One way to prove to your new doctor that you have a quirky neurological system is to randomly demonstrate during your appointments!
Went to see my rheumatologist yesterday for a follow up to discuss dermatology findings, get scripts for lab work, discuss other stuff. I have been in pain and fatigue cycle central with a flair, so it was good timing.
My wrist has been acting up and was throbbing really bad the past few days on and off. Worried it would relapse to unusable, I mentioned it and he offered to give a corticosteroid shot. I'm so used to needles and pain by now I figure, sure why not. Injections go off without a hitch and isn't nearly as painful as it was when the jackass guy did it, but that could be because it also wasn't inflamed as badly. I feel it despite use of numbing agents, same case with dental work.
Ember, who had been laying on the ground next to me quiet the whole time, suddenly sits up and nudges me. I figure it's because she sensed I was already in pain and I twitched and grumbled from the pain of the injections. I thank her and tell her to lay back down. I was joking with the doctor how it hadn't felt near as bad as last time I had one, and started discussing something else totally different with paperwork when the attack hit.
I felt it coming. Starts off as a weird twinge, uneasy feeling, almost feels like I'm not in my own body. Intense dizzy disorientation, vertigo, nausea. Vision and hearing go "blurry". You feel like you weigh a million tons and can hardly move. I vaguely remember Ember was repeatedly nudging nudging nudging, cognition slow to realize she was alerting. I think I must have managed to blurt out that I was passing out.
I think he asked if I wanted to lay down, but was too far gone. Tried to fight it off, but hardly ever can when it's that intense. Felt overheated and pouring sweat but cold and clammy at same time as tunnel vision went to full black out nothingness. Everything is a blur after that.
It happens so fast. It can be startling because you lose all sense of awareness. Even when you are used to it happening, it takes you longer to register what actually *is* happening because your brain is going in slow motion and you can't think straight. By then all you can think is "great, here we go again!"
My own personal roller coaster of bodily separation as my brain decided TOO MUCH PAIN, YOU REST NOW!
Upon regaining consciousness everything is still a blur. Sight and hearing are slow to return. Your mind goes "WTF just happened", head spinning disorientation overwhelming all your senses, still not able to think clearly. Slowly awareness returns, blurs of motion and sound if people are moving around you or talking to you. It's all still distorted and I can never tell how long it takes to come back to reality.
As I floated in total dazed stupor I remember hearing something like "take this" and "Hold it .......face"
BAM-OMG-WTF?! jolt of offense to my senses, I think I gagged.
First blur I recognized was my worried velcro Ember staring up at me with her head planted on my leg, wiggling, nudging and licking at my hand. I managed to grasp her. Then realized white lab coat was there and felt something handed to me.
"Put this by your nose." I managed to, once again the shock of that horrible scent zapping my senses and I managed to focus on it as I recoiled and realized what it was.
The doctor actually used smelling salts to bring me back around. That stuff smells nasty! I tend to be far more sensitive to environmental stimulus than most people, so it was especially effective.
Even with that to bring me around, it took several more minutes for me to be able to clearly see and hear and for the body weakness and disorientation to subside enough for me to be more coherent. At that point not much else could be done since I was rather out of it. The doctor checked on me several times as he wrote the scripts and such. Nurses checked on me and brought me some water. Jokes were cracked. Ember was praised for doing her job so well.
He ordered the correct bloodwork based on suspected conditions, not just the damned ANA by itself again. He also wrote out papers for a permanent parking hang tag so I don't have to keep paying to renew every 6-12 months!! After 4yrs of using them he couldn't understand why no one had done so sooner, because this stuff wasn't something that just magically went away or got better.
Good thing the appointment was almost over anyway at least, because it really does throw the brain and thought process off and makes fatigued feeling worse afterwards. They had me wait in the room till I was feeling well enough to stand without risking passing out again.
Joked on the way out that I might have to invest in some of those smelling salts. The more I thought about it as my brain returned to me, the more I think it might actually be a good idea to keep some handy.
They could help others bring me to, or more importantly help me recover faster if I am alone and only have Ember with me. Now I just need to devise safe ways to carry them where they wouldn't accidentally be activated by Ember or jostling inside my purse or the dogs' gear bags. Maybe a heavy duty pill holder or something similar.
= = =
Today I saw my new general practitioner. She and the office staff were absolutely awesome. All of them are dog lovers, so as soon as they saw Ember they melted. Ember could tell, so she hammed it up real good. I let them say hello to her, her special treat for doing so good yesterday when I blacked out and being such a trooper through the flurry of medical stuff recently.
My new GP is almost like a female version of the Mayo doctor I really liked, which makes me ecstatic. She's younger like he was, and still open minded about possibilities and willing to listen to everything as a whole. She even guessed at a possible cause I had wondered about but not said anything to anyone because I'm really not sure if it is what I thought it might be.... but having her bring it up as I described things... yeah, sort of hit home.
It's stuff I have been asking about for years and just had doctors wanting to "wait and see". Well, you can only wait and see so long before stuff that could have been resolved early gets worse and causes damage. Waiting on the results of the more specific bloodwork and then going from there. It's just a little relief to have two doctors thinking along the same lines I have wondered about for a while.
When I went for the lab draw, the woman was real nice and had a sense of humor. I warned her I may or may not pass out just to be on the safe side. I think at first she was concerned. I told her it wasn't the needles or blood or anything. I'm not afraid of any of it and don't get anxious like many people must. I've been stuck so many times and had so many unpleasant medical procedures, it doesn't phase me. I think when I started watching the draw on the second vial she realized it really wasn't a trigger. I joked with her that my inner geek found it absolutely fascinating. She had me wait after the draw just to make sure I didn't have an attack after. We joked about different medical things and I think it pleased her inner geek just as much to have a patient who could relate to her work on that level.
So overall, fairly productive and only marginally expensive medical week.
