Now, I know what you're probably thinking, and you're right. This is a lot to handle. It is, but it's also where couples tend to come closer together or get forced apart. There's a lot of stress, poking, prodding, and pain. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. To get through these things, you have to be prepared to do anything and everything for the benefit of your spouse, and a TON of understanding and empathy is needed if you want to stay together.
Anyway, let's continue on.
I went to see my regular doctor at the beginning of the month because I was still dizzy as hell. He told me I probably have benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, or BPPV. He wanted me to go to physical therapy so I could have the Epley Maneuver done to get rid of the little crystals in my ear canal. Every time I change position with my head, I want to vomit. Not pretty. He also told me that I should've started feeling better, even without the treatment, within a few days.
I looked it up online and did it at home. Nada.
A week later, I called a neurologist and make an appointment. I just had a feeling.
She was totally booked out until July, but I took what I could get.
At the end of the month, I had a work event I had to travel to. It went well, but I still felt like shizz, and I flat passed out at the end of every day. When I got home, I went to see the neurologist, and the testing started. My eyes were still jumping around, but I was managing by not reading, writing, or doing much of anything that required intense focus.
July 2016
I get an MRI of my brain. Turns out, there are several lesions in the area marked below.
If we explode the brain, you can see why the neurologist became concerned over the location of the lesions (white spots in center added by me). This is kind of what my head looked like:
It's back to the MRI machine for me so she can look at my C-Spine (to be sure nothing funky is going on there). That one came back totally clear.
Now, in order to get a proper MS diagnosis, you have to have a spinal tap done. It's the presence of certain chemicals in the spinal fluid, along with the lesions on the brain and/or C-Spine, that tells the neurologist if you FOR SURE have MS.
So, she sent me to a place where they do those things all the time, and I was given strict instructions. I must lie flat for at least 24 hours afterward. I'm kind of an active go-getter, so this was a harsher blow than it might seem.
My husband took the day off work and drove me down there, and he stayed right by my side until I was okay enough to get up and move around.
It was painful, yes, but they were very careful and put me in an X-Ray machine while they inserted the needle to draw out the fluid.
For over a week afterward, every time I bent over, my head throbbed. It was awful. But, I got really good at picking things up off the floor with my feet. Ha!
But it got better.
Tomorrow, I'll finish up my journey to my MS diagnosis, what kind it is, tell you about medications I was put on, and dive into the fun with those.
Until then!
