RSS - PostsI am on post #100, but my mind really has nothing to say. And I can’t seem to fall asleep even with 3mg of clonazepam in my system. Using the technique I learned from the journaling book, maybe I will just ramble on about something I’ve been thinking about but have been hesitant to just say it.
The other day, Dr. A compared to my having ECT to a bone marrow transplant. If one chooses not to have such transplant, he or she has given herself absolutely no chance of living. She said bluntly that had I chosen not to have ECT, the survival rate would’ve been the same as refusing that transplant: 0%. I would instead be buying a funeral, so she puts it.
So many people seem to talk about the dangers of ECT and recant all the horror stories. They are justified in telling those stories and their insights are very important in making this procedure better. However, many opposition (and proponents’) voices leave out the very fact that the odds of survival by having this procedure are statistically insurmountably higher than had one chosen not to do so. This was especially the case with me. I had guaranteed to my doctor that I would not be alive by early 2009. It was neither a threat or a cry for help. Rather, I state it as if I was reading a calendar date out of a planner. People talk about how they wish or want to die; by this point, it wasn’t even a wish. I was just going to get it done like a article on a deadline. I did make the decision to proceed with the ECT planning almost immediately. I had very little time to weigh the pros and cons of ECT but read a lot of science journal articles, etc. (I still don’t really get how some people spend months to years in trying to make this decision; of course, this isn’t something to take lightly, but when it’s a matter of life-or-death, doesn’t one feel like expediting on making that call?). Regardless of how my situation will turn out months from now, it’s obvious that ECT prolonged my life. Without electroconvulsive therapy, there would have never been this 100th entry to a journal that chronicled this moment in time. And this journal wouldn’t have existed because I probably would’ve been buried somewhere.
Another thing: ECT is not a cure. It’s a treatment, like a surgery. And surgeries have complications that go horribly wrong and severely affect that patient’s life. And sometimes, surgeries don’t go as expected and fail to meet the expectations. Complications happen. Some hail ECT like some miracle, but it’s not. It’s a medical procedure with its own set of caveats. And how you take care of yourself post-surgery really, really matters, including this one.
Okay, that’s my rant for this one-hundredth post. Seems like topics I’d like to explore later but I just needed to vent for a moment.
