On the fifth of this month, I had my fourth transcranial magnetic stimulation appointment. It was supposed to be by the end of March. Sadly, money doesn’t stretch, and I had to reschedule it, even though I sorely needed it. March was one of the worst months I had so far: I spent most of that month only sleeping every other day.
The day of the appointment came, and I was exhausted and in much pain. Fortunately, the therapy relieved that, and I left the centre feeling much better. Yet, not as good as in the other appointments. I assume this was because, as I wrote above, I was coming from one of the worst months.
The doctor tried something different this time: oxygen during the transcranial magnetic stimulation. Some people reported feeling less tired when doing oxygen during the therapy. It might be the placebo effect, but I’ve felt slightly less tired.
On that night, I slept hard! The pain made me spend the previous night awake, so I counted on a good night’s sleep. I ended up sleeping for around 14 hours, give or take. I felt some pain when I woke up, but nothing too problematic. I washed the dishes, washed and hung some clothes, swept the kitchen, the hallway and the living room, and even washed the kitchen floor (although I did this last one in a rush because the pain increased a lot). After that, I had to go to the couch and put a hot water bottle on my back because it was hurting like crazy. The pain eventually decreased.
The day after was complete crap. I woke up in a lot of pain and was forced to take a boiling-hot shower and do a few hot water bottles, but I couldn’t get much relief from that. Cooking dinner made me feel even more pain. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep that night.
On the next day, the 8th, the pain decreased a little, and I eventually slept for about 30 minutes in the morning and about 4 hours during the afternoon. However, I couldn’t cook because, even though the pain level had decreased, it was still high as hell.
Because I slept during the afternoon and was still feeling a high pain level, it took me a while to fall asleep at night. When I woke up, my body felt soared, almost as usual.
On Sunday, the 10th, we went to her parents. It was a slow but tiring day. I hit the bed almost after we got home. Not only my back was hurting a lot, but I was also feeling an insane amount of pain in my right arm and wrist. The pain made falling asleep hard, but I was eventually able to.
Because I had an appointment to renew my sick leave yesterday, I was forced to wake up at 10:30. Before that appointment, I had to wait in the waiting room, filled with incredibly uncomfortable chairs, so I just wanted to scream because of the pain by the time I returned home. I had to do hot water bottles to decrease the pain, but my body is still hurting as I type this.
I hope I feel better with the next therapy session.
photo from Unsplash
