What this blog is for--

In the past, I've thought about writing a knitting blog. This hasn't worked out so well because while I start projects with relative frequency, my rate for actually completing projects is less than a little satisfactory. And then recently it hit me like a domain name shaped brick wall. (crazy, I know)

This blog will be my health diary. Not "Today was a good day. I felt well," but what is going on inside of me--what I feel and how it impacts my ability to function at a normal human level. So I'll spend the next few days getting everyone up to speed and then we'll hit the ground running.

It's just short of brilliance, I know (and not really)
So, this is how it all started

Early 2007 (aka Senior Year) I started to feel odd a large percentage of the time. I couldn't really describe it, and even now I still struggle to put those early symptoms into words when they come back. It wasn't dizziness, it wasn't disorientation. It was like somebody smacked me in the face with a shovel (but without the pain)--that level of resonance, something that momentarily knocks out all your other senses like a wave. It came day after day, week after week, and it took the better part of a month and a half to convince the parentals that all was not right in the land of Megan.

Enter the neurologist. After more bloodwork than any normal person should ever have done, we determined that I do not have Wilson's disease (a copper storage disease which is common in Beddlington Terriers. Go figure.) and my results for everything else looked like someone had copied the "Ideal" section out of their med-school text book. With this useful information in hand, madam neurologist informed us that I probably had migranes or seizures. She put me on Nortrypaline (which I am probably misspelling), an antidepressant which works as a migraine medication in low doses. This drug results in a highly photosensitive Megan with a severe case of depression. (remember this for later.)

This is the Summer of 2007.
Things have only gotten worse after graduation. Disorientation has now become the operative word. Tremors which I had had in my hands since early childhood moved into my wrists and up my arms and then to my legs and across my chest (take a moment to thing about important muscle groups in your chest. Like the one that pumps blood. Yeah.). My peripheral vision was gone. It had left from time to time before, but now it was permanently gone. I developed hot flashes where my skin becomes palpably warmer. Neurologist lady, after one spike on one (of two) EEGs, opts to put me on Topamax, a drug used for seizures with a crossover into migraines (two birds, one stone... or technically one unknown bird, one big rock) Topamax has a wide sweep of side effects, but the most noticeable is the way it attacks diet. Most people who take the drug end up gaining weight as their diet changes. My reaction fell into the .01%--I did not eat for the month of August.

And then I go to college.
In Michigan (half a continent away from my home)
And soon realize that my medication has shut off my ability to retain important memories (the kind you pay $35 000 a year to learn)

And I really didn't feel better. (well, I do, but that's because topamax turns you into a doll with two emotions and no personality. It's my favourite medication ever.)

So, I quit topamax, and make it through my first semester at college without falling over.
No diagnosis... honestly not even really a clear picture of an illness...

Christmas break tomorrow

And so it begins...

When I picked the URL for this blog nigh on years ago, I had intended to write almost exclusively about yarn, knitting, and other fiber related things. Now that I've come back to it after a long period of gross negligence, it occurs to me that there really are so many other things to talk about. There will always be fibery goodness, but I think we may delve into some more personal things. I feel this happens to be best. So, hello, and welcome. I can speak with relative certainty when I say I have no idea where all this nonsense is headed, but if you know me at all, you also know it'll be an adventure getting there.

Speaking of knowing me, I should probably share at least a few less than superficial details in regards to myself.

I am a biology major, music minor in my junior year. That may seem paradoxical--the science and the art--and it probably is, but that's just how I'm wired. My favourite thing to study (ever) may just be the synthesis of ATP from glucose and the resulting proton motive force. (It's bad, I know) Most of this probably stems from growing up in a veterinary clinic (more on this at a later date).

Music, on the other hand and the same note, makes me happy inside. That's pretty much as simple as it gets. I've played the piano since second grade (I long ago came to terms with the fact that I just simply lacked the inborn virtuosity to be a concert pianist. It was a good day) and I have a deep and abiding love for the instrument in our living room.


I love to knit. Knitting is the only thing that got me through the psychology textbook. Knitting keeps me sane on airplanes. Knitting helps me occupy my middle brain so that when someone tries to tell me something, my response isn't "La la la, pretty colors" followed by a frolic in an imaginary field of flowers.

My favourite author is Victor Hugo (as in, I actively seek his obscure and rarely published novels). I'm in love with the choral works of di Lasso, Debussy's piano solos, and have this really strange affinity for musical theatre and Jason Robert Brown.

I'm odd. We'll get over it together.


So this is my blog--Slowly Unraveling, stitch by stitch. I think that has practical life applications. I think this will be a place to talk about sheep and science, God and music... I'm excited.

You should be, too