got a call from my primary care physician this morning. she reiterated the MRI was clear ("except for maybe something tiny") and said she understood how frustrating it must be to not have a firm diagnosis.
my friends and family have been suggesting possible diagnoses (migraine syndrome or 'atypical migraine', temporal arteritis and/or vasculitis, rheumatoid disorders)... i'm ashamed to say it didn't occur to me to mention any of them to my doctor while i had her on the phone.
what can i say? i've been pretty spacy lately.
she said that when i come back in to see her (on the 29th, a week before my neurologist appointment on the 7th) she might order an ultrasound of my heart in order to make sure that it's not "throwing clots". (doesn't THAT sound lovely??)
as for how i'm feeling... alternatingly good and not so good. i find that staying on top of the ibuprofen really helps stave off the mild headaches. (i have also been ordered to take one aspirin a day for blood thinning purposes until we can figure out what's going on.) i'm finding i'm having to eat more frequently to avoid the spaciness, too. my normal schedule of breakfast at 10am and lunch at 3pm is just not working right now. 10am and 1pm feels better.
i'm getting tired more quickly and am sleeping more heavily than usual. last night i was in bed before 11pm (VERY unusual for me) and slept until 9:30am. i'm continuing to go on my morning walks. those always help me focus.
last night on-air i did pretty well, though one of my final breaks i stumbled over the word "slovak", suddenly thinking that what was coming out of my mouth was not right at all. it was close to 7pm, though, and i was hungry. i don't know how much of that experience to attribute to low blood-sugar and how much was brain freak-out.
so... overall i'm feeling ok. not great, but ok.
Posted by xta at November 17, 2006 2:48 PM | TrackBacka) yes, i still care about this!
b) i had that weird thing in the summer of 2005 where i had to eat every three hours or i was falling asleep and exhausted and all kinds of weird stuff. i found that just eating a lot all the time made me feel better. not great for my weight but it worked.
so you know, just don't let yourself get hungry.
Posted by: lisa at November 17, 2006 4:07 PMa follow-up, perhaps relevan factoid that i ran across recently from a reliable source (though i don't recall what that source was): the brain is the biggest consumer of glucose in the body, so if the brain is working extra hard, it can actually make you hungrier.
Posted by: lisa at November 17, 2006 6:42 PMChrista, I haven't posted in yet about this, but of COURSE I care about this! Getting a diagnosis is hard; but waiting to get a diagnosis is often harder. Feed your brain, take your aspirin, get your heart ultrasound, and keep us posted.
(We've always been grateful that Jake was born in NC, at a university hospital, where his extremely rare condition was diagnosed quickly and accurately, before we left town--saved us no end of sleeplessness. Oh, wait, we didn't sleep anyway. But that's different.)
Posted by: Penny at November 17, 2006 7:15 PMStill thinking of you.
For my medical stuff there is a lot more studies on the internet and at other hospitals than my local doctors have time to stay on top of. I've taken to bring in notes of stuff I want to talk about to the doctor. I was worried that I was going to seem too demanding (what a ridiculous worry!) but I think the doctor appreciates it.
I SO DO care about this...
you probably are noticing things that you never paid any attention to before -
don't you LOVE it when they find something tiny? in YOUR BRAIN.
Youngest has something tiny in his brain...
la dee dah.
Posted by: blackbird at November 17, 2006 7:40 PMplease continue to keep us posted -
I think about you all the time!
I'm still thinking of you, and I'm very very glad you are updating people you KNOW we love you. I won't have internet access next week. xxoo
Posted by: lastewie at November 17, 2006 8:58 PMTake care of yourself, Christa. And you do need to be a bit aggressive with doctors. They are there to serve you. Don't be afraid to ask questions. I've been thinking about you.
Posted by: Charo at November 17, 2006 10:00 PMI've been thinking about you, too. Your body knows what's best for you, so just sleep and eat and rest and walk - see you soon
Posted by: Marianne at November 18, 2006 1:47 PMStill thinking of you! Yes, eating to keep brain alert is a good thing. :) Wishing you all the best. Love & hugs. :)
Posted by: erthsister at November 19, 2006 11:06 AMLooking forward to giving you a real live hug, real live soon.
Posted by: Phil at November 20, 2006 1:24 AM