Episode 67: On Adult Children with Mental Illness

I walk a fine line on this topic because I don't want to violate my son's privacy. I only identify him as J., and I haven't identified my own last  name, let alone his (as they differ), so I hope this episode of The Mary Dell Show respects both the wonderful person he is as well as others who have struggled with the devastating pathologic conditions of the mind.

And, because I do share this blog with a couple of closed Facebook groups I'm in (for hypersomnolence, etc.), I'll just say that J. is very lucid these days and has, until quite recently, had his issues very well controlled on his meds, and during that time has given me permission to write about his plight.

Of course, as biology has shown in recent years, particularly since the advent of the functional MRI (fMRI), "mental illness" is truly biological illness. And, as in any illness, psychological factors come into play as the condition manifests itself.

Examples of functional MRI images of structural brain changes in schizophrenia from Dialogues in Clinical 
Neuroscience at http://www.dialogues-cns.com/publication/understanding-structural-brain-changes-in-schizophrenia/

Episode 27: Mary Dell, MD (Medical Detective)

This episode promises to meander somewhat.

I've decided to give myself an MD after my name.  That's right, Mary Dell, MD.

NO!  Not Medical Doctor--believe it or not, this isn't about my ego, and I don't pretend to know a fraction of what physicians and other health professionals know.  I've been interested in a few very specific health conditions, since they have affected members of my family, and since I became a smorgasbord of chronic disease myself.  I don't want their jobs.  I don't like dealing with blood and guts.  I like research, on anything at all, really, but since these medical problems keep plaguing me and folks I know (like all of us), that's what I'm researching these days.  And, heck, I'm a bona fide medical librarian, so I know how to do it.

No, just call me Mary Dell, MD, for Medical Detective. And this is the Mary Dell Mystery Disease show.  MD MD, MD--

Will that get me hired to consult for House?  Ha.

Episode 8: Effexor, Mugwort, and Dream Pillows

N.B. Feel free to skip portions surrounded by [brackets], as these represent tangents and, at times, diatribes.

In Episode 6, I discussed my recent identification of a heretofore "noxious" weed (in my estimation) in my yard. The tenacious thing pops up in all my garden beds and, as much of my lawn is uninitentionally turned over to weeds (because I don't have the energy to work it the way I want to), this monster grows to as high as 4 feet in the "prairie field" behind my house. I have precious little sunlight in my yard, which sits on the northeast-facing slope of an Appalachian mountain. The sun sets early on my house, like 4 p.m. So I know my sunny zones, one of which is a stretch along the northern woods where certain patches enjoy daylong sunlight that flows over the house's roof, past its shadow, and into that narrow strip before my yard ends at the wooded (and wonderfully natural) lot next doors.  Other spots, other than a 20 x 20 patch just in front of the house and before 100-foot spruces block it. This is completely extraneous information, but I do try to describe my setting now and then, since most of The Mary Dell Show, in homage to its precursor (see the Pilot Episode for the history of the show) will be devoted to herbs, plants, mushrooms, and such.  At least I hope so.  Medical problems are cropping up--pun intended--at an alarming rate.  These topics occur to my rambling brain during ramblings in my small, mostly wooded 1/2 acre lot, and sometimes the surrounding woods owned by my neighbors, who don't mind.

Mugwort, photo from Horizon Herbs

Episode 1: Anxiety and Me

One of my favorite books as a child was Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, and one of my favorite poems in the book was "My Shadow."

He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.	10
He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

Okay, well, maybe the verse doesn't translate well in a blog.  Robert was quite the spoiled little brat, wasn't he?  But he was wonderful.  Of course, I've known about my shadow for as long as I can remember, including in a Jungian sense, but it amazes me that I have only at this relatively advanced age recognized that a certain shadowy coward called anxiety has made a fool of me in every sort of way, staying close beside me, throughout my life.