Oh Won't You Stay?

Just a little bit longer. Here goes the rest.

The wonderful thing about having the internet at our fingertips everywhere we go is that we have unlimited resources to learn whatever we want, whenever we want. The terrible thing about having the internet at our fingertips everywhere we go is that we have unlimited resources to learn whatever we want, whenever we want.

With access to sites like WebMD, it's all too easy to get sucked in and fall victim to medical student's disease. Every symptom we read sounds at least vaguely like what's going on, and before we know it, we've got every illness known to man (and possibly some yet to be discovered). I experienced this while studying abnormal psychology, and I experience it when I'm trying to self-diagnose. In most cases, I'm wrong. I've found lumps that I worried endlessly were cancer but turned out to just be fat (ah, lipomas, you sneaky bastards). I've had minor colds that I thought would be the end of me (though, to be fair, who hasn't had that feeling?). It seems like every time I take a stab at it, I've been incorrect.

Until now.

For (potentially) the first time ever, I had correctly self-diagnosed. I had Optic Neuritis (ON). To hear the doctor say it felt simultaneously awful (because of what it could mean) and strangely satisfying. Thankfully, he also said it was a very mild case of ON, and that since I didn't have any other symptoms, he was inclined to believe this was an isolated case. SO. MUCH. RELIEF.

When he brought up ON, and I kind of nodded, he asked if the optometrist had mentioned it as a possibility. "No, but I read about it online." He went on to say that there are steroids available for treatment. IV steroids to start, and then I finished for him, "Followed by oral steroids. Because oral steroids alone show a higher rate of recurrence." Yes, he said that was correct, though they don't have an explanation for it. (In case you're wondering, there was a whole study on ON called the Optic Neuritis Treatment Trial, which is where these findings come from.) He also said that for such a mild case, he wouldn't suggest the steroids, as they're both expensive and can have side effects that are less than ideal.

However, he did say he was going to refer me for an MRI, just to make sure nothing else was going on that might be causing the ON. He asked Hubby if he had any questions about any of this. "Is this the one you were worried because it has ties to..." "MS? Yeah. That's why he's been asking about numbness and tingling and stuff." Doctor nodded and wrote up my referral. He told me that he was "cautiously optimistic" about the outcome and told me that I should try not to dwell on things over the weekend. Then he told me it was a pleasure to meet me, and said, "I doubt I told you anything you didn't already know. I don't think I've ever had a patient so well researched about their condition before." I think he was pretty amused. I, on the other hand, was mostly just relieved.

Anime eyes FTW!

I had the rest of the day off from work, so when I got home I just tried to relax a bit. It was hard because my pupils were still massively dilated. I had to wear sunglasses over my glasses to watch TV, and I tried playing video games, but that just wasn't happening. The MRI clinic called me that afternoon to set up an appointment for early the next week. The earliest appointment that would really work for me was 8 AM the following Wednesday, so I took it. The woman said I'd be there for about 2 hours total, so I braced myself for going it alone. And by "braced myself" I mean that I started a whole new round of freaking out.

Thankfully, Hubby's boss told him just to come to work once my appointment was done. I cannot thank her enough for that, I really can't. He held my hand through the whole scan, which was between 40 minutes and an hour because they had to do both my brain and my orbitals, and they had to do it without and with the dye. He couldn't bring his phone in with him, which I know was hard for him. All he really had was a pillow, his own ear plugs, and a chair. But except for a brief break when they injected the dye, he never let go of my hand. <3

For those of you who have had an MRI, you already know what it's like. For those who haven't, I can explain it in one word: LOUD. Yes, you get ear plugs. Actually, mine were a combination of ear plugs and headphones, and I got to choose which XM station I wanted to listen to (Pop2K), at least between scans. The headphones also served as a communication tool, as the woman running my MRI would pop on to tell me how long each scan would be. "This one is 3 minutes." or "Only 30 seconds this time, stay still."

Trying to stay still is torturous. It's not really a problem at first, but once you've been in there for 20-30 minutes, you kind of start to psych yourself out. Did I move? I can't move. Gotta stay still. Crap, I'm totally moving! I just kept trying harder and harder to keep my head still, which really just meant I was straining my neck muscles like crazy. At one point, she had to come in and put extra sponges around my head because I'd moved too much (she thinks I might've dozed off). Another time she came out because I had squeezed the emergency ball (which I had totally done by accident). She said she had to re-do a couple of scans, but overall I did pretty well.

When I left, they gave me a CD of the scan images and told me they'd get the results to my doctor later that day. I didn't hear from him until Friday, so there are 2 things that happened. First, I poured over those scans looking for... well, I didn't really know. I had seen images online of brain scans with lesions and plaques, but I wasn't sure what on my scan was supposed to be there and what (if anything) wasn't. The other thing that happened was that I had another 2 days to freak out.

Braaaaains... BRAAAAAINS!!

I finally got the call on Friday afternoon. "Everything looks completely normal." I have never in my life been so happy to be called normal. EVER. The amount of relief I felt was tantamount to nothing I'd ever experienced. And as wonderful as it felt, I so badly hope I'm never again in a situation where that amount of relief is necessary. I don't even think I knew how stressed I'd become until that point.

So the ON is still happening. I have to call up my doctor in about 6 weeks to let him know how things are going (since ON can take weeks to start clearing up and months to actually resolve). There's a small chance that I won't completely recover the sight I've lost. And there's also a small chance that I will still develop MS. But instead of dwelling on what might be, I'm trying to concentrate on what is.

I am healthy. I am happy. I have a husband who loves me. I have friends and family who will support me through whatever comes my way. I have two adorable pups that lift my spirits just by being here. I am fed, sheltered, and clothed.

Oh, and I'm headed to Disney World. :)

Life. Is. Good.

Jump Right In...

Sit right down! For real, you might want to be sitting. Because I'm going to tell you all about the last month or so of my life, and it's going to take awhile.

Let's start with a couple of things that happened BEFORE the last month or so, but since my last post (the one about Pepper, not the Pokemon Go post). We adopted a new dog named Penny Lane, who is an adorable, tiny schnauzer mix that I love with all my heart. We've had her for almost a year and a half now. This spring I finally graduated from PSU (huzzah!!) and had a graduation party, which was awesome. I turned 31 and then 32, which isn't as awesome, but definitely not bad. And, um... Yeah, that about covers things.

The last month of my life has been many things. Stressful probably tops the list. For the most part, it started right around August 10th, though I didn't know it at the time. It was hot and humid here in the land of Sconnie, and when you wear glasses in the humidity, a few things happen. One is that your lenses tend to fog up when you step out of the beautiful A/C into the tropic-like moisture that 80% humidity offers. Another is that your glasses slide a lot (yay, sweat) and you're constantly pushing them back to their rightful place. Basically, your glasses end up pretty dirty and smudged. Add two excitable dogs and putting a camera to your face a bunch and you start to assume the world is supposed to look slightly blurred or blobby. At least, I did.

It started with me just thinking my glasses were constantly dirty. And while that was mostly true, I eventually realized that cleaning them wasn't fixing the problem. Things were still... off. By Saturday, August 13th, I knew something was amiss. I was trying to read something and realized that it was taking longer than normal because I was hunting around for the letters. I felt like I could see the words on the page, but I couldn't see the whole word at once. Odd.

I closed my left eye and nothing was wrong. I closed my right eye and holy shit, what happened to the world?! With my left eye alone, bits and pieces of my sight appeared to be missing, which I determined couldn't be a good thing. Maybe my sight has been slowly getting worse and I'm just now realizing it? Yeah, that must be it. So I made an appointment with an optometrist for late September.

Image from MS Unites (msunites.com)

As I was explaining things to Hubby, I realized that it wasn't just the sight itself. Colors were muted and things looked faded or dulled. I went back online and found an earlier appointment; I wasn't going to wait for this to get worse before I did something. In fact, I almost had Hubby take me to urgent care or the ER because I was terrified that I was experiencing retinal detachment. But then I finally searched for the color loss and found Optic Neuritis (ON), which seemed to fit what I was experiencing. So I calmed my tits and we waited for the appointment.

On the 17th, Hubby and I went to the optometrist. While I can still technically see with that eye (in fact, my prescription only changed by the smallest amount it possibly can), she said my symptoms sounded like an optic nerve issue. She referred me to an ophthalmologist and said she'd call the clinic to get me in sooner rather than later. Someone from the clinic called me the next morning and we scheduled an appointment for Friday afternoon.

In the meantime, I had plenty of time to research ON. Inflammation of the optic nerve. Usually affects just one eye. Color loss can occur. Typically resolves on its own in a few months (ugh, months?). Strongly associated with Multiple Sclerosis.

Wait, what? Back that up a minute, please. MS? No, no. That can't be right... Can it?

The more I read about the relationship between ON and MS, the more I was looking for something else - ANYTHING else - it could be. (An ocular migraine, maybe? Or Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension? That one affects overweight women of child-bearing age - that description fits me to a T! Could that be it?) Unfortunately, the more I read about ON, the more it sounded spot on, and the more anxious I got. I tried to reassure myself by going over the symptoms of MS (none of which I had, save ON) and by reading about isolated occurrences of ON. But the seed had been planted, and I was just pouring on the water and fertilizer. I was terrified I had MS.

I actually missed numbers for the 1st time in my life.

Hubby was (very fortunately) able to accompany me to my appointment. I don't know what I'd have done if he wasn't there, so I'm just glad he was. After a few quick tests, those awful eye drops that turn your eyes yellow (which Hubby hadn't seen before), and some "pictures" of my optic nerve, it all came down to one conclusion: I had ON. I had correctly self-diagnosed.

I'll save the rest for later. Stay tuned.