I slept fitfully last night. I was too cold to sleep soundly, but not cold enough to actually wake up and get another blanket until around 5am. After the warmth of the bed hit me, so did the overwhelming emotions of my journey to this point. I grabbed my fluffy cat from the end of my bed, buried my tearful face in her soft purring belly and suddenly the world didn't seem quite so bad. Unfortunately, I was not quiet enough in all of this and woke up Jason, who allowed me to cry and vent some more. As I fell back to sleep a little while later, I knew I was well loved.
Jason got up with the kids and they let me sleep until 8:30, at which point my alarm went off so I could get ready for test one of the day, EEG. I didn't take my xanax because I didn't want to minimize anything they might find on the tests, so my tremors were strong this morning. I walked into the kitchen to get breakfast, opened the dishwasher to get out a bowl and stared at that bowl for a good minute or two, although it felt longer. I knew I wanted the bowl but there was no way I could get the instructions to grab it from my brain to my hand. So I stood there and stared until my hand decided to obey and I was able to grab the bowl and continue on with breakfast. I showered, grabbed a few things I was going to need, then laid down on the living room floor, waiting for Auntie Kay to come pick me up.
She arrived around 10:30, we swung by the storage to swap a couple things with Sonja and then we were off. I was tremoring some on the way to Sutter Gould, but was able to walk myself in. We walked over to the lab, where they told us we needed to go to the second floor and as we headed to the elevators, that's when it hit. I knew that I didn't have long before a big spasm episode was going to hit. I concentrated really hard in the elevator so I would start shaking everyone in there and as soon as we got out of the elevator, I told Auntie I needed to sit down. I tried to grab on to her to stabilize myself enough so I would create a scene, but it didn't work and I knew I needed to lay down, so I hit the floor and started convulsing.
A woman approached us. She looked like she was just another person waiting in the wait room. She said her aunt or sister or some relative of some sort used to do "that" (what I was doing). Auntie told her she hoped that they were able to figure out what was wrong with her, and the woman said: "Yeah. It was a brain tumor." I couldn't help but laugh. Why, thank you, Ma'am! On that positive note, you have a wonderful day! Lol!
I curled into another spasm and the room filled with people. I heard them call a code, call for a gurney, try to start an IV. I pipped up when they said they wanted to transfer me to the hospital and told them I did NOT want to be transported, that I was completely lucid during the tremors and that I did NOT want any medications that would interfere with the EEG I was scheduled to take in a few minutes. The neurologist I saw on Tuesday came over and I don't know who said what to whom, but they decided to give me some attivan, do the EEG and then move up the time of my MRI so they could do it while I was still under the effects of the attivan.
They took me into the EEG room, where some lady gave me a shot of attivan in the rump. OUCH!! That thing HURT! But then I felt very, very relaxed :-). The tech put a funny looking cap on my head and hooked me up to some machine that measured my brain waves. I had to do most of it with my eyes shut. I had three times when the spasms got bad again. The first one was when she made me breathe in and out deeply, for three minutes. It mimics exercise to the brain. Man, was I spasming with the one! Then she did the blinking lights test. That one made my body squirm. And then the third one was a surprise to me. I was just sitting there. She told me I could even sleep if I wanted to. I just had to sit there for twenty minutes. With about 7 minutes left, my body was NOT happy! It wanted to jerk and jolt about. I tried to concentrate really hard to keep my head from moving because she said that messes up the results if the head and neck move too much. I was so glad when she told me time was up!
Then onto the MRI. They did squeeze me in a couple hours early, so into the machine I went. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to stay still, but it wasn't a problem. The noises were annoying, but nothing terrible and now I'm home.
The techs obviously couldn't tell us anything and we have no word on when to expect the results, so we plan on sitting back and enjoying this beautiful Easter weekend to the best of our ability. Thank you to all of you who have been praying. Please continue to do so. We couldn't have made it this far without God's strength. He is our Rock and our Comfort in time of need. Blessed be His name!
We will continue to update here as we find out more.
No comments:
Post a Comment