Day 9: Monday, day after the Super Bowl for those of you who are sportsball fans, was the 9th treatment of 36. I’m a quarter of the way there! For my former co-workers at DEG – congratulations!

This weekend served as a great learning experience as it pertains to how the treatment may be affecting me. Over the weekend, I didn’t experience any headaches or latent effects from TMS treatment like surface area pain.

The past few days have shown me a pattern to my moods. My moods have often been amorphous and indistinct. A mellow humdrum that doesn’t reflect happiness or sadness. Now, it appears my mood operates on a sine wave with the high part of the curve in the morning and the low part in the evening. I start the day strong, positive, light, and then throughout the day, my mood falls into deep, prominent darkness.

I’ve been wondering if this pattern indicates that something in my brain is changing. I have no way of knowing at this time.

Today’s Anthem: Mother Mother – It’s Alright  (Watch the video. It’s worth it.)

Today’s Book: Neil Gaiman – Trigger Warning

Pain: How badly did the treatment hurt? Did I have headaches afterward? Other issues?

2/5 – Mild intensity pain during treatment

There was no pain once the treatment stopped and I went the entire evening without experiencing headaches or surface pain. I’ve done a good job of pairing up pre-medication with Advil about an hour before treatment and distracting myself with a good book.

Sleep: How’d I sleep? How many hours? Quality?

3/5 – Sleep remains steadily unimproved.

Appetite: How’d I feel about eating? What did I eat?

2/5 – I suffered a sour stomach. The thought of food was disgusting.

Physical Activity: What did I feel capable of doing? What did I ultimately do? How did I feel afterward?

2/5 – I felt a little lethargic. I wasn’t drained or fatigued but I was definitely underwhelmingly lazy.

Motivation: How much proactive motivation did I have? What motivated me? What were my goals? Did I hit them?

3/5 – Motivation was okay. I managed to accomplish the tasks I set out to do throughout the day.

Baseline Mood: What am I feeling as a baseline.

AM: 4/5 – I started the day very positive and carried it with me until around 3:30pm when it slowly started to drift downwards.

PM: 2/5 – By the time I went to bed, I had exhausted almost all positive energies and contributed to it further by losing at video games with my friends.

Happenings: What’s happened today that may impact my baseline?

I watched a movie with my best friend. We had a good discussion. There was Chinese food involved. Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do…

I lost multiple games in a row playing competitive Counter-Strike, Rocket League, etc throughout the evening with my gamer buddies.

Reactions: What were my reactions to the happenings?

Excitement
Happiness
Disappointment
Anger
Frustration

Learnings: What did I learn, observe, etc.?

Evenings suck. For now. Iowa caucuses are weird. Dog slime is worse than human slime. Bats are just Rat Angels. Kitty hugs are the best when you’re sad.

Day 8: Today was the least painful treatment of all of them so far. Perhaps there’s some truth to the ‘getting used to it’ the doctor mentioned. The treatment was tolerated well and I was able to read without stopping between pulses. I’d been pausing conversation or reading whenever the pulses were firing.

The technician asked me if I was feeling any different and as a result, I spiraled out today. Despite logical knowledge that this should have no real visible impact on me until 3 or 4 weeks into the process, I wanted to be able to answer yes and when I couldn’t it dropped me down pretty hard.

That’s been a noticeable theme throughout the treatment. I’ve been starting the day pretty elevated in mood and ending it in darkness. I wonder if the boost it might be giving me now wears off or if I’m just too tired at night to pretend I’m okay – even to myself.

Pain: How badly did the treatment hurt? Did I have headaches afterward? Other issues?

2/5 – Mild intensity pain during treatment

There was no pain once the treatment stopped and I went the entire evening without experiencing a headache or surface site pain.

Sleep: How’d I sleep? How many hours? Quality?

3/5 – Sleep was okay. The biggest change to sleep since this process began is the ability to fall asleep almost instantly. This is wonderful since I have such a busy mind.

Appetite: How’d I feel about eating? What did I eat?

4/5 – Eat all the things!

Physical Activity: What did I feel capable of doing? What did I ultimately do? How did I feel afterward?

2/5 – I wish I had leveraged part of my workday to go for a walk or some other activity. By the time that I ended my day, I no longer wanted to do anything and so I didn’t.

Motivation: How much proactive motivation did I have? What motivated me? What were my goals? Did I hit them?

2/5 – Motivation was still very low. Even during the morning.

Baseline Mood: What am I feeling as a baseline.

3 to 1/5 – I started the day in relatively good spirits and spiraled into disgusting darkness full of sadness and self-pity.

Happenings: What’s happened today that may impact my baseline?

I don’t recall any events that really triggered any of my thoughts or feelings. It was a fairly uneventful day.

Reactions: What were my reactions to the happenings?

Depression

Learnings: What did I learn, observe, etc.?

I learned that Friday held much and yet nothing. There’s more to life than the contents of these days.