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Lately any urge to write has dried up. I can bring myself to comment on posts, I suppose because that's reacting rather than constructing something from scratch. I abandoned a job application last week because it asked for an essay about myself. The thought of diving in as a reader/viewer puts me off too. I'm months behind on following WTNV, and dreading rather than anticipating the return of Orphan Black. In a minor victory, I forced myself to read Nalo Hopkinson's Skin Folk a couple of days ago. I don't know whether I could have if it hadn't turned out to be a short-story collection rather than a novel. Not that it wasn't good -- most of the stories were excellent ("Under Glass" didn't work for me), and I may eventually process them enough to write a review.
( gloomy personal stuff below cut )
I know, of course, that this is probably a combination of job-search depression and Andrew's health issues. Those of you in our RL social circles are probably aware he's been almost constantly amnesiac since last October, and if you aren't -- well, that's why you haven't seen much of us lately. Our GP referred him to a neurologist, who's ruled out stroke, brain tumour, seizures and Alzheimer's. Good to know, but leaves the cause nebulous. My own feeling is that the chaotic thoughts from his bipolar disorder have worsened, so that now they keep overwhelming his mind and causing it to reboot in an attempt to clear them, which doesn't work and just wipes the memory of everything that's happened since the previous reboot attempt. On a bad day this can happen every fifteen-twenty minutes. Each time it happens I have to calm him down and begin telling him over again who and where he is. Luckily, though he doesn't remember my name, he trusts me enough to accept what I say. Probably his subconscious recognizes me; most of his knowledge isn't lost, just misfiled, and talking begins to bring it to the surface -- the names of his trilobite specimens, local fannish history, comic book continuity -- until the pictures in his head overwhelm him again and he convulses and chokes for thirty seconds and then he wakes up and we start all over again. He convulses, even though the EEGs never show evidence of seizures. If he's not in bed or on the couch when it hits, he falls down. I can usually prevent this by day, but if he goes to the bathroom at night and I'm asleep, I wake up when I hear him hit the floor. It does his back problems no good either.
I've been trying to look up home-care resources for when/if I find work, but most of them seem to be geared to seniors. You can have someone come over a couple of times a week, for an hour, to bathe your ninety-year-old mother. There's probably some kind of adult day care, but I don't know if it would open before my morning commute, and it would probably confuse, bore, and terrify him in equal measures. He's been referred to a memory clinic, but the appointment's not till October; a lot of missing memories, I guess.
Every so often, he'll suddenly be normal, but I can't enjoy it because I know it won't last more than an hour. I do try to catch up with him while we can talk without my having to be on script.
I can keep going. I can keep going through a lot. But part of that is having something in my mind I can escape too, and right now my imagination is running dry.
( gloomy personal stuff below cut )
I know, of course, that this is probably a combination of job-search depression and Andrew's health issues. Those of you in our RL social circles are probably aware he's been almost constantly amnesiac since last October, and if you aren't -- well, that's why you haven't seen much of us lately. Our GP referred him to a neurologist, who's ruled out stroke, brain tumour, seizures and Alzheimer's. Good to know, but leaves the cause nebulous. My own feeling is that the chaotic thoughts from his bipolar disorder have worsened, so that now they keep overwhelming his mind and causing it to reboot in an attempt to clear them, which doesn't work and just wipes the memory of everything that's happened since the previous reboot attempt. On a bad day this can happen every fifteen-twenty minutes. Each time it happens I have to calm him down and begin telling him over again who and where he is. Luckily, though he doesn't remember my name, he trusts me enough to accept what I say. Probably his subconscious recognizes me; most of his knowledge isn't lost, just misfiled, and talking begins to bring it to the surface -- the names of his trilobite specimens, local fannish history, comic book continuity -- until the pictures in his head overwhelm him again and he convulses and chokes for thirty seconds and then he wakes up and we start all over again. He convulses, even though the EEGs never show evidence of seizures. If he's not in bed or on the couch when it hits, he falls down. I can usually prevent this by day, but if he goes to the bathroom at night and I'm asleep, I wake up when I hear him hit the floor. It does his back problems no good either.
I've been trying to look up home-care resources for when/if I find work, but most of them seem to be geared to seniors. You can have someone come over a couple of times a week, for an hour, to bathe your ninety-year-old mother. There's probably some kind of adult day care, but I don't know if it would open before my morning commute, and it would probably confuse, bore, and terrify him in equal measures. He's been referred to a memory clinic, but the appointment's not till October; a lot of missing memories, I guess.
Every so often, he'll suddenly be normal, but I can't enjoy it because I know it won't last more than an hour. I do try to catch up with him while we can talk without my having to be on script.
I can keep going. I can keep going through a lot. But part of that is having something in my mind I can escape too, and right now my imagination is running dry.
