Thursday, October 01, 2009

The Drugs Don't Work

I’m angry. Hacked-off. Galled. I’m banging my fist on the desk, making pens and paperclips jump with terror. And why? I’ll tell you why. Because, according to a clever man with a stethoscope who sent me off like a milk carton on Tesco’s conveyor belt into a funny looking white machine that bleeps, I have epilepsy. I therefore take tablets for epilepsy. I therefore try to resign myself to a life with epilepsy. And yet, despite this diagnosis, (based solely upon the fact that I get deja-vu with my ‘funny turns’) the fucking tablets aren’t doing their job anymore, and I’m not even convinced I actually have epilepsy. Yes, Richard Ashcroft, the drugs really don’t work, and at present they do just make it bloody worse.
      
So what’s a girl to do? Since upping my dose, my turns have, in fact, increased. Apparently they have to get worse before they get better, so I have been waiting for that shiny day when the ‘better’ bit begins. But in the last week I’ve been back to having them every day, between 3 and 20 times a day, and now, it seems, I’m getting the ‘director’s cut’ versions as well – longer, scarier, consecutive. Last night I had my first ‘mega’ one for about eight months and I remembered how scary and exhausting it can be.
      
Now I feel cheated. After all, despite the many downsides of temporal lobe epilepsy, the upside is surely the far-out mystical experiences, no? I mean it’s one of the most talked about side effects. And I’m exactly the type – arty farty, sensitive with religious-obsessive tendencies, from an unstable background and prone to strange and ‘mystical’ experiences. I’ve a catalogue of them that would look good on any potential crackpot or guru’s CV. So where the hell are they? Where’s my compensation? Where’s my communion with God, my ascent into angelic realms, my vision of humanity as never seen before? Where are the flashes of genius? Come on… Socrates, St Teresa, Dostoyevsky, Laurie Lee, Neil Young, Ian Curtis… they were all at it. Then, despite it all, I’d at least get in some more good writing material. But no. When it happens I just feel like someone’s let off a hundred thousand tiny bombs at the same time inside my brain and then I need to lie down.
     
Patience is a virtue, allegedly, so I’ll just have to wait and see. La, la, bloody la. So if you see my eyes rolling ever so slightly into the back of my head whilst we’re chatting over tea, just ignore it, will you? Or if I call you at midnight telling you I can’t feel the top of my head anymore and my legs have gone funny, please don’t click to answerphone.
      
Grumpiness is another after-effect. So tonight, instead of tying myself to my Imac in the hope of literary inspiration, I’ll be eating my dinner watching back-to-back Peep Show. That’s the only kind of communion I can handle right now - Mark Corrigan in a bad jumper, a wealth of pitiful human suffering, and a piece of battered haddock from the Co-op. Oh, let the angelic chorus begin.

7 comments:

bereweber said...

my beloved clare
you & i should start a broken-hearth/broken-health club, i do understand very well your frustration with health and not being able to get response from medication and stupid "modern" medicine... i suffer a couple of conditions that cripple my life, migraines (rather often, and they leave me with sort of a similar hang-over as you have after your attacks, i feel completely drained emotionally and physically and i feel like there's no point living if it's with this fucking pain in the head and the endless nausea), and to add to the misery, the days i have NO migraines, i do suffer from IBS (irritable bowel syndrome, this is not pretty and most days i feel shitty), asthma!! & allergies... and even uterine fibroid, the past 3 or 4 years i feel miserable most of the time, about 8 hours per week, i am sort of normal, but i feel this daily struggle is what makes us value life more than "normal" people do, we know, 'cause we don't have it, how great is to feel great... so don't give up dear clare, and YES keep on writing your rage and fury here, remember we do read and sharing the pain somehow makes things easier...

clare, also, try some other remedies aside "modern" medicine, my mother is studying Homeopathics and i am starting to trust this more than modern medicine... really! give it a try to Homeopathics, and/or Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal medicines... these are medicines that will help you without the awful side effects of pills, and also they might bring some peace for you

love you clare!! wish i could hug you from here and tell you, dear lady, it will be OK one day

i am on the process of moving and sadly my new place seems to be infested with bugs, darn it! yet another bad decision to face, huh?

but over all, we 1st need health, so my best wishes for you & your recovery

love from San Diego!!

oh and i do know & love that song by The Verve

PAUL WADY said...

And you wonder why I talk to you, and even want to visit you?

Why oh why could it possibly be,
I get interest from Paul Wady?

Does he like my firm round legs,
and lovely long boobs?

Or am I a bit the wrong way around...Or is he?
Paul Wady?

If ever anyone needed mates, it's you. You have a chronic shortage of equals. You always were far too cool for Buddhafield. Too much integrity and too brainy. No surprise the woman ends up like this. The interesting ones always do.

For this is the point m'dear - ALL THIS STUFF IS THE INTERESTING THING. This disappointment of the absence of Angels in Trees, well, this is what your genius looks like. Such frank exposure. Great.

Now for **** sake get back to making music. I got to hear more. MORE!!!

Firing neurons, wake up in warm blankets covered in sweat and appreciate how much the people around you love you. X

(Hope that wasnt too nutty!)

Clare said...

Of course it was nutty, Paul, and thankyou for it x x

Music has gone to bed under my sofa and I'm wondering when it shall reappear. I cannot seem to breathe life into more than one creative project at a time, and writing is my priority right now. And yes, I agree, 'my disappointment of the absence of Angels In Trees' IS the interesting bit, and that is what I am trying to write about. A book, a book, a book, I won't be satisfied until I've written my book!

Paul Wady, you are a one off xx

Marta said...

Clare, when I was 16, I was diagnosed epilepsy. I never had an attack, I just fainted and cried and was sleepy, but it was crap anyway. For some years I ate lots of white man medicine pills (Tegretol), and either it really worked, or luckily my epilepsy was not very bad, because when I was 24 I could stop taking them and the epilepsy disappeared.
So there is hope, just hold on!!!

Clare said...

Ah yes, I'm on Tegretol. That's what I hope as well - I don't think my epilepsy is particularly bad either, in comparison to others I know who have it, and hope over time it'll calm itself down...

Hope you're well, Marta

Marta said...

I am (thanks!), and you will!
And if you don´t get rid of your epilepsy, remember that one day you will be the charming old lady in the tiniest Café in the islands, sipping tea and talking enigmatically about her fatal disease...

chall gray said...

Sending you love.

C