Wednesday, June 27, 2007

See the baby?

My friend, Angie and I went to San Francisco/Petaluma to see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee a couple of weeks ago. She's on tour promoting her new book. (It's a great book.)

I finally downloaded all the pictures from my camera today. This picture is from our first day there. We went to Pier 39, ate clam chowder, checked out the sea lions and shopped. Lots of shopping.

Isn't he cute!

We maybe shopped too much. We found this really wild tea that blooms into flowers when you brew it. It tastes really good too.


I'll post more pictures tomorrow. Right now my head is trying to explode.


These guys really like to bark!

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Under pressure

After having to wait an extra week because the lab didn't draw enough blood for all the tests.....I finally have a diagnosis. The lab called while I was on vacation in San Fransisco to tell me I needed to come back in and have the additional blood draw. I took care of that on Monday after we got home. The doctor's office called me to schedule my follow-up and they told me the one test the lab didn't get done takes 10 days to run. You'd think they could have run that one and skipped something that didn't take as long to process!!!

Anyhow, I finally saw the doctor and all the labs were normal, as was the chest x-ray. The diagnosis? Excess pressure in my spinal fluid is creating my headaches. WTF??? It's just some strange thing that happens to some women, usually those who are overweight. He gave me a prescription to take to help lessen the pressure and advised me to lose weight. He felt he didn't need to take a lumbar pucture to verify the diagnosis unless I really wanted him to. Yeah, I'll pass. His opinion is based on looking into my eyes (with a really bright light) and seeing that my optic nerve is flat. Apparently having this pressure in your head places pressure on your eyes as well and can cause a loss of vision. Great...lose weight or go blind. Well, I guess I have some serious dieting to do and some major incentive. I'm also thinking an appointment with my eye doctor is in order.

Friday, June 01, 2007

The results are in...we need more tests.

My appointment with the neurologist to go over the MRI's and the EMG was yesterday. Everything came back normal. The only thing they found was some swollen lymph nodes in my neck. Those are probably the result of a recent upper respiratory infection. Since I haven't had an upper respiratory infection quite some time we were "back to the drawing board". We went back over all my symptoms, headache, neck pain, ear aches, pain radiating down my left arm, stuffy nose. I told him I had expected the head MRI to show a sinus infection. I asked him if my symtoms could be the result of some other kind of infection. He said if it was my primary care doctor would have found it in the bloodwork. I informed him that my primary care doctor hadn't done any bloodwork. So he order lots of blood tests and a chest x-ray (to check for that upper respiratory infection). It's about damn time, I've told my primary care doc a couple of different times I thought it might be an infection!!

The neurologist did tell me about another possibility. He said my headaches could be caused by excess pressure in my spinal fluid. He wants to do a lumber puncture. Yeah, not real thrilled with that idea. He said I didn't have to make a decision right then, I could go home and discuss it with my husband first. I told him I wanted to wait until we had the results from the lab work and chest x-ray. Lynn agreed when I told him.

The doctor also gave me a couple of other options. He told me about a headache specialist in town I could go to. The only problem is he's not on my insurance. I'd have to pay him out-of-pocket. We'll hold off on that for now, I don't have that kind of money. He also mentioned a type of drug for depression that sometimes helps people with headaches like mine. If the tests don't come up anything I might try it. I'll have to research it first.

So, still no anwsers, but at least we're getting closer.