Today is Tuesday September 4th, 2007. Since Thursday, my life has been turned upside down. On that day, I awoke with a blurry left eye. I didn't think too much of it because a few weeks prior I had awoken with the same problem and it corrected itself by midday. Thursday was a different story.
Since it was the last day my seven year old and I had alone together before Labor Day weekend and the start of school, I had promised her we could see a movie and take the dog to the park. When I woke up with blurry vision, I figured it would go away as it had before and chalked it up to another middle age change my body was going through.
Off we went to the movies to see Mr. Bean. Throughout the movie, my eye contined to be blurry, getting better and worse intermittently. After the movie, I told my daughter that I was going to stop by the optometrist and reorder new glasses since I had lost the new ones I had gotten in May already.
While at the optometrists office, I non-chalantly asked one of the assistants if the doctor could take a quick look at my eye because I had some blurriness. They were able to fit me in, so I waited in the lobby with my seven year old. The doctor repeated every test I had in late April to be fitted for new glasses. She poked and prodded and dilated until I couldn't stand the light anymore. She was thorough.
After an hour of testing and examining, the optometrist decides to try and correct my vision with the great big lens machine. She asks the usual questions: "Which is clearer? 1 or 2?" Click click. Back and forth she went flipping lenses around and focusing the blurriness a little bit along the way. Finally, she pushes the lens machine away, leans back against the counter with her arms folded and says, "I can't correct your eyesight any better with my lenses. The blurriness you are experiencing is a symptom of something else."
Something else. Like what? She suggests hypertension and diabetes and recommends that I see my doctor right away. Her staff phones my physician's office and they are told my doctor is all booked up, but I should come to the walk in clinic.
I decided to go to the grocery store instead.
Shopping done, I phoned my husband who was on his way home from work and tell him the weird news. I am still just perplexed at this point. Having stumped the optometrist, I have no real reason to think I am suffering from anything other than old eyes that are having a hard time focusing. My husband suggests we go to the walk in clinic when he gets home and I tell him we should have supper first, since I'm already making it!
After dinner, my husband, daughter and I traipse into the walk in and wait to be seen by the doctor. We all file into the small examining room together and I retell the story of my blurriness to the doctor. A million questions later, the doctor has my blood sugar and blood pressure tested, both of which are normal. She then examines my eye very closely, has me do a few balance tests, and tells me she needs to make a quick call to the on call neurologist.
The Neurologist??? WTF? Up until that point, I was relatively calm and feeling a little silly about the whole thing because I don't FEEL sick or anything, just blurry...in one eye.
We wait a little longer and the doctor returns with the wonderful news that they are scheduling a CT scan immediately and I am to go the hospital right away for the test. The doctor states that there's a small possibility of an aneurism or swelling on my optic nerve and wants to have the test done now just to be safe. The time is now 8:45 PM.
Feeling a bit more worried now, my husband and I discuss whether we should drop off our seven year old with her big sister, or just bring her along to wait it out with the two of us. My seven year old has been a golden angel during this whole ordeal and promises she can be patient a little while longer if she goes with us. Off we go.
At the hospital, we finally find the right department (the radiology department closes at 9 PM and we arrived at 9:15), and before I know it, I have an IV in my arm and am lying on a table poised just outside of what looks like a giant donut. The IV is to get a contrast picture and the whole thing takes 5 minutes, tops.
My IV is removed and I am instructed to wait in another little room by a telephone for the doctor to call me with the results of the CT scan. My husband and daughter and I wait together, passing the time with magazines and walks in the hallway.
The phone rings, and the doctor tells me my CT looked "OK", but that I need to call the neurologist's office in the morning and tell them that I "must" be seen that morning by the on call neurologist that has been consulting with the doctor about my case. Hmm....why the rush?
The drive home from the hospital is a quiet one. The day has been a long and strange one, and I am anxious to climb into bed and let my mind contemplate the day's events. I have a strange calmness about me and feel a little bit like I am in limbo at this point. My eye is still blurry, but I feel fine. Weird.
The next morning, I do as I'm instructed and call the neurologist's office asking to be seen. The receptionist is flabbergasted that I would expect to be seen on such short notice, but I tell her that I am just following the doctor's orders and this is what I am supposed to do. She puts me on hold and comes back cheerfully with a time for me to come in later that day....12:15 PM.
It's now the Friday before the long Labor Day weekend. Even I know that most doctors have plans for the holiday and many of them will be getting a jump start on the weekend by taking this day off. Hmmm. Another thing to think about.
12:15 arrives and my husband and daughter make the trek with me to the neurologist, this time with workbooks and pencils to pass the time while waiting. The doctor is only running ten minutes behind and I fill the time with medical forms to fill out and sign.
By 12:30, I am having my blood pressure checked (118/81) and watching the nurse pull up my scan from the night before on the computer in the examining room. There it is, in black and white, my brain. Looks normal to me!
The neurologist walks in a couple of minutes after the nurse walks out. She is full of more questions. She puts me through a series of balance and coordination tests, then pokes me with a toothpick asking me if it feels different on either side she pokes. To my surprise, it does. Not much, very subtly, but different. Hmmm.
After all the tests are done, the neurologist sits down at the computer and calls me over to the chair beside her. She looks at my black and white brain and says "Your CT looks normal, but I am seeing a little grayish area here that I want to have checked further." "Like an aneurism or something?" I ask. "No, an aneurism would have a black area around the vessel that would mean blood. This is more a gray area that could indicate something else." she responds.
I am normally a person who is rarely at a loss for words. I didn't know what to say at this point. I just sit there looking at her, searching for some kind of explanation by the look on her face. This is when she hits me with both barrels. "I think you might have MS." she says. Flat. No emotion. No softness. No cruelty. Flat.
"MS starts in the eyes?"I respond. That's all I could say at this point. The doctor just nods softly, locking gazes with me in a way that only those who have been told similar bad news would understand. Again, I feel nothing. Numb. Void. Vacuum.
There is no time for emotion, because an MRI is scheduled for later that day, as well as a test to evaluate how well my optic nerve works later next week. I gather my papers, appointment cards and forms and walk out of the examining room to find my husband and daughter. My seven year old is watching the fish in an aquarium and my husband is reading a magazine. I'll never forget how they looked at that very moment. Normal. Unsick. Love.
My daughter runs up to me when she sees me and hugs me like only she can. We walk to where my husband is sitting and I tell him that they want to do an MRI at 3:00 today. We walk over to the lab to have some blood drawn for more tests and sit in the waiting area. "The neurologist thinks I might have MS." I say to my husband while my daughter is out of ear shot. "The MRI will show for sure if I have it." Hmmm. The look on his face is almost exactly like the neurologist's. Flat. Knowing my husband as I do, since there is no confirmation, we can't believe that's what it is yet. Ok. Flat. Calm. Inner quiet.
Ninety minutes later, we are in another part of the medical complex prepping for the MRI. They have given me 1 mg of Xanax to calm my claustorphobia and I am feeling even less than numb. I am completely compliant and still in my detached mode. The tiny little hospital gown goes on, grasped at the edges by me as I am led through the halls and into the room with the machine that, again, looks like a giant donut.
The technician is super nice, very gentle, and helpful as I question her about every single thing that is about to happen and situate myself on the tiny little table. There are two ways I can go into this machine: Arms pressed into my side and immobilized, or arms above my head and immobilized. I tried both ways. Above the head won out only because I have asthma (on top of the claustrophobia) and the thought of my arms pressing against the side of my chest, limiting lung expansion seemed like a recipe for major panic attack.
BANG BANG BANG!!! I now no longer think of this machine as just a giant donut. It is now a giant TORTURE donut! Not only can I not move my arms, but they start to hurt and go numb within a few minutes of being in the donut. On top of that, a cage is placed over your face (not touching, but damn, close enough!) and you are instructed to lie still in this position until the act of torture is complete!
With just enough Xanax in me to keep me from screaming and running for the nearest exit, I am put though the shortest version of an MRI you can get, 20 minutes. Yes. 20 minutes! Each "session" comes in a time sequence that begins at 1 and a half minutes, and ends at 4 and a half minutes. The noises from this magnetic machine during each sequence range from the spin cycle of a commercial washer, to the inside of a jet engine on a 757-without the suction. You literally think the machine is broken and pieces of it will come flying off to impale into you at any second. The last session actually shakes everything not nailed down. Fun.
Torture now complete, I dress and return to my family in the lobby. Time to go home. Home we went. To wait. For results. Try to live my life like it's normal, only there's this voice of doom in the back of my head just waiting for the confirmation...so that it can scream.
As of today, I have heard nothing. This is a good sign since I was told that if the results showed anything abnormal, the neurologist would fit me in right away. No news is good news right now. But, the voice is still there. I don't know what the results will be, but I do know that I will go on living. I am living in a real limbo right now. It feels floaty, weightless, calm water. I am surprised I haven't picked out my casket yet. Costco sells them now. I can view them online. Lots of time yet. Good thoughts for me....either way. Good thoughts.
Since it was the last day my seven year old and I had alone together before Labor Day weekend and the start of school, I had promised her we could see a movie and take the dog to the park. When I woke up with blurry vision, I figured it would go away as it had before and chalked it up to another middle age change my body was going through.
Off we went to the movies to see Mr. Bean. Throughout the movie, my eye contined to be blurry, getting better and worse intermittently. After the movie, I told my daughter that I was going to stop by the optometrist and reorder new glasses since I had lost the new ones I had gotten in May already.
While at the optometrists office, I non-chalantly asked one of the assistants if the doctor could take a quick look at my eye because I had some blurriness. They were able to fit me in, so I waited in the lobby with my seven year old. The doctor repeated every test I had in late April to be fitted for new glasses. She poked and prodded and dilated until I couldn't stand the light anymore. She was thorough.
After an hour of testing and examining, the optometrist decides to try and correct my vision with the great big lens machine. She asks the usual questions: "Which is clearer? 1 or 2?" Click click. Back and forth she went flipping lenses around and focusing the blurriness a little bit along the way. Finally, she pushes the lens machine away, leans back against the counter with her arms folded and says, "I can't correct your eyesight any better with my lenses. The blurriness you are experiencing is a symptom of something else."
Something else. Like what? She suggests hypertension and diabetes and recommends that I see my doctor right away. Her staff phones my physician's office and they are told my doctor is all booked up, but I should come to the walk in clinic.
I decided to go to the grocery store instead.
Shopping done, I phoned my husband who was on his way home from work and tell him the weird news. I am still just perplexed at this point. Having stumped the optometrist, I have no real reason to think I am suffering from anything other than old eyes that are having a hard time focusing. My husband suggests we go to the walk in clinic when he gets home and I tell him we should have supper first, since I'm already making it!
After dinner, my husband, daughter and I traipse into the walk in and wait to be seen by the doctor. We all file into the small examining room together and I retell the story of my blurriness to the doctor. A million questions later, the doctor has my blood sugar and blood pressure tested, both of which are normal. She then examines my eye very closely, has me do a few balance tests, and tells me she needs to make a quick call to the on call neurologist.
The Neurologist??? WTF? Up until that point, I was relatively calm and feeling a little silly about the whole thing because I don't FEEL sick or anything, just blurry...in one eye.
We wait a little longer and the doctor returns with the wonderful news that they are scheduling a CT scan immediately and I am to go the hospital right away for the test. The doctor states that there's a small possibility of an aneurism or swelling on my optic nerve and wants to have the test done now just to be safe. The time is now 8:45 PM.
Feeling a bit more worried now, my husband and I discuss whether we should drop off our seven year old with her big sister, or just bring her along to wait it out with the two of us. My seven year old has been a golden angel during this whole ordeal and promises she can be patient a little while longer if she goes with us. Off we go.
At the hospital, we finally find the right department (the radiology department closes at 9 PM and we arrived at 9:15), and before I know it, I have an IV in my arm and am lying on a table poised just outside of what looks like a giant donut. The IV is to get a contrast picture and the whole thing takes 5 minutes, tops.
My IV is removed and I am instructed to wait in another little room by a telephone for the doctor to call me with the results of the CT scan. My husband and daughter and I wait together, passing the time with magazines and walks in the hallway.
The phone rings, and the doctor tells me my CT looked "OK", but that I need to call the neurologist's office in the morning and tell them that I "must" be seen that morning by the on call neurologist that has been consulting with the doctor about my case. Hmm....why the rush?
The drive home from the hospital is a quiet one. The day has been a long and strange one, and I am anxious to climb into bed and let my mind contemplate the day's events. I have a strange calmness about me and feel a little bit like I am in limbo at this point. My eye is still blurry, but I feel fine. Weird.
The next morning, I do as I'm instructed and call the neurologist's office asking to be seen. The receptionist is flabbergasted that I would expect to be seen on such short notice, but I tell her that I am just following the doctor's orders and this is what I am supposed to do. She puts me on hold and comes back cheerfully with a time for me to come in later that day....12:15 PM.
It's now the Friday before the long Labor Day weekend. Even I know that most doctors have plans for the holiday and many of them will be getting a jump start on the weekend by taking this day off. Hmmm. Another thing to think about.
12:15 arrives and my husband and daughter make the trek with me to the neurologist, this time with workbooks and pencils to pass the time while waiting. The doctor is only running ten minutes behind and I fill the time with medical forms to fill out and sign.
By 12:30, I am having my blood pressure checked (118/81) and watching the nurse pull up my scan from the night before on the computer in the examining room. There it is, in black and white, my brain. Looks normal to me!
The neurologist walks in a couple of minutes after the nurse walks out. She is full of more questions. She puts me through a series of balance and coordination tests, then pokes me with a toothpick asking me if it feels different on either side she pokes. To my surprise, it does. Not much, very subtly, but different. Hmmm.
After all the tests are done, the neurologist sits down at the computer and calls me over to the chair beside her. She looks at my black and white brain and says "Your CT looks normal, but I am seeing a little grayish area here that I want to have checked further." "Like an aneurism or something?" I ask. "No, an aneurism would have a black area around the vessel that would mean blood. This is more a gray area that could indicate something else." she responds.
I am normally a person who is rarely at a loss for words. I didn't know what to say at this point. I just sit there looking at her, searching for some kind of explanation by the look on her face. This is when she hits me with both barrels. "I think you might have MS." she says. Flat. No emotion. No softness. No cruelty. Flat.
"MS starts in the eyes?"I respond. That's all I could say at this point. The doctor just nods softly, locking gazes with me in a way that only those who have been told similar bad news would understand. Again, I feel nothing. Numb. Void. Vacuum.
There is no time for emotion, because an MRI is scheduled for later that day, as well as a test to evaluate how well my optic nerve works later next week. I gather my papers, appointment cards and forms and walk out of the examining room to find my husband and daughter. My seven year old is watching the fish in an aquarium and my husband is reading a magazine. I'll never forget how they looked at that very moment. Normal. Unsick. Love.
My daughter runs up to me when she sees me and hugs me like only she can. We walk to where my husband is sitting and I tell him that they want to do an MRI at 3:00 today. We walk over to the lab to have some blood drawn for more tests and sit in the waiting area. "The neurologist thinks I might have MS." I say to my husband while my daughter is out of ear shot. "The MRI will show for sure if I have it." Hmmm. The look on his face is almost exactly like the neurologist's. Flat. Knowing my husband as I do, since there is no confirmation, we can't believe that's what it is yet. Ok. Flat. Calm. Inner quiet.
Ninety minutes later, we are in another part of the medical complex prepping for the MRI. They have given me 1 mg of Xanax to calm my claustorphobia and I am feeling even less than numb. I am completely compliant and still in my detached mode. The tiny little hospital gown goes on, grasped at the edges by me as I am led through the halls and into the room with the machine that, again, looks like a giant donut.
The technician is super nice, very gentle, and helpful as I question her about every single thing that is about to happen and situate myself on the tiny little table. There are two ways I can go into this machine: Arms pressed into my side and immobilized, or arms above my head and immobilized. I tried both ways. Above the head won out only because I have asthma (on top of the claustrophobia) and the thought of my arms pressing against the side of my chest, limiting lung expansion seemed like a recipe for major panic attack.
BANG BANG BANG!!! I now no longer think of this machine as just a giant donut. It is now a giant TORTURE donut! Not only can I not move my arms, but they start to hurt and go numb within a few minutes of being in the donut. On top of that, a cage is placed over your face (not touching, but damn, close enough!) and you are instructed to lie still in this position until the act of torture is complete!
With just enough Xanax in me to keep me from screaming and running for the nearest exit, I am put though the shortest version of an MRI you can get, 20 minutes. Yes. 20 minutes! Each "session" comes in a time sequence that begins at 1 and a half minutes, and ends at 4 and a half minutes. The noises from this magnetic machine during each sequence range from the spin cycle of a commercial washer, to the inside of a jet engine on a 757-without the suction. You literally think the machine is broken and pieces of it will come flying off to impale into you at any second. The last session actually shakes everything not nailed down. Fun.
Torture now complete, I dress and return to my family in the lobby. Time to go home. Home we went. To wait. For results. Try to live my life like it's normal, only there's this voice of doom in the back of my head just waiting for the confirmation...so that it can scream.
As of today, I have heard nothing. This is a good sign since I was told that if the results showed anything abnormal, the neurologist would fit me in right away. No news is good news right now. But, the voice is still there. I don't know what the results will be, but I do know that I will go on living. I am living in a real limbo right now. It feels floaty, weightless, calm water. I am surprised I haven't picked out my casket yet. Costco sells them now. I can view them online. Lots of time yet. Good thoughts for me....either way. Good thoughts.
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