More Questions, Some Answers

Yesterday the lumbar puncture went as well as possible and I'm finally back home. Today while the PT and OT were visiting I had another episode where I start "radiating" and they grabbed the blood pressure cuff, pulse monitor and checked everything. They found out that when that happens my oxygen levels have crashed and my heart rate is off the chart. I was standing still and my heart rate was at 144. They sat me back down and a few seconds later it went back to normal. They continued to monitor it for about 20 minutes and any time I moved all my levels went crazy. After resting for an hour they took my bp/pulse/oxygen sitting and everything was normal. They had me lay down and the thing started beeping like crazy when my heart rate crashed. They had me sit back up for a few minutes and then stand. Instantly my oxygen crashed and my heart rate went to 135 and was climbing quick. You would think my heart would be pounding in my chest but it wasn't. It felt like it was beating normally and I was having a hard time catching my breath. My doctor says there is a problem in my central nervous system where my body is having difficulty regulating these things (duh) and they are going to do another test called a Tilt Test in the next few weeks. This may have a lot to do with my dizziness, headaches,vision problems and "radiating" episodes and thankfully there is medicine they can give me to help my body regulate itself. I also have an appointment on Friday with the only Neurological Ophthalmologist in the hospital system to have him check my eyes and see if they can fix my vision problems. My doctor thinks there may be two competing things going on in my body and the MS diagnosis is still on the table (along with some other really things with REALLY long names) until they get the results back from several tests on my spinal fluid. At least right now we have some possible answers and not just questions.

Setback

I was doing better after my three steroid shots until Tuesday evening when I had a setback. I got all tingly again and felt awful. I went to work Wednesday morning and my boss sent me home when they saw me. I called my doctor and he had me admitted to the hospital last night. So far today I've had another MRI, this time of my spine to look for lesions and am waiting on the results. They are also going to do a vision test to try and figure out/correct my eyes and are still talking about a lumbar puncture as a last resort. I've been told I'm out of work until next week and hopefully will have some answers today. Again, thank you for all your well wishes and continue to send good thoughts my way.

Best Girlfriend EVER

Before I get into today's post I would just like to say thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. It has touched my heart in more ways than I can eloquently explain in words to you here. Now to the post-

I truly have the most loving, best, and most perfect girlfriend in the world. You can fight me on this about how your significant other is the best, but sorry people Girlfriend takes the #1 spot. As you know from the previous post things are a little shaky around here right now and Girlfriend's statement about she taking care of me from my Just Call Me Nurse post could not be more accurate. She stayed with me on Thursday night after band (I made her go to try and keep our lives as "normal" as possible right now) Then took me me yesterday to the hospital for my first of three Solumedrol infusions. FIRST we found out I had to go upstairs to the transplant unit to which Girlfriend stated, "What the hell?!? They're not sticking people's body parts in you!" When we finally got to the right place (3 locations later) I was told it was supposed to take 1 1/2 hours. At 2 hours all I had was an IV line in my arm and nothing attached. Girlfriend looked at me straight faced and made the BEST comment of the day, "They know that putting a line in you and attaching it to nothing isn't helping right? Where the hell is the medicine, I'll do it myself." Once it was in she had more funny statements including, "Now that you're on high dose steroids you are going to be cut like the Hulk-GRRRRRR!" and "I'm glad your not a dude or your balls might shrivel up. Well, that's not the only reason I'm glad your not a dude." 4 1/2 hours later we were finally done and on our way to pick up Q, a movie, a pizza and peppermints for home.

She has since dubbed my IV line "my accessory" since I wear oh so many accessories on a daily basis, making statements like, "Your accessory is looking excellent with your outfit today" and "make sure you color coordinate your clothes to your accessory tomorrow, it's bad to clash." My personal favorite was when she sat down next to me on the couch, "EWWWW, your accessory just touched me!" VERY quickly followed by, "I'm-kidding-honey,-I-promise-I'm-totally-kidding........(whisper) kinda."

She has taken amazing care of me with not a single complaint-this morning she taped and covered my line with a trash bag so I could take a shower, washed my hair for me since my arm was all plastic wrapped and unable to bend and been just wonderful since we talked on Thursday at work. Today I sent her to band rehearsal for their concert tomorrow and a home nurse is coming to show us how to do the second and third treatments ourselves and for all possible treatments in the future.

Backing up a moment-on Thursday we were laying in bed and I point blank asked her how she was doing with all of this. Her response was something like, "I'm not really sure. I'm taking it in moment by moment, day by day. Right here next to you."

That ladies and gentlemen is why I have the best girlfriend EVER.

Prayers Please

As you read earlier this week I had a ton of blood work and an MRI done yesterday because of some weird episodes I have been having for the past few weeks. Here is a recap of my symptoms-dizziness, headache, blurred/overlapping vision, difficulty concentrating, loss of coordination, loss of stable balance, head to toe tingling in waves, numbness in fingertips and toes, fatigue, muscle weakness. My doctor called today with the results of all my tests. My vitamin D and iron levels are low so I need to take supplements. My MRI came back "stone cold normal" except....for swelling around the right occipital nerve. He then told me that it may indicate the onset of MS. After I got off the phone with him I looked up symptoms of MS-I read like a textbook case. All I could say for about ten minutes was, "But I'm only 26 years old." Tomorrow I go back to the hospital to start three days of Solumedrol IV treatment to try and help with the inflammation. Home Health will be bringing the second and third treatments to my house this weekend. I also have a Visual Evoked Potential test sometime next week and depending on those findings a lumbar puncture (a.k.a. spinal tap) after that. When I called Girlfriend and told her what the doctor said here's a chunk of our conversation:

Girlfriend: Honey I'm so sorry

Me: I'm sorry too

Girlfriend: Why are you sorry?

Me: This is not what we had planned

Girlfriend: No it's not, but I love you. Everything will be ok. We are in this together.

Cue the waterworks people, because I LOST it then. I talked with my grade level after school at our planning time and they are WONDERFUL. They are taking care of all my lesson plans for next week so I can just relax this weekend. My mom finally stopped crying after I talked with her and I'm trying to convince her not to come down yet. I don't want her to come down until after we know more, because right now there is nothing she (or anyone) can do. Girlfriend and I have canceled all plans this weekend and she's coming to stay with me tonight and take me to/from the hospital tomorrow.

Readers, if you are praying people I ask for your prayers at this time. Prayers not only for me, but for my family.

Just call me nurse

There is something wrong when I am the healthiest one in the house this week. I took B to the emergency vet this morning when late last night we noticed blood around his "privates" after he peed. After talking with a vet on the phone I made an appointment to take him in first thing this morning. The vet believes that B has a UTI and he is currently sleeping on the couch next to me all medicated up. He has to have antibiotics for a few weeks and has to go back to be checked again in 10 days. The only positive thing is that I like the emergency vet I went to WAY better than B's regular vet and I'm seriously considering transferring to this place. I've been a wreck since seeing him bleeding and Girlfriend was going to come with me to be the emotional rock, but she started puking around 6AM and didn't go back to sleep until after 8:30. She is also all medicated up (Pepto and Emitrol which she keeps throwing up-not exactly helping her) and currently is sleeping in the bed where I can keep an eye on her. I took off tomorrow to keep an eye on B, and Girlfriend if she is still yaking up her inside. She doesn't want to eat anything but I am force feeding her saltines and ginger ale. Earlier Girlfriend was laying on the couch and said exasperatedly, "But I'm supposed to be taking care of you!" To which I responded, "You took care of me last week, let me take care of you now so you can take care of me later on. Staying well is going to be a team effort for a while." Some background-last week I went to my neurologist because I have been having some strange episodes. He took 7 vials of blood to test for anything and everything possible, except pregnancy. On Wednesday after work I have to head back to the hospital to have two MRIs done to hopefully find out some answers. So, yeah, if I'm the healthiest one in the house-something is wrong. Keep your fingers crossed I don't mix up their meds ;-)

Drowning in the downpour...

Disclaimer: This is a long post with lots of depressing/sad information. There is no sarcasm, wit, or sillyness. I am sorry for this but that's just not where I am right now.

I haven't wanted to talk about all of this because it's a lot of downers (and that's really not what my blog is about) and it's a little too personal to put out there, except that I have no other options. On Sunday morning I got a call from my mom that I was dreading. As soon as I saw her name pop up I knew why she was calling and burst into tears. My grandma was on a ventilator in the hospital and passed away that morning. She was fine a week ago and even took the grandkids and great-grandkids into the city for a day trip. She was a amazing woman with more courage, love, compassion and strength than anyone else I've known. What's even more is that she didn't have to be my grandma, she was my god-father's wife's mother. (follow that train?) When I was a little girl my dad's mother said some very hateful things to me and essentially banished me from her life (all are her issues that I worked out in years of therapy but that is a WHOLE different topic that I am totally over). When my grandma found out about what happened she pulled me aside and said, "I will always love you. I will always be your grandma. Don't let anyone ever try to tell you differently." She didn't have to be my grandparent, but chose that role for her and her husband. She attended every grandparent celebration at school, and treated me just like all the other grandkids, punishing my god-brothers' cousin who said I wasn't family. When my god-father was killed in an accident she kept the family together and running. When I got sick several years ago she sat with my parents in the hospital waiting room after everyone else left. She was an amazing woman and today is her funeral. I am 525 miles away. It's not that I don't want to be there, logistically I simply can't. I can't afford a plane ticket, I wouldn't have been able to drive there in time, and it just was not possible to go. Needless to say I am a wreck this week.

Add to that that Girlfriend and I are in a rough place right now. We're both struggling with things right now (different issues for each of us) and it's really hard right now. We've been together for almost a year and she's having some financial problems that I've recently learned a lot more about. Her dad is going to pay off her debt and she is going to pay him interest free which is awesome. He wants her to move back in with him so he can help her out. Now before I go further, her dad and I are cordial. We're polite to each other and can keep a conversation going for a little bit, but please don't leave us to ourselves for more than thirty minutes as awkward silence will be inevitable. With that said, let's be real-he is an overbearing, I'm-always-right, do-it-my-way-or-you'll-never-hear-the-end-of-it man who has more than once thought she was "being gay to get back at him." He even lied to her grandparents about Thanksgiving and said she was with other relatives and not me (they all know she's gay) but that is a totally different issue too. She lived with him for a little while and hated every moment of it because he controlled everything and she always felt like she was doing something wrong and had no freedom. I being me, tried to fix this and I offered her an alternative: move in with me. Guess what she picked? Here's a hint, it's not living with me. I'm trying to be understanding (there is a lot more to it than her just saying no-in a nutshell her partner of six years left one morning for work and never came back, leaving her a "Dear John" letter on the kitchen counter so she has fears of moving in) but it's really hard. I feel like I need to be careful about what I say to her right now because I don't want to make her feel guilty or bad about choosing to move back in with her dad, which is putting me in a hard spot. Clearly I can't talk to her about it right now and my best friend (former roommate) is away visiting her and her boyfriend's family for the holidays.

Top it all off with the fact that I am having some health problems that I'm now starting to get really worried about. Way back in October I got the flu, remember that? Well at the same time as I got the flu my period started and was really really bad for a couple of hours then was gone. Since it stopped abruptly I went to the doctor because that was not normal. They told me that I was fine and it was probably just because of the flu and not to worry. So I didn't. It's essentially January-I still have not had my period again yet I get all the symptoms and pain. I didn't go back to the doctor because I just kept assuming that it would come and I would get back on my schedule. It's going on almost four months now and I'm going to go to a different doctor to hopefully get some answers.

So if we put it all together this makes me one gigantic mess of a person who feels like crap all around. To make it worse I can't really talk to anyone about it because my family is obviously a mess, my best friend is away and Girlfriend is dealing with her own issues. B is tired of listening to me but has been very loving while I've been crying on the couch since Sunday. If you made it this far, thank you for listening. I promise to get back to my sarcastic, witty, silly self as soon a possible but right now I'm just drowning in the downpour...

Quarrantined

So it's official, I've been quarantined to my house because I have the flu. It's quite ironic that Girlfriend works at the human vaccine institute and I have the flu. At least it's the regular old flu and not the super scary one. I wasn't going to post anything today but the conversation at the clinic today was too funny not to share. Here's some more info about me that you probably didn't want to know but matters to the story. So my period started Sunday morning and was crazy intense for about 3 hours and has almost stopped today which had me worried and it why I went to the clinic in the first place. When talking with the doctor I explained the situation and here is our conversation:

Me: So, is that okay? This has never happened before.

Doctor: Well let's do a pregnancy test just to be sure, but I think it's probably related to the flu.

Me: There's no need for that. I'm 100% certain I'm not pregnant.

Doctor: No sex? At all?

Me: Well not with men and if my girlfriend has gotten me pregnant I've got bigger problems than the flu.

Doctor: (Dropping his pen) Uh. Yeah, I guess that would be a bigger problem.

His facial reaction was priceless and he was just stumped as how to respond. Anyway, I just wanted to share and now I'm going back to bed. I NEED to be better by this weekend because it is Girlfriend's high school reunion. On a positive note, my co-workers are AMAZING! One of them just called me and told me not to worry about sub plans, they would take care of everything for my students this week. I'm going to need to buy them cookies or something next week...