First dose of Ketamine

For about 15 years I've been dealing with some sort of depression. Not bad for the first 7 or 8 years. It's gotten worse since then. It started getting worse this past summer. My dad passed away, but that didn't affect me all that much. There was a little sadness from the loss at first and then it went into taking care of my mom until it faded away. Still, that lingering depression was there. I contacted my old therapist to begin sessions again. There was a pre-test to measure my current level of depression. I scored in the major to severe category and that worried me. I saw the therapist for a while, until my insurance stopped paying. I weighed continuing but never went back.

Over the holidays I was messaging back and forth to a friend about it. She suggested I continue to seek help. That was the plan. Around that time I saw a program about Ketamine use and effects. The show wound up telling and demonstrating that this was given to patients with treatment resistant depression with great success. I read up on as much as I could about Ketamine. Sure enough, in almost all cases it cured depression. There was still a certain percentage who don't respond to Ketamine. My depressed self figured I would fall into that percentage. What did I know.

I searched online for availability of Ketamine or how to get a psychiatrist to prescribe it. It was very difficult to find anything that specific at first. Then I find there are clinics, like pain clinics and new age medicine clinics, who administer Ketamine. It looked at first like I would have to travel out of town to get the treatment until I found a place right here in my own town who does it. Several blocks from my house at that. I signed up and paid and away I went.  Here's a description of my first of six treatments. My apologies if it's a little disjointed. I wrote this on two different computers. 

100mg of Ketamine to start with, given intravenously. The onset of the drug is slow. Things start to get smaller and distorted. At the start, noises around me were loud. Eventually, once I was fully “under” things got quiet. The only thing in my head was me asking questions of myself. Not a good thing to do. The doctor said if the medicine starts to feel like a bad trip, think of how the drug is helping me. Anything I'm going through is part of it. You have to think of it healing.

The thing to do is not fight it and try to fall asleep. It was hard to do when the IV was going at full flow and there was too much medicine all at once. The nurse cut back the flow but there were just too many things going on in my head to come back down. She cut the flow to give me a rest and a much needed trip to the bathroom.

Back from the bathroom and under again with a moderate flow of medicine put me just right. There was still something bothering me that was causing me to have a bad experience. I lasted through the bad part until the bag ran dry. I could feel the room getting back to normal. Things which were distorted were aligning once again.

It's really strange how I felt. During the treatment I didn't really feel anything out of the ordinary, other than distorted reality. I wasn't really thinking of anything, other than things around me, voices in the room, numbness, etc.. The doctor said there may be sadness from something in my past letting go during my treatment. That didn't happen during the treatment, but it did happen later. During the treatment my mind was blank, just processing immediate needs.

When everything was over, I thought, when does the good happen and the bad go away? Then I realized I couldn't think of anything bad. That didn't really have an effect on me until later. My biggest deal was getting my body back in order so I could go home. Get the breathing under control, clear vision, balancing when I stood up, etc. As we got up to leave it occured to me that I couldn't think of what the old me was like. The feeling was like I was split into two wholes and I didn't know what the other guy, the "old Kev", was up to. I kept thinking I'd look over into the doctor's office where I had my consultation and I'd see me sitting there. I was convinced I was a separate, different person.

That's when the sadness set in. No matter how hard I tried to think of the old me, I couldn't conjure a picture of me at all. I knew there were some things which were bad in my life, but now they didn't seem important. I started crying when I got to the car. It wasn't any event or whatever making me feel sad. It was just a detachment loss I was feeling for the guy I left in the office. It was like I had a twin who I knew everything about except what he was thinking. Like letting go of a friend who just became too toxic in your life. You really enjoyed their company for a while but you had to let them go for your own health. Two days later and I can't think of anything that got me down before.

I knew one thing which set off a perpetual sadness in me. An ex who would infuriate me to think of before. Thoughts of her would make me feel bad about myself. And, I'm telling myself these things because they're not memories I feel anything about anymore. Now, the thought of her is just a blank memory of someone I knew. There was something bad about it that just got erased.

Another thing I remembered was an event which, I think, caused me some PTSD. I wasn't able to pinpoint it before. It's all making sense now. That was a very traumatic event. The guy who went through it with me has since died. His ex-wife has moved on. There's nothing about that event to remind me anymore, but it still haunts me. I'm thinking it will take a couple of more treatments to eliminate that. It's a faded memory since the first treatment, but it's still there as something very strong.

This event must have been more traumatic than I imagined before. Now that my mind is clearing out the mess, I can see some things in my life that showed that occassion was when the switch got flipped. I see some writings stopped at about that point in 2009. Also, my photography stopped, my music buying stopped, my DVD collection kind of ends in 2009, my work on my car stopped too. I always thought that the surgeries I went through in 2008 were the starting point of my downhill slide, but now I see this event with my friend was it. At least it's out there and I can deal with it on its own now.

AFK

I know...I'm supposed to be writing something daily or, at least, fairly frequently. I was fired up to start my blog and write on it on a frequent basis. My original plan was to follow the advice of some creative writing things I read. One of those items was to not write about anything negative or in a negative way.

 That pretty much ruled out writing for me for the past few months. I can't escape the negative thoughts and what I want to put down "on paper" is something along the lines of a rant. So, I took a break and decided to get started when my head cleared. It hasn't cleared, but I've gotten one burden off my shoulders that I voluntarily put there. It pained me so to let it go. As much good as there was, it wasn't enough to outweigh the bad.

 Here we are with something positive.
I hereby proclaim this to be the most beautiful day of the year. True, it's no bright summer day. The impending rain is on the horizon. I walked through the neighborhood this evening and was amazed at the sheer beauty of the world. There is no forest here, just a smattering of trees. For this part of the country, I'm sure there are days to come when the leaves will be more colorful. Our trees have begun a major turn towards oranges and reds. The beauty of it all is the green behind the canopy of orange, yellow, and red hues.

 I stared up at a lofty elm for so long it had caused me to veer across the road and lose my path. The colored leaves had draped their hues across the green in such a soft way. To view the depth of this blanket and its perfect coloration, you would think it was a painting. And I thought, well, it is a painting by God himself. I saw into that tree and found what He put there for me. A beautiful scene for me to witness His magnificence. I'm truly blessed to see this for more than just a tree. For someone who doesn't see it and only sees a tree and its loss of chlorophyll, I hope you find solace in something that is dear to you.

 So, get out there and take a walk. Look into the colors and let your eyes lose focus to find that impressionist painting. It's there for you.

On old friends...

What do you say? Ten years ago any bastion of creativity left me in a fit of anger. All thoughts of inspiration died along with it. Nothing, no one, could bring anything back. I've strolled along without a point, a reason, a will. I follow what I think is right, ending up going the wrong way.

Sure, I've helped myself . Counting on others was another way. A new friendship sparks then dies just as quickly. To my surprise, all is not lost on sparking that creativity. I find an old friend has popped up and has brought back memories of days of summers long ago. Through our medium we talk and find our conversations pick up at some point near where we left off. One doesn't know the other chose a path that took them away from the area. The other doesn't know one has followed a path close to home.

In rekindling old friendships, one finds that there are too many similarities to the daily mass of noise which passes for conversation. Usually, the other end of the exchange is somewhat likened to a co-worker bragging about their golf game. Not so in this case. The voice speaking to you is receptive and friendly. Either through words displayed or through spoken tones, your friend is expressed with the subtle nuances and inflections you remember. Those are often lost in conversations these days.

No, the daily exchange of information from the odd person here or there clamoring for your attention spoils you of the essence of meaningful conversation. Then your friend shows up. You pass a few quips back and forth to get things rolling. Before you know it, you're embraced in the joy of your friends company. Their words tumble over you with freshness. You feel their company, though the distance is great.

That's where I am with my friend. My heart leaps to see them present. Not in a romantic way. There is so much more to it than that. So much joy there in knowing the person at the other end of this exchange is happy. Happy in life and happy to talk to me. It compells me to be happy. To forget ten years of a wrong road traveled. To breathe again.

Jesus just left Chicago

I have returned from the great white north. Though a day rarely goes by around here that someone isn't complaining about the weather in some way or about the length of our winter. It seems that we don't really have a spring anymore. The weather here turns from a frosty few days of bearable low temps to intense raging heat. Here it is, June, and we've already had a few days of blistering inferno heat. Well, not so for our friends up north. While I packed for a semi-warm trip with an occasional dip in the night air temps to require a jacket. I had no idea I needed to pack my winter gear. It got cold. On my return trip home, as soon as I crossed that Indiana-Illinois border, the weather was back to what it was before I left. Crazy.

It was a good time during the whole weekend. It wore on my patience a little, with it raining constantly. Finally, it broke loose with a downpour on the way back through Chicago. The drag race on Friday was okay, I guess. I've found that I really enjoy the sport of drag racing, but I just can't stand going to the races. Too many people acting like complete fools. At this drag race in Joliet, there were more people drinking than I had seen at any race in my lifetime. They were serving beer and hard liquor everywhere you looked on the grounds of the track. I left early. I didn't want to share the road with a bunch of drunks when the race let out. Funny, the "drunk test" I saw one vendor giving to a guy was "how many fingers am I holding up?" The staggering drunk man looked and lost balance several times as he thought about it. He gave the vendor another look like he was crazy and then he said "Well, FIVE!" Then he proceeded to talk about the five fingers and having to do the drunk test in the first place. The vendor told him he passed the test, he better shut up if he wanted the beer. So he did.

The car show in Madison, WI was a little ho-hum. Nothing really great to see. A few ideas I hadn't seen before. I'll have to tuck those away back in my mind for my imaginary car that never materializes. The rain kept a damper on things. I stayed as long as I could until the smell was in the air signaling the hard rain was about to come. As soon as I got back to my car and was on my way, lost through town, the rain started coming down hard. Did I say lost? Yes, I got lost by taking the wrong turn out of the Alliant Center. It was a nice little drive along the lake until I realized my folly. Then when I found my way, I saw how ridiculous it was that I missed the correct turn on my way out.

Anyway, back on the highway towards Milwaukee and down to Kenosha. I had been through here before for the same car show a few years ago. Seems when I was in Kenosha I chose to stay in the next exit down from the main town area, but I couldn't remember why. Then it dawned on me. That area is like the ghetto side of town or something. The next exit down only had the one hotel, but it was real nice. This was my most expensive hotel on the trip, so far. I figured it would be the nicer of the few. My previous stay was nice, I remember. But for the price I thought it would really be memorable. Nope. First try at my room was the first one next to the elevator. Traveller's tip, if you book through the cheapest possible way, i.e. hotels.com, etc, then they will usually give you the room(s) they don't usually sell. Leave all the "good" rooms to the full-rate paying guests. I didn't book online, I walked up and paid full, so no way was I going to get stuck with this room. I complained and they gave me the next crappiest room, the one at the far end of the hall next to the stairs. I didn't care, as long as I was away from the elevator. No wait! This room, in this non-smoking hotel, reeked of cigarrette smoke. It bothered me a little but I was too tired to worry about the smell. I did make a big stink about it, in a quiet manner, at the desk several times. I wanted to be sure they knew I wasn't the one who smoked it up. I wasn't going to get charged a $250 cleaning fee for someone else's smoke. All my quiet, mannerly complaing got me $30 knocked off the rate, so good deal. Still didn't like it, though.

Found out later on my bill they had me listed as someone else. Another Kevin Bryant, who DID book his room through hotels.com. I guess that's why I got the runaround? So, out on the road and back towards home. My planned early start was delayed just a bit. I got going around 8:00. I drove down through northern Illinois, through Highland Park, Glencoe, Evanston, Winnetka. I wanted to do the "Ferris Bueller" tour. A drive by all the places where the movie was filmed. Also, I checked out filming locations for Weird Science, Uncle Buck and Sixteen Candles. It was more of a John Hughes tour than a Ferris tour, I suppose. Cameron Frye's house is up for sale and I was hoping for maybe an open house, if I was so lucky. No dice. I drove by and checked it out anyway. Not much of a house for 2.3 million, but it's probably a lot nicer than it looks. There were lots of cool houses for sale in Highland Park, where Cameron's house is.

I went down to the beach wall shown in Ferris Bueller. It would've been real cool if it hadn't been raining. Probably a lot more crowded too. But, being a raining, misty morning, it was just a quiet overlook onto the beach. Actually, it was unbelievably quiet. Almost pastoral, if it hadn't been so close to a big city. The park nearby smelled of a certain sweetness which made the quiet seem all that much softer. The rest of the trip I hit all the places from the other movies. The high point, besides Cameron's house, was probably Uncle Buck's house. Or actually, his brother's house in the movie. It's a beautifully plain house. White siding and perfect lawn. Nothing spectacular, but just looked like it was very well kept. That was the last stop on the movie tour. Headed for home after Buck's house.

The first of many mindless ramblings about my not-so-interesting life.