my seizures have gotten much worse since i went in for observation. i can only assume that the grand mal i had disturbed whatever delicate chemical balance i had in my brain. i'm not having grand mals yet, but the petits are getting severe. it's hard to describe the complete incapacitation that i experience.

last night i was trying to play daoc but would end up staring blankly at the screen. the image registering, but the activity not. then the right side of my brain would kick me and remind me that i was supposed to be doing something. hearing jason say something, but not completely registering it, again getting that kick to remind me that a response was required. trying really hard to focus. dreading the moment when the right side of my brain would remind me that i wasn't functioning normally. remind me that i wasn't really focusing, just pretending to myself that i was. having brief tremors. then having my mind go completely blank, head drooping, eyes staring blankly, knowing i should be thinking something, but having no thoughts to access.

i had to quit the game. it was impossible to multi-task. i couldn't pay attention to what monster was being fought, pay attention to who needed healing, react enough to actually heal them, keep track of the 2 or 3 different chat channels, talk to jason. a set of tasks that is normally effortless to coordinate had become impossible. as soon as i logged, i looked at my email. much to my surprise i could focus on the single task of reading a mailing list thread. upstairs, i could focus on watching the television. other than the residual headache, the episode was over.

i've begun to dread leaving the house, i don't want to interact with other people. it's extremely rare that i have seizures during the day. in fact i only have them a couple time a week on average. and then in the evening. i just don't want deal with that potential. i screen phone calls now, just so i won't talk to anyone that i don't have to.

i used to feel that epilepsy was just an annoying thing. it didn't affect my life at all except for the daily meds and the occasional day or so recover after a seizure that always happened in my sleep. more and more it seems that life is something i do in between episodes. i'm always looking for that particular sensation in my brain that tells me that i'm susceptable.

i realize that i'm allowing it to dominate. that it's not something insurmountable. that i'm feeling sorry for myself at the moment. just sometimes, i wish i had my life back. 12:13 pm

i updated the portal yesterday. made it so that weblogs no longer require validation. on the info pages there is a link to notify me if a weblog is dead. so now, instead of a huge list of weblogs to validate, i've got a huge list of weblogs to check and delete. i'm not sure whether this is an improvement. 11:36 am

i realized last night how important the social aspect of mmorpg's affects whether people continue to play or not. my first character was a healer and jason's was a fighter. we had no problem finding groups and had a great time playing. but, being our first chars, they were flawed. plus, when we tried out player-vs.-player, we realized how much they sucked.

so, we started over. this time with rangers. rangers being the ultimate pvp chars combining a bow with stealth. for the first 30 lvls we played together. didn't group with anyone. but, didn't feel the need either. after lvl 30 or so, it became extremely hard to level alone. we turned to grouping. only to discover that no one wants to group with a ranger. it's taken a month to get through 4 or 5 lvls and only then because guildmates have felt charitable enough to let me into their groups. i'm not even going to attempt to try to get to lvl 40 unless i can get into a group. it's just too boring and depressing.

so, before giving up on the game entirely, i decided to create a new char. making sure that it was a well-loved class. jason and i are again playing a healer and a fighter. and again enjoying working in groups. but last night i realized that playing in groups isn't enough. it's playing in groups of your friends that is really important. neither of us gets much enjoyment from playing alone.

this social aspect is incredibly important. i guess you could equate it to going out dancing with a group of friends or going out alone. if your only option is to go out alone, you probably won't go at all.

Psychology of Weblogs: this article along with a thread on a mailing list has made me wonder whether my story has ended. am i just dragging out the inevitable. should i just end it now. but, even tho my life is immensely boring and daoc-absorbed right now, there is potential for it to get interesting again. especially if i end up going through brain surgery. we'll see. via tranquil eye. 11:16 am

i hate having nightmares. especially the ones that you wake up from but suck you back in as soon as you close your eyes again. i don't usually go in for describing and analyzing dreams, but this one was so vivid that i have to write it down.

there was an old, particularly gruesome murder story of two young girls that had happened a long time ago and i was seeing/reliving it through the eyes of the older sister. first i saw the carved up body of the baby sister who couldn't have been more than 1 or 2 yrs old. then i ran away to hide (behind a couch i think) but i knew he was going to come looking for me as soon as he was finished. very scared. but, that fear was nothing compared to absolute terror of being grabbed by the hair and dragged across the floor on my back.

fortunately, i managed to wake myself up because i did *not* want to watch/experience the rest. i think i went through 3 or 4 episodes of waking up, falling back to sleep only to feel the dragging across the floor and the absolute terror again then managing to wake up again.

quite awful really. something i'd really rather not experience again. thankfully, i don't have nightmares very often, maybe once a year. 11:21 am

at the end of that paper, the author mentions an upcoming game called Project Entropia. this one will actually have an economy that is based off real world cash. you pay $10, you get 100ped's. or something along those lines. hardcore gamers will actually be able to earn money from the game. fascinating. 10:08 pm

Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier

"VWs offer the essential human story of challenge, maturity, and success, but played out on a more level playing field. They offer life with an escape clause, because if things go wrong and you cannot walk or talk and everyone hates you, you can just start over. And they give you a freedom that no one has on Earth: the freedom to be whomever you want to be."

`Google effect' reduces need for many domains. it's interesting how much google has changed the web. 02:20 pm

No More Popup Ads. via blogdex. 02:15 pm

in other neglected news, i read robin hobb's latest fool's errand. the first in her new tawny man series. it took me about 12 hours, but i read it all in one sitting. it was well worth it, even if i did go to bed at 5:30am. if you've read her farseer trilogy, you'll love it. if you haven't, i recommend you read them first. excellent book, her writing just keeps getting better.

heh. as i was getting the url for the book, i started reading the reviews. i'm not the only one who read it in one sitting and was still reading into the wee hours of the morning. 01:14 pm

in other good medical news, at my yearly gyn exam back in december, my doctor did a sonagram and found what looked like a cyst in my right ovary. he told me not worry, but come back in a month so he could check on it. well, yesterday was the return visit. the cyst is still there. apparently, it's 4 cm. something that would have concerned me if my doctor hadn't told me that he'd seen one the size of a canteloupe that just went away by itself. so now i get to take a higher hormone dose birth control and go back in another month. on the positive side, he said it didn't look cancerous and i really shouldn't worry about it.

interestingly, if they do need to remove it, they do a laparoscopy. the same type of procedure for getting your tubes tied. if it comes to that, i'll have to seriously consider whether to do a joint procedure. 01:09 pm

i'm not quite sure what to say about this. other than "don't ask questions, just watch...". thanks andrea. 01:01 pm

i just got done reading seizure free: From Epilepsy to Brain Surgery, I Survived, and You Can, Too! i bought it because i wanted to read about someone else's experience with brain surgery. the book started off well and i could relate to what was happening to her.

when she described her first seizure and being taken to the hospital even tho all she wanted was to go back to sleep, i couldn't help but picture my first seizure. i woke up as 2 friends were dragging me across campus to the infirmary. my head was killing me and i was exhausted. i kept telling them that i didn't need to go to the doctor, all i needed and wanted was to go back to sleep. at least i think that's what i told them. i was certainly thinking it.

further into the book she describes the different tests she had to go through to determine if she was a candidate for brain surgery. having gone through most of them, they pretty much mirrored my experiences from a medical point of view. from an emotional point of view however, they were completely different.

it became clearer and clearer that this woman never accepted having epilepsy. she never had self-confidence in herself and she blamed it on the epilepsy. she thought that getting rid of the epilepsy would make her life exactly as it had been before the onset. she keeps talking about how well she dealt with having epilepsy, but clearly she was unable to deal with it.

constantly she referred to the fact that her life was in danger and she could die. dying isn't a common side effect of epilepsy. she talked about feeling inferior to people, constantly worrying about how they would treat her, how they would pity her. she never accepted the fact that having epilepsy doesn't make you any different as a person, you just have an inconvenient medical problem. it's certainly not something so horrible that you come close to suicide over it. finally, after the surgery she complained about the depression and not being able to deal with the fact that her life wasn't exactly how it had been before epilepsy. she immediately wanted to deny that she'd ever had it. that is a reaction of a person who never accepted their epilepsy in the first place.

i didn't manage to finish the book. mostly skimmed the last few chapters. it was too full of "look how wonderful i am for having overcome this condition that could have killed me", "aren't i great because i overcame the feeling of inadequacy that epilepsy caused in me", "i'm so proud of me for becoming the self-confident person that i would have been if it wasn't for the epilepsy." please. what's even worse is that from her writing you can tell that she still isn't self-confident. she's writing this to convince herself that she truly is amazing for having done this. it doesn't sound to me like she actually believes it. god, what a horrible book. 11:47 am

kirsty is in town this week. yet another reason why the site will be sparsely populated. 10:21 am

it's rather sad how much of my life is now invested into daoc. it's so bad that i've put up a site for our guild: Infinite Darkness. 12:08 pm

yes, i'm still alive. i've been sick and feeding my addiction for the last week or so. now i've got tons of work to catch up on. 03:10 pm