Me with King, Mike’s Dog

August 4, 2023: Today I went down to Mayo Clinic with my dad for a meeting with Dr. Marsh, who is a neurosurgeon who did some surgeries on my spine back in 2020. He knows my cancer case very well. He wanted to take a look at my shunt to see how it’s working. He looked at all the X-rays and MRIs and CTs and he saw that everything looked good. He decided to have his nurse Kathy, who’s a shunt expert, check my shunt valve. She found out that the setting was where it was supposed to be, at setting four. He decided to open it up a little more, to setting 2. That will lower the pressure in my brain and could allow the ventricles to shrink back to their normal size. More importantly, it could also possibly have an effect on my memory and mood. It could possibly help me to have a better memory and to think better, and improve my mood. It might also produce some headaches or dizziness initially, but if so that should disappear as my brain adjusts to the lower pressure. He wants to see me in two weeks to have a new CT scan done to check the ventricles. Then, after that we had to go to another appointment on the 11th floor, which we had a hard time finding because in the Gonda building the elevator skips from floor 10 to floor 12. But we figured it out.

I was sleepy and depressed this morning, so I had Papa drive while I dozed. On the way back from Mayo we stopped and had a Subway, and then I took over driving again. I told Hannah that me driving was kind of a symbol of me “choosing life.” Then we got back and I hung out at my aunt Jodi’s yard sale for a few hours, and had a great talk with this guy Mike, who is a distant relative of mine. I also had a decent moment with his dog, King, which I have in the photo. I’ve also sent him the photo and he’s already posted it on Facebook. Mike asked me how I was doing, and I answered honestly, and he deeply appreciated that, and even thanked me for that later. I also sent a lot of very detailed messages to Hannah and Liam about me struggling with depression a lot. Part of me was afraid that me trauma dumping on them would push them away, but I don’t think it will. They are good friends and are being very supportive.

Also, when things go bad, I always say that God must hate me. But my dad says that I can’t do anything about God hating me, but I can do something about me hating myself, which I know is kind of true, I just don’t know how to fix it. And then at the end of the night I actually went over to my dad’s house again to have my medication-dinner meal, which I did in perfect time to have my medication at 6:36pm, the exact same time I’d taken my morning meds. The medication-meal was a chicken salad with a small piece of avocado that we added only because it was a chicken with slightly under the required fat.