Infusion Day #10

I've decided to begin a blog tonight as a way for me to keep up with things. Also because I love to write. I find myself getting the blues for a few days following my infusions and I don't know why. Depression is not one of the listed side effects of Tysabri and the few people I've talked to who are on it don't get this way. So probably it's unrelated, or I'm just being dramatic and whiney. Either way, I just want to ramble and this way nobody has to litsen!

I went to Presby today for my 10th Tysabri infusion and it went fine. I take the best naps in the oncology center; just like I would have at school if I had been allowed. They are like school-quality naps. There's lots of white noise, machines beeping, people shuffling around, they play a short part of "rock a bye baby" on the speakers whenever a baby is born, it's all very soothing. Except for the damn TV! They have it on soap operas the entire time, most people seem to watch them. I always take a chair in the corner right behind the TV, put on my sleep mask, set up my mp3 and get ready for a good nap. I'm a pro.
I sleep very well in there because the atmosphere is similar to sitting in class, but better because it's not school. I love the sounds of the oncology center (God help me I know I'm a total sick-o) It all makes for great nap atmosphere, or "napmosphere"!
I actually already wrote about 400 words on the next topic but briefly lost my Internet connection and thus all so much poetry disappeared into the black hole of failed Internet. But am I mad? Nope. Like everything else I accept that there was a reason for this shitty "coincidence" and I may never understand it. So what do I do?
Start over.
As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by the Tech-Gods, there are two ways I can go into a state of complete peace; both are spontaneous and done "intuitively."
The first is referred to as the "teacher writing on the page phenomenon". My sister is the only other person I know of who gets it. Remember sitting in class during a test? The room is quiet, the only sounds are student's pencils on paper, the occasional cough, maybe the fan of the overhead projector, you know the usual white noise of a classroom. Everyone is quietly working. You raise your hand for the teacher to come to your desk and help you with one of the problems, she comes and stands next to you leaning over so you can whisper back and forth. At some point she scratches something on your test booklet or notebook paper to help you better understand whatever it is, and all these little sounds in the stillness of the room conspire to put me in an absolute trance; thus The Teacher Writing on the Page Phenomenon. At that point it is all I can do to stay awake! It's all I can do to even pay attention to what the Hell the teacher is so graciously explaining to me. How many times would I have made a deal with the Devil to just be able to fall asleep? If any sleeping pill could do that to me I wouldn't be an insomniac. Since it always happened during test time I never got to simply crash in these fleeting moments; I was a poor student but never a rude one.
The second spontanious coma-like state is The Good Stare. I imagine many more people than just my sister and I go into this one, my Dad too for starters. Although I can will myself into this state, like so many things in life it's best enjoyed when it unfolds naturally. It can be anytime, anywhere; sitting behind the wheel at a red light, hanging out with a group of friends, with family at the dinner table, whatever. All of a sudden I get the deer caught in the headlights look, eyes like saucers and I stay still as a statue. I hear evrything around me and see whatever is right in front of me, but my eyes are focused on some arbitrary point far off, and the words just scroll accross my mind meaningless. I become the Observer. After studying on how to meditate and finding that state ever ellusive, it dawned on me one day that I've been meditating all my life! I just never thought about it, and isn't that the whole point to meditation, to not think? I become aware of my surroundings with all my senses, but on a higher level of consciousness. It is sheer bliss. Somebody always ends up repeating my name and God help me waiving their hand in front of my face. Surely if they knew how peaceful it feels they'd shut the Hell up. Surely. As a kid I spent countless hours in either of these states when I was supposed to be learning. Fourth grade was particularly horrid and I never did memorize all the multiplication tables but hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do right?
For now that's all for The World According To Dusti. I'm ready to fall into a self induced coma now that I will call sleep.
Goodnight.