was noticeable.  There were even a couple of times that I got to start what we played: one time I just started playing a note progression that laid the ground work for Ian and Jimmy (in addition to studying bass riffs and scales, I've also started learning about music theory, i.e., what kinds of notes sound good together) and another time I played the bass part to "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes.

The first thing you hear is the bass line.

In the case of the White Stripes song, I started and Joe, the drummer, came in right when he was supposed to.  I hadn't told anyone that it was going to happen, I just did it and suddenly, we were playing a song.

I even tried my hand at singing.  It's hard to play and sing at the same time, but I did my best with the old classic "Sixteen Tons."  It was more blues than rock, but I think I made it work and I even started improvising with an alternate melody at one point.

I look forward to jamming with these guys in the future.  Hopefully, I'll continue to improve and be able to bring even more to the table next time.

Joe, me, and Jimmy (Ian is behind the camera).

Tuesdays with Media: Emotional Words

I wrote another short story.  You can read it here.

Investigative Baking

On Thursday, my boss, Magda, dropped a hint to one of my coworkers that her birthday was coming up, but she didn't say when it would be exactly.  When I heard about it, I walked down to the HR department to see if they were allowed to tell me.  Since I've built a reputation for myself of being a skilled and generous baker, they knew exactly why I wanted to know, so they looked up the date.  As it happened, Magda's birthday was the very next day.  With the little warning we had, my department members and I each took an assignment, with me handling the cake.  I asked for suggestions on flavors and someone said that I should just make a cake that I liked.  I quickly jumped at the chance to make another Angel Food cake.

The next day, I came in and sat the cake (in a carrier) on my desk.  I didn't announce what it was, but I didn't hide it, either.  After everyone had had a chance to sign her birthday card, we presented it to Magda, who was visibly touched by the thoughtful act.  She asked that she be able to take us to lunch, to which we agreed.  When we had decided on a place, I called ahead and asked for permission to bring in the cake, which I was granted.

I'm guessing that Magda hadn't had Angel Food cake before because she kept commenting on how light and fluffy it was.  I encouraged her to take the leftover cake home to share with her family, but she instead decided to share it with the rest of the office, including the HR department.

While I bring baked goods to the office fairly regularly, this was the first time that I brought a birthday cake, though I doubt it will be the last.

Thematic Dreaming

I've been remembering my dreams lately and I've noticed a running theme: in many of them, I have a girlfriend.  Sometimes she's going with me on an adventure, sometimes she's sitting politely while I argue with someone else, sometimes she's talking to me and unknowingly preventing me from finding a restroom.  She never looks the same or has the same personality; sometimes she's not even present, I just know that I have a girlfriend somewhere.

I find it interesting that my subconscious is ready for my divorce to be finalized and for me to start dating.  I also think that its significant that I've only been dating and not married.  It's probably that my brain knows that dating comes next and is preparing me for it -- to put it another way, I've been looking forward to dating again and it's spilled into my dreams.

Thankfully, I shouldn't have to wait much longer.

Status Update

Yesterday, I had to go to the county clerk's office for another status update.  The last time I attended one, I had just found out that the first summons I issued hadn't been accepted.  This time, I had just submitted a request for default (i.e., a request that the court moves forward with the divorce proceedings despite Allison not responding to the original complaint and/or summons), so we should be moving forward now.

One nice thing I found out: when Allison's thirty days to respond to my request for default runs out, I don't have to request a hearing date.  Rather, the court will issue one automatically.  I'm still going to call and make sure that no action is required on my part once the time is up, but it's nice to know I shouldn't be required to.  At the rate we're going, everything should be finalized before my birthday.

And that would be the greatest birthday present I could ask for this year.