Mysteries of Mental Illness

Good. Good. Good. Just to kind of make sure. Okay. That's great. So I guess they're going to put me to sleep now and I'll wake up when we do the uh. Yeah, the testing. Okay? Looks good. After nearly a year and multiple appeals with the hospital advocating on his behalf, the insurance company approved Matthew's deep brain stimulation surgery. (suspenseful music plays) It takes about two hours to place one electrode. Good, uh, not bad, yep. What's our blood pressure? Give us two minutes, we will tell you a real time blood pressure. (tense music continues) Okay great, let's get a scan. How are you feeling? Okay. Yeah? I'm not okay, but. To make sure the device is in the right place, Matthew's doctors wake him up. Yeah, everything went fine so far. The, the lead is in, and it's positioned very well. And we're going to run some tests in a moment. He's asked to rate his symptoms while they test the current. You can actually use this to move. So contact one. This is just very intuitive, and you just click on it. Anxiety, ah, not so bad. Ah, that's good. In three weeks, Matthew will have another electrode implanted in the other side of his brain, and then a separate surgery to put batteries in his chest to power the device. Contact three. Compulsive breathing, I'm not doing it so much, but I'm still like, doing it occasionally. Great. Alright. Like percentage wise, what, what would you say, like? A 70, 70? and now I'm doing it. Just be, because we just turned it off, That's insane! wow! The implant won't be activated until Matthew has healed from all his surgeries. It will be more than a month before he knows if it works. But initial signs are promising. This is much better than anything I've ever tried. Does it feel natural or, It feels, not exactly natural, but it feels very close. He's doing amazing. All right, Matt? How about that? So we're just going to do a little more recording and then we're done. I'll get, put you to sleep, okay? Okay. (suspenseful music fades out)