I’m feeling a level of discomfort I’ve never felt before. Purely mental. Imagine your consciousness, every memory you’ve ever had melting away as you sat back and watched it all happen. Just sitting there watching your version of reality drip away. I’m a lot worried, even more frightened.

Where did you go Marty

… since the end of radiation treatments. The following aren’t complaints. They’re just the very real physical and emotional issues either directly or indirectly brought on from being nuked. No particular order either. They are all quite common to some degree. At some point during my day they are all experienced. Sometimes they’re just an inconvenience, sometimes they just shatter me on the inside.
* Mental withdrawal. I often just want to be somewhere else. Almost anywhere would be acceptable. I’ve sometimes even left my furry friend behind as I find it difficult to be responsible for anything but myself. Sometimes I simply don’t care about much.
* Emotional meltdowns. Duration and severity is a toss of the dice. The long and nasty ones nearly take me over the edge. An immensely overwhelming feeling of despair.
* Never, and I mean never be more than just a few minutes from a restroom or at least a private spot in the woods. A rather disgusting thing to write much less read but it’s reality.
* Brain Fog. The inability to concentrate is pretty bad. More often than not I get so confused I don’t know (or forget) what I’m confused about. It’s like seeing a train coming. Do I move because I know it’s going to hurt or do I fail to realize it’s a damn train coming at me. I find myself sitting down, pulling over etc. just to regroup. I know I miss things, I just don’t know what they were. It’s difficult to explain but I know the feeling that I’m missing something all too well.
* Fatigue Part 1
I wear myself out mentally just trying to remember what not to forget.
* Fatigue Part 2
I often become so physically exhausted just getting up to brush my teeth and into bed I pass on. Wherever I happen to be at that moment is where I sleep for the night.
* Over sleeping. Well let’s see. 2 or 3 half hour naps during the day. 10 to 12 hours at night. I’ve seen too much of the inside of my eyelids.
* My search for compassionate thoughts, views and feelings of empathy, have never been greater. I find myself going to great lengths just to see a spark. A small flame would be excellent to gaze at or ponder but I’m more than satisfied with just a brief, momentary spark. When found, I find myself nearly overwhelmed in joy. Sadly it’s always temporary but I still try very hard to keep it lit. Then poof!

I had a shindig this past Saturday. Everyone that meant everything to me showed up. Right now I’m remembering that I think and hope everyone had a nice time but I don’t know as I don’t remember much if any of the details. The thoughts just can’t be recalled and it bothers me greatly! It meant so much to me to see all those that came.
Sunday was a lot of mental turbulence. Again I don’t remember many of the details but I know it was a day I care not to relive.
Today I got up at an earlier time than I normally do and had no alarm set. Made the coffee, checked the emails and here I sit 4 or 5 hours later in a stupor. No thoughts, no plans, I know I have a lot of work to do but I have no idea on how to accomplish it all. I feel like I just don’t care. I’ve no sorrow, compassion or anything! I’d ponder but my mind is a blank slate.
Do I feel that this is related to the radiation? Absolutely!
I do not like this feeling of being separated from everything including myself.

Lasting Side Effects

… of being Nuked. Going to the restroom hasn’t changed much. The immediate urgency and the lack of anything happening (#1 or 2) is troublesome. And depending on where I am at the time can be great cause for worry. So far no mistakes but close calls have been many. It’s impossible to know or feel if it’s just gas or the real thing. Often both.
Fatigue is starting to lessen but not by a whole lot. Naps are still required often but length needed has improved. For a number I’ll say by 15 to 20%. I’ll take what I can get and I’ll like it!
The desire for sex is gone! Too bad as I really enjoyed it.
And saving the worst for last is Brain Fog, yea, even worse than the last issue mentioned. It was the last things I noticed as far as a side effect and at first I attributed it to my stress and anxiety levels along with some of the new pills I’ve been popping. I first noticed the fog always being there vs a part time occurrence about 3/4’s the way through my treatments which there were 45 in total. About the time the treatments were done is when it appeared to be the worst and improvement has yet to be felt/thought. I’m not only forgetting dates, I’m forgetting how to calculate some very simple functions. As an example: last night I tried setting my alarm and for the life of me I could not find the icon on my phone to do it. Once found, it took me much longer to complete the task. Remembering phone calls, customers names, past events have all become hit or miss with far more misses. They say that will go away after time. I’m not too patient but I’ll be waiting. It’ll be nice forgetting how much and how often I used to forget. Kind of funny really as 6 years ago I posted this. “Forgetting.” And I remember having the thoughts that made me post it then.
meh, forget it!

This is something I’ll be delving into. And if I know myself very well, it will be something I’ll be visiting again often, so be prepared for many edits/updates.

I often term it as pondering. Without further research I think it’s very similar if not the same. It’s something I do often but never enough. Call it conscious daydreaming with a purpose.

To study later: If awareness of the environment . . . is the criterion of consciousness, then even the protozoans are conscious. If awareness of awareness is required, then it is doubtful whether the great apes and human infants are conscious.

To study later: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_event

I’ve known him since the evening before my first treatment. I know he’s a single use plastic guy which I don’t much care for but he was the only thing capable of carrying such a large amount of water (1 liter) that would fit in my vans cupholder. Every evening he’d get refilled, put in the fridge for the next mornings 27.6 mile ride to the Borg. By the time we arrived he’d be empty again and my bladder would be full and ready for assimilation. He and I have been thru a lot of shit together.
Now this may sound odd but I’d hate to just pitch my little plastic pal.