24/7 supervision has come to an end :) So I finally got to go running by myself wherever I wanted. It was sooo nice and felt so good. I’m still terribly out of shape, but it’s amazing how much better running feels after my ECT appointments, even despite being physically less fit. I’m excited for what this means for running in the future. Maybe my depression is what’s been holding me back all this time, and why I haven’t “adapted” to coach’s program like all the rest of my teammates. I still haven’t gotten much faster from high school. It’s been discouraging because coach told me a while ago I have him scratching his head wondering what to do with me because I am not adjusting like my teammates. My high school times were faster than some of my teammates, and yet I’m the slowest on the team. Anyways, I’m just excited because maybe this means I’ll actually start making major improvements. I remember talking with one of my teammates who also emergency withdrew from this semester because of depression while I was still in Cedar (so before all this happened) and we got to talking about running/depression and she exclaimed, “it’s like I can’t run through pain!” I was really surprised. She’s the one I was neck and neck with in high school that has now blown me out of the water lol. She’s so fast. I never really gave that much thought because I’ve been struggling with depression since my freshman year here and I’ve pushed through pain in workouts, the only way to get through effort weeks is to push through pain, so I thought nah that’s not really what I’ve experienced, but maybe it actually is... maybe that’s why I’m not improving. Maybe I haven’t been able to push through pain as well as I used to, because I have been severely depressed. I guess we’ll find out next fall :)
VA loop, 7:50 average.
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We met with one of the doctors tonight, it was very informative. Takeaways are that I’m done (for the time being) with ECT, I’m supposed to go back in 3 weeks to check in on how I’m doing. I had 7 ECT treatments, the normal is 10-12 but sometimes they go up to 14. If I seem to dip back down in the next couple weeks they may schedule another treatment and re-evaluate. But for now I’m done with ECT. I will start taking another medication by the end of the week, I’m not used to having to take so many different medications. But all of them have their different purposes.
My mom says I should start journaling so I can have a record of my mood/symptoms. That’s probably a good idea, but I’m terrible at keeping paper journals. Maybe I’ll just keep track on here as well, at least for a little while to reference while I need to evaluate how my medications/treatments are working. Y’all could probably care less, but it’ll be good to have for my own record.
Today’s mood/symptoms: I’m a 7. Very forgetful. I had memory issues (normal side effect of ECT, though the doctor did say my memory loss is more severe than normal). I can’t seem to think very hard - my mind goes kinda blank after too much effort. And sometimes when I try to remember things it’s like that part of my brain just can’t be accessed at all or is missing. I’m met with nothing and my brain shuts off - I can’t keep thinking or trying to remember for very long. But overall my mood is good and lighter. I’m extremely less anxious than I’m accustomed to. Very tired today. I also had very strange dizzy/head warpy symptoms throughout the day, hard to describe.
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