my doctor appointments...

What a day.

i went into the office prepared to do a little work, go to the neuro, then go back to the office. By the time I got to the office I knew that sitting was simply NOT an option. Then I called my regular doctor and spoke with the nurse about what my blood pressure has been doing...she gave me an early afternoon appointment. SO... i knew by the time I left the neurologist and got back to work, it would be time to leave again. i did what I could do at work... in a whole half hour... and then left for the day.

The neurologist was nice. he sent a medical student in first to do the whole work up which actually helped... I was more at ease with her and she was very thorough... and so when he came in to do his exam, she was able to help me articulate things and she pointed out things to him that she had noticed, etc.

His take is that there is definitely a nerve related issue... he believes it's injury related and not any type of neuro-muscular disease (which frankly, I had never considered)... he doesn't believe my muscle weakness has anything to do with the neurontin... he ordered an EMG and nerve conductor test for Thursday.

He warned me that the type of things he would have done to treat this situation conservatively have already been done. he also warned that if it was going to get better without medical intervention, it would have already. In other words... it is looking more likely that surgery is going to be the only way to fix this.

He doesn't think there has been permanent nerve damage done... but he does believe that there are nerves that are being compromised...

So there was that. He was nice. I didn't walk out of there feeling ten feet tall and bullet proof but I did feel like I was heard and validated. The bad news... my blood pressure was still high. No worries... doctors appointment scheduled for this afternoon, I knew we'd get that whole situation under control. i went home and rested for a little while...

When I got to my regular doctors office... they called me back and did the whole vital assessment. My pulse was racing... the nurse freaked out... she got me into a room quickly and started an EKG. It was all trauma -scary - none of this "let me get you a gown"... it was "take off your shirt.." and she ran to get the EKG machine... she said, "I don't want to upset you but it's possible that we may need to call an ambulance"... LIKE that would do anything other than upset me? Seriously? My blood pressure was still high but not AS high as it had been the past few times it had been checked. The doctor came in ... less freaked out than the nurse... and said that although I was in tachycardia (I had to look it up)... that my heart rhythm was normal, just too fast. She asked how long it had been that way (I can't remember... didn't know it was, really) and asked a lot of questions about my pain level (very high today) and stress level (hello, Austin, pain, etc, etc) and started talking about what to watch for and whether or not I needed to go to the hospital. Surreal. I was fighting to stay calm but... my life flashed before my eyes... and i don't mean in that "I'm about to die" sort of way, I mean in the sense of my responsibilities and the number of hours available for this paycheck and just the logistics of me being out of commission... it was too much.

SooOooo... the plan for now... they did blood work to check for things like thyroid issues (which can cause your heart to race) and I am supposed to go back on thursday for a recheck. I'm back on blood pressure meds... and once we're a few more days past the steroid injections, and once we've had the follow up with the neurologist on thursday... she wants to put me on a 24 hour heart monitor. In the meantime I'm supposed to avoid stress... report any chest pains or periods of dizziness... and just sort of be on notice that everything is not quite right. Which, in itself makes my blood pressure a little high and makes my heart race a little bit.

I'm settled in for the evening... totally chill... will have an early bedtime... and plan to work the whole day tomorrow. I will be well, strong, able, pain free... and if I'm not... i'll just FAKE IT!