I couldn't get off the couch when I woke up this morning. My body wouldn't move. This has happened a couple of times before and I'm now set up for it, with the heavy coffee table within reach and the cane handy. I didn't get up easily, but I eventually got upright.
Today it was the neurologist.
I managed to get myself in a panic because I did what one should never do: I went internet surfing and checked out the symptoms for ALS, most of which I have. So I went into the appointment halfway expecting him to start more extensive testing for ALS, but no, he agreed with my doctor that the cause is probably the bad interaction with the statin drug she prescribed last year sometime.
He also agreed with me that her follow up blood exam 2 days after stopping the drug was silly. The normal creatnine level is under 20 UL; mine is 2,644 UL. There was going to be little noticeable result in 2 days.
The bad thing about this condition is that when I'm sitting, I'm just fine. Nothing hurts and I don't need to use any muscles, so I look just fine. Everybody who passes through the room or writes to me asks how I'm feeling. Well, ask me that when I'm struggling to get UP and then hobbling down the hall to the bathroom! (I think of this every time I see the ad for fibromyalgia where the affected woman says "when most people look at me they see...most people, but inside I'm in great pain." or words to that effect.)
The doctor also checked my CT scan and showed me my brain, telling me it "looked fine for a 75 year old woman."
He checked my reflexes by tapping my knees in several places, forgetting that I'd told him that I'd injured my right knee. That tapping definitely caused a reflex as he hit the knee smack where it hurts the most.
He has ordered weekly blood tests for the next several months to see if my numbers begin to fall. If not he will order some sort of nerve conduction study which he warned me several times that I don't want it because it hurts. A lot. And warned that "some ladies cry." So I'm hoping, of course, that it won't be necessary. I had a nerve conduction study many years ago for my numb fingers and I remember how innocently that started out and by the end of half an hour I was feeling that I was undergoing a long electrocution. I don't think I cried but I certainly said a lot of not very polite words in my mind!
We drove back home to take our respective nap. I had fired up the battery in the iPod so we could listen to the book we started some time ago. I thought I had the right book, but it didn't sound familiar. We listened to it for an hour, hoping to remember the plot. When we got home, I checked the plot summary on Amazon and discovered that no, we had not been reading that book.
After our naps, Walt asked if I wanted him to cook dinner again. What a guy! The meatballs he made were delicious and, I have to admit it, better than mine.
We had a quiet evening watching TV and then Walt went off to bed. I've decided that until this...whatever it is....passes, I'll be sleeping exclusively in the recliner.
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