My First Bilateral ECT

Today was my first bilateral ECT, bilateral meaning one electrode is placed on each temple, rather than both on the one side. The ritual was the same one I've been doing for the last three weeks with the trial - I was having MST by the way - I arrived at the hospital and waited for about 20 minutes, then one of the researchers came to take us up stairs, R went in first and I waited again. About 15 minutes later I went in and got hooked up to all the monitoring equipment, in went the unusually painful cannula and then something different happened, the doctor (B) wet both of my temples, it was a little disconcerting but before I could think about it too much I was asleep. I woke with a headache, sore jaw and no idea what day of the week it was. I haven't noticed any confusion since then, I don't know if the memory loss builds up as you have more treatments or if the first one is a pretty good indicator of what to expect. I've been more tired today than I was most days with the MST, I think I had a bit more anesthetic though as it was quite a while later when I woke properly.

My doctor (G) came to see me this evening and he had some interesting news, my genetic medication test finally came back. I think I wrote about it but I'll refresh you; it's a test to see how I metabolise drugs, whether I hyper metabolise, don't at all or if I'm normal. There are several categories the drugs fall into, I metabolise all but one normally, the other category I can't metabolise and lucky me - Cymbalta is in that. G said that explains why I'm having side effects even at a very low dose and that he'd like to take me off it and start me on another one as soon as possible but he's not sure if I'm still part of the ECT/MST trial even though I'm un-blinded, if I'm still part of the trial he can't make any drug changes until it's over, that would suck because then I'll probably need to be in here longer while he builds me up to a treatment dose of the new drug. I'm definitely not ready to go home now, but I'd hope that after six ECT treatments (and nine MST) I will be so I really hope I can start the new drug soon.

I've been given permission to stay out a little later on Sunday so I can go to church but I'm not sure if I will. Everything is such a huge effort, I have no ability to concentrate (you wouldn't believe how long writing this has taken and how many interruptions there have been) and I'm just not sure if I want to go, it was G's idea, not mine but I feel like I should go. Increasingly I'm thinking that I'm really not much of a Christian at all and it only bothers me when I think of death, sure that's a lot, but I should be more concerned about my faith than just my eternal destination.