Can Major Surgery Cure Depression?

The holidays are a good time to look back on our lives.  On this past Christmas eve, I was reading an article in the American Journal of Physics (AJP) on the topic of energy spectra for power-law potentials.  What a great coincidence that I had done this same calculation exactly a decade back, as I was reminded by a blog post from that time (see 2010 post).  I had not mentioned the details of the calculation in that post but was instead writing about how my wife Pat allowed me to isolate myself to work on this fun calculation while she and the rest of my family were preparing for our Ukrainian dinner.

At age 94, that would be my father’s last solo trip to Pullman, something I had expected at the time based on his cognitive decline.  Both our children were home for the holidays, waiting for the first visible star to appear, which would signal the time for our twelve-course Christmas Eve meal to begin -- a Ukrainian tradition that had been passed down through countless generations.

All morning, my father hovered over Pat in the kitchen to make sure that the cabbage was properly steamed, enough onions were sautéed for the butter topping and that the borsch had lots of garlic.  All the burners were on and the windows were painted in condensate that was crisscrossed by several rivulets that ended in miniature puddles on the windowsill.  Ukrainian Choral Christmas music blared over the speakers, drowning out the cooking sounds.  My father sang along with his rich operatic voice, with hands clasped behind him as he monitored the kitchen.  Our children were contacting old friends to plan for their yearly rendezvous at Ricos.  I was content in my calculations and secure in the presence of family.

My past posts consistently show the centrality of family and physics in my life.  Our families have grown -- both of our children with spouses and children of their own -- but I am now the father and the grandfather, taking the role of the patriarch.  My father briefly saw his first great grandchild (by Skype) just before he died in 2014.  Hopefully, I will see my own great grandchildren some day.

2020 was a year of illness and isolation.  I started the year by learning that I had prostate cancer.  My surgery coincided with the peak of COVID deaths in April (see link to the details).  It went well and the experience was a blip in the grand scheme of my life.  I kept busy writing papers (a couple which were accepted for publication in AJP and a massive review article that was accepted in the prestigious Advances in Optics and Photonics) and pondering new ideas, so my mind rarely wandered into the minefield of anxiety about my health.

My prostate surgery had other benefits.  I had been suffering with an undercurrent of depression since the passing of my father in December of 2014.  Though I had many reasons to be joyful since then, a deep-seeded darkness tugged at me, preventing me from feeling the unfettered happiness that was warranted by major events in my life.  This darkness lifted when I awoke from prostate surgery.  The experience reminded me of my mother’s depression years before she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.  Could it be that the human body signals the brain during a serious illness before other symptoms arise?  To investigate the plausibility of this hypothesis, I studied a plot of my Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test over time (see figure to the right).  Being measured as part of my yearly physical blood draw, my PSA data spans two decades.  In my younger years, the PSA data varied about the mean in a way that is characteristics of random noise.  But in 2014 (or perhaps as early as 2012), it started rising ever so slowly, following an exponential that a couple years ago pierced through to the level considered worrisome.  This proves nothing other than my depression being correlated with my father's death and the rise of my PSA.  But an intriguing correlation that my oncologist said he has independently observed...

My wife and I were isolated for most of 2020, but nevertheless we got COVID in November.  I traced

the probable location of my infection to the ice hockey rink, where I played masked with only 5 players. (The photo gives proof of us wearing masks -- but taken after I recovered from COVID).  Given the large separation between us, I was surprised that this was ground zero.  However, the  cold air and lingering breath droplets that it suspends, coupled with the heavy breathing associated with physical exertion no doubt made the ice a more dangerous place than I had expected.

We are fortunate that we had the mildest possible COVID symptoms and only for a short time.  I started feeling fatigue after playing ice hockey on a Sunday morning.  Most of the fatigue subsided after a 2-hour nap that afternoon after I had completed my weekend chores.  For the next couple days, I continued to feel mild fatigue, some achiness and had slight congestion that was comparable to what I normally experience from allergies.  I tested positive on the day after my symptoms appeared, and by Wednesday, I felt fine.  The only symptom that persisted for a couple weeks was the loss of the sense of smell, which returned gradually over time.

Overall, it was a good year, with the added benefit of the optimism I feel for 2021.

2021 has already started out well.  We visited my son, his wife and daughter on the other side of the country and also visited our daughter and her family.  Being immune to COVID (I tested positive for COVID antibodies) allows us to travel, so getting it was a net positive.  Also, I bought myself a nice Questar telescope (used on eBay), which I had coveted for decades, and plan to use it in our wilderness.  I will be teaching two graduate courses this spring, one of them a new prep (Thermodynamics), a topic that I am excited to revisit with the goal of deepening my understanding.  I am writing this post as I take a break from preparing my notes and doing the homework problems.

We will be using the thermodynamics textbook by Herb Callen, the professor that taught me the topic when I took his course at the University of Pennsylvania 40 years ago.  I recall the class being the worst in my graduate career – perhaps I was to blame.  But his book is fantastic, presenting the material clearly and resolving common points of confusion.  Working all the problems in the book consumes most of my time but doing so helps me to anticipate issues that students might have when learning the material.  And I am learning a lot through an enjoyable process of frustration followed by the satisfaction of success.

It is wonderful having a job that requires me to learn new things every day and a network of family and friends with whom I play and share my life.  Happy New Year!

 

Perseverance trumps intelligence

I have not posted here for almost a year.  Perhaps it's because I have fallen into a bit of depression.  On the bright side, I have been thinking about neat things and trying to build a deeper understanding on topics where everyone else has failed.  So most likely, I will fail too, which is not of great concern to me; rather, I feel that I have not been directing my energies into areas that will most certainly bear fruit, so I might be left in the dust as a result.  I can already see evidence that I am losing connections to my colleagues.

I am concerned that this depression is affecting many aspects of my job.  Reading an article earlier today that was published prior to me presenting the Distinguished Faculty Address in 2005 (click here for the link), I felt that the same narrative would not apply to me now because of this dark undercurrent that draws away energy.

This morning I got a glimmer of hope when I asked my 20-student mechanics class why they chose to major in Physics.  To fill the elongated pause, I offered, "To gain an understanding of how things work?  To use your knowledge to invent things?  To get rich?  To be poor?  You can do all these things with a degree in physics."  This generated a bit of laughter.  I then continued, "for me, I pictured myself being dirt poor, and living in a cave with a blackboard and some physics books.  I sold out and took a lucrative industry job at Bell Labs, which I disliked.  It wasn't that the work was uninteresting --  I ended up doing lots of fun physics, but I disliked the focus on a product."

I then went on, "However, I find it fun to make things and it was very enjoyable being part of a startup that I founded two decades ago.  We did everything from basic research, to making products, and it felt a lot like academics.  There was no boss telling us what to do.  We all did what needed to be done.  That company is now highly successful, but unfortunately, I got out of it years back before it took off."

Though the story brought back fond memories, I quickly got back into the subject matter.

Later in the day, I got an email from a student that said my question resonated with him and he described his passions and how a degree in physics would get him to his ideal career.  However, he admitted that the subject was difficult to him and that he was struggling.

My reply to him (edited to keep anonymity) :


Dear so and so,

A very famous and highly respected colleague of mine (and more senior than I am) once confided in me that he feels like a fraud.  Everything he does seems to take much more effort than it does to others and he feels barely afloat.  The well kept secret is that many people feel this way, especially the successful ones because it drives them to work to exhaustion.  Your approach is spot on; work hard to realize your dream.  And don't be concerned about exam scores; I  consider exams to be a learning experience, so try to redo the problems and learn from your mistakes.  I will include a part of a problem from this exam on the next one to make sure you have learned form the process.

I always get myself into positions where I am struggling, because being challenged is a sign that you are learning and growing.  So relish the feeling that you are struggling and that you might at times feel stupid;  that's a good thing.  Check out https://www.improbable.com/2011/04/29/the-importance-of-stupidity-2/.  I also wrote on the topic a couple years back.  Take a look at https://unknownphysicist.blogspot.com/2016/11/i-always-feel-stupid-and-confused.html.
Bottom line is that I never worry about students like you.  I can see that you are attentive in class, that you are following the material, and that you participate when I ask questions.  Keep the passion!

Best,

I hope that this letter has sparked the beginning of a return to my previous self.  As I have found, writing this blog has therapeutic value even if it is never read.  So more posts in the future will be a metric of my success in overcoming my malaise.

The next topic for discussion may be my feeling of mental deterioration.  A faculty job requires multitasking at many levels, and I feel that in my older more feeble age, being diverted from actively practicing physics drains creative energy and dulls my senses.  That's something that needs to be reveresed.

I still get excited when I learn something new, and research continues to be stimulating.  The power of physics to explain phenomena, which can be harnessed to the betterment of humanity, is what attracted me to physics, and living with it throughout my lifetime has deepened my love for it.

That's a good starting point to build on...