The time since my last treatment has been eventful! There’s a lot of good stuff, and I’ll try to hit each thing one at a time.
First, I’ve started recording a short TikTok after each session as a way to capture my thoughts right away. Here’s the first one. And yes, it looks like something a 54-year-old would make. I’m going to try to figure out things like captions to make it more accessible and less dude-talking-at-a-camera-y.
The treatment itself was almost boring. I stayed at full power and Ron just moved the device just a little further down on my forehead. It hurt a little between my eyebrows for the first couple of pulses. If you’ve ever had one of those achy headaches, that’s what it felt like. After a couple of trains, though, that faded and I basically texted my spouse and talked to Ron while I relaxed. He did, though, give me the “prizes” I get for being a part of this program!
I get 6 free counseling sessions, 6 free therapeutic massages, and this watch!
That watch is pretty nice, and at Ron’s recommendation, I used it to track my sleep last night. What I didn’t realize was that it also pulled in the data from my Apple Watch in the Health app and, well, it’s making a difference!
But I’m covering this sequentially, so I’ll save that for after I talk about hand dryers and roller derby.
Yesterday I went to a coworking space at a brewery. When I went to the bathroom I did my thing, washed my hands, dried them, and left. As my hands were drying, I realized I was using one of those “blade” hand dryers. Those were a thing I’ve compulsively avoided, or if I used them it made me very twitchy. In the dining facilities in Kabul, we were required at every meal to wash our hands and dry them using one of those dryers. Ever since then using them has been a problem for me. This time, no twitchiness, no problems!
Then there was derby. Last night, I had my weekly scrimmage practice with Ohio Roller Derby. I got a little when — and this is something only roller derby referees will probably understand — I chased the wrong Jammer, twice, in the first half so I couldn’t even blame it on changing colors! I also made a couple fundamental mistakes that someone with 10 years’ experience shouldn’t make. I started wondering if something in my brain was scrambled, not from any real information that it could even happen, but just because magnets on your brain make you wonder. Then someone pointed out to me that: I hadn’t been to practice in 3 weeks, the track had been rearranged which threw me off a little, and I’d had a pretty eventful 3 weeks with a wedding, family and starting eTMS! Somewhere in the middle of practice I realized that I was reacting differently to unexpected things. Instead of a brief sense of panic, I basically just continued on.
I was celebrating all that, but still skeptical and wondering if there wasn’t some kind of placebo effect happening. Isn’t it wild how much we can talk ourselves out of good things? But this morning, I checked the sleep app for my new watch, and I was surprised to discover it had pulled in my previous sleep data, and I got another surprise, too. You can flip through the slides below to see. I describe it below, but flipping through the slides will give you an idea of what I experienced.
The app gives you an overall sleep score on a 100-point scale based on duration, depth, and how interrupted it was. My scores over the last week:
- June 10th: 71
- June 11th: 34
- June 12th: 20
- June 13th: 42
- June 14th: 43
- June 15th: 75
- Last night: 71
And I should point out that last night was a derby night, so I didn’t get to bed until after midnight and needed to wind down. Usually those are my worst nights of sleep!
This is the first real difference I’ve seen in this treatment, and I’m hoping this improvement continues.
That Queer Derby Taco 
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