So. Yesterday I started rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) and if you’re confused then you missed my post explaining it and you need to go back and read it. I am currently in a depression so my head isn’t working perfectly but if I don’t write it down I’ll forget so let’s do this.
First off, it feels like a woodpecker is drilling holes into your head while you have an ice cream headache and also you’re paying for it to happen to you. And your head is in a vice and have you have tape on your face and protective earplugs on and your eyes are blinking involuntarily in a small convulsion and it looks like you’re winking at the doctor, nurse, and the medical students watching you, and then you have to tell them that you are not trying to seduce them but you say it way too loud because you have earplugs in and that’s awesome.
Secondly, I started this post wrong but my head hurts so I’m going backward. The doctor told me that before we start he needs to find out “where my thumb lives” and I was like, “Are you sure you’re a real doctor because my thumb lives on my hand and it’s really obvious” but turns out they have to find it from my brain, which seems like a really long trip, but whatever.
The doctor told me that in order to find the parts of the brain where they need to hit me with magnets they need to find the homunculus first and then work backward and I thought it was a trick because I’ve played Dungeons & Dragons and I am perfectly aware that a homunculus is a flying telepathic monster made of blood magic:
But the doctor was like, “Jesus, no, that’s horrifying. It’s this:”
And that’s way more horrifying than the telepathic winged blood monster but apparently there are different parts of your body that are affected when you get magnet-punched in the brain-pan and to make sure they’re in the right spot they make you hold your thumb up like a hitchhiker and they keep magnet-punching your noggin until your thumb falls. I called it a reverse-Fonzie but the med students didn’t laugh because I guess they’re too cool for Fonzie.
Hey, remember when I said I started this woodpecker head stuff yesterday? Yeah, no. I got depressed and couldn’t concentrate enough to finish this post for a week so now it’s much later. But in a way it was good because that depression was enough to make me realize how terrible depression is even when it super sucks to have to leave the house and get hit in the head with an invisible chisel and it made me keep going even when I didn’t want to.
Anyway, here are the things that I found out about TMS:
- My brain is not at all symmetrical which I thought was weird but then the doctor was like, “Well, your face isn’t symmetrical so why would your brain be symmetrical?” and that makes sense but it’s also a little insulting because basically I think he just said that I’m even ugly on the inside.
- It super hurt the first day but everyone assured me that I’d quickly get used to being pummeled in the skull and they were totally right and also this feels like a pretty good metaphor for 2018 in general.
- If it hurts a lot they might be on a nerve and if you tell them they can move it a little and then it only hurts a little. SCIENCE!
- They literally put my head in a vice to do this but if you have a good imagination it almost looks like a fancy fascinator for a futuristic royal space wedding and I think if I keep doing it long enough I’ll develop a magneto-like super power, which would be nice to help find my keys or change the channel without a remote.
- Every day they do 20 minutes with one pulse per second on my right side, and then on the left side of my brain they do 20 minutes with LOTS of pulses for 5 seconds followed by 10 second breaks.
- I couldn’t write while being whacked in the head so instead I listened to TED talks and took up embroidery. Finished:
Honestly, I don’t know if it’s working or not but today I feel better than I felt the day before I started and that feels like a good sign.
One week down. Five more to go.