Because I can't wait any longer..

With all the craziness that becomes our lives around this time of year, I had told myself repeatedly to leave blogging until I had some actual answers and to just take care of life instead. But I find myself thinking of what I would say if I didn't wait, so, uh, why wait, right? :)

first of all, updates.

Ouch, my head hurts

After the CAT scans showed that I had probably had several strokes my doctor ordered an MRI and sent me to a neurologist, who also tagged an MRA and MRB onto the MRI order. This meant a grueling hour long MRI test essentially. I have never had an MRI but I know lots of people who have (my Father-in-law, my own dad and my step-mom just to name the three people in my closest of family members that I know have had one.) I have heard about the claustrophobia and tried to prepare myself for it. What no one had ever said anything about was the UNGODLY noise and the cage they put over your face. I'm only slightly claustrophobic - in fact I'm not even sure it's classified as claustrophobia as it has much more to do with not being able to move than it does small spaces. I can play hide and seek and hide in the smallest of closets and be perfectly fine because I know I can leave whenever I want. I can be in the middle of a field and held down for some reason and freak OUT. Also, I have a huge huge huge phobia about things in my face. I've been known to reflexively hit people who moved a bite of something too quickly to my face for me to "hey taste this!" But I thought "I'll just close my eyes, do my yoga breathing, and MAYBE, considering I haven't slept in 4 nights, even be able to fall asleep. HA! again I say HA! HA HA HA HA HA! Anyone who can fall asleep during an MRI is CLEARLY deranged or 100% deaf. It was the LOUDEST banging, buzzing, clanking and thumping I've ever heard. And I might have even been ok enough to relax if it would have just been the same rhythm but every minute or so the clanking turned to thumping, the rhythm sped up or slowed down, and some other alarm sounding noise would go off.. For a minute, until it changed all over again. I LEFT my MRI with a migraine but fairly confident that I'd be getting a phone call saying "Oh, those things we thought were strokes? Turns out it was just some technician's thumb print on the film." That was on a Tuesday night.

By Wednesday afternoon I hadn't heard from my doctor and I relaxed a little bit. Remember, my doctor called at 11:00 the day after my CAT scan. Oh and did I mention we actually ran into my doctor in the hallway in the hospital going to my MRI? But by mid afternoon the hospital called. They wanted me to come back in for ANOTHER MR(add any of the remaining 23 letters of the alphabet here because I really don't remember) because the radiologist reading MRI scans that day just liked to have that particular scan. Good news was that it should only take about 5 minutes. Unfortunately I didn't get that tidbit until I actually went in haha.

Thursday came and went without hearing from my doctor, as did Friday. With every passing day I relaxed a bit more. By Monday they called to SCHEDULE me to come in to hear the results. I almost danced right there. The CAT scan results were more like "you need to come in RIGHT NOW!!!" so I just assumed that meant nothing but good news. I was wrong, but not horribly so. The MRI showed that I have, indeed, either had a stroke, or at some point had some brain hemorrhaging. He referred me to the neurologist again because some of it didn't make sense to him. I do, however, feel much better about things. It's hard wondering if, at some point at any minute my sons might be left motherless because I had an aneurysm due to weak blood vessels in my head. It's scary. Not in an "Oh my God I don't want to die" way but for me it was "I do NOT want to leave my children without a mother" and most especially I didn't want to put Lou through the pain of losing his or Monkey through having to raise Parker by himself (not that he couldn't do it because he's the best father I've ever known.)

I don't see my neurologist until the 6th at which point I'll hopefully walk away with all the answers. Since my doctor only actually ordered the MRI I'm not sure he got the results of the MRB and MRA, and I'm not sure the neurologist will get a copy of the MRI. I did my best to make sure but most of the time I felt like I was just babbling and mumbling so who knows lol.

The True Anti-Drug

All this feeling better could be, also, the result of my self UN-medicating. As I waited (and still wait) for my insurance to ok me going to a psychologist to adjust my antidepressants, I slowly began to run out of them. I soon found I only had one week left so I halved my prescription. And I started to feel better emotionally almost instantly. Two weeks later I ran out completely (while I still waited) and now I find myself the bouncy, flouncy, pouncy, trouncy fun fun fun fun fun (oh wait, that's the Tigger song) person I was before. I am still sick in all the physical ways I was before but I can NOT express how good it feels to actually feel happiness again. In fact I just sat here for about five minutes trying to figure out how and nope, I can't. :)

I have loads of other updates, too, but I'm exhausted from the day of cooking, 5 hour round trip and the near constant movement that yesterday brought. We went to see my Tover and his family for Thanksgiving and along with us, my grandparents and uncle, my dad, my sister-in-law's dad and his wife and her grandmother, we made the house pretty full. I spent Wednesday making homemade green tea truffles, strawberries dipped in chocolate and rolled in toasted walnuts and sesame seeds, mini Greek meat balls and toasted walnut and herbed cream cheese on celery. Don't let me fool you, though, I couldn't have done it without the help of Monkey and Lou chopping, mixing and dipping for the second round of meatballs and truffles (finely chopping semi-sweet chocolate can be tiring haha) and for the creamed cheese and strawberries. Monkey also spent at least 50% of the time chasing Parker around my Tover's family's house making sure he didn't try to eat everything, including my niece, and he and Lou did the majority of the Thanksgiving dishes for 15 people. And poor Monkey has to work RETAIL on Black Friday, too. Then he gets to come home and help me clean the house for my sister, her husband and my nephew to come visit us on Saturday. He really deserves the Man of the Year award just for this last week ALONE. But I digress. Other updates will probably happen Sunday or Monday. Hope all of my US friends had a GREAT Thanksgiving and all of my other friends had a great, well, normal almost Friday weekday. :) Talk to you soon :)