HOLY UPDATE, BATMAN!

OK, let's see if I can get this entry typed & posted without accidentally deleting it like I did last night...

A lot has transpired since my last entry. I'll try to give you the highlights. (Yeah, I say "you" like anybody's actually reading this stupid thing. :) )

About the new job I referred to in my last post--It never happened. A few days after I quit my part-time job (and after they hired someone to replace me), the temp-to-perm people called me and said, "Sorry, we thought we had a job for you, but now it turns out we don't." So I got screwed.

But now I'm doing a long-term temp position at a major university. I'm subbing for an admin who's going on maternity leave. When I started the job, everyone was under the impression that the pregnant woman was going to have labor induced in 2 weeks and that she'd be taking a 4-week leave. Well, a month has passed and she's still pregnant (or at least she was as of 1:30 yesterday afternoon). And she's also informed me that she's taking a NINE week leave, not four. So I could have this job for a while. Cool!

Now to what you really want to hear about: the GAD stuff. Sometime around the end of September my symptoms started to return. When the anxiety returned I figured it had something to do with me getting screwed out of a job. But then when the depression returned I realized it wasn't a coincidence. So I upped my Lamictal dosage to 50 mgs. Virtually no symptoms since.

10/8: Had an appointment with my doctor. This is so cool--he wants to do a case study on me based on the way I've responded to the Lamictal. Not only that, but he plans to offer Lamictal to all the patients in the riluzole study who want to go off it. But wait--it gets better! He's doing a presentation to a bunch of med students and he wants me to participate. How cool is that?!?! I always knew I was a freak of nature, but who knew that being a freak could advance the study of medicine? :)

11/4 (today): The big presentation is today. I'm up early typing this entry. In another hour or so I'll start getting ready & head out there.

I hope that my participation has an impact on the students. Ever since my doc invited me to do this I've been thinking about what I want to say. I'm really looking forward to it.

Gotta cut this short now, but I'll post an update on how the presentation went sometime later. (And hopefully it won't take me a month to do it!)
- posted by Pat @ 8:48 AM