Thursday, February 11, 2010

Good News...

I've had migraines since I was almost 15 years old. They run in our family. My parents dragged me to like a zillion doctors, before we found a place that specializes in migraines; the Diamond Headache Clinic. People with migraines come from all over the world to get treatment. I see Dr. Merle Diamond, whose father, Seymour is the founder of the clinic. I think she is a phenomenal physician, of course I could be biased, as I have been treated by her for 17 years.

Anyway, since January, I have been getting headaches. Not my usual migraines, different ones. They start at the back of my head as a pulsating ache that feels like my head is being squeezed in a vice, and then they spiral over the top of my head to the front of my head, until my whole head feels like it's pulsing and being squeezed. Sometimes I lose vision in my left eye. I've also started slurring my words at times and have been mixing up my words and spelling (I'm a pretty good speller) since then.

I knew that if I emailed Dr. Merle, she would make me come in to be checked out, so I put it off, because going to 2 doctors a week for Juliana has been very taxing on me, and I don't have the time or energy to get to the clinic. Ryan finally forced my hand and made me contact Merle. As I had suspected, she wanted me to come in immediately and get checked out. I told her very politely that that was not an option. I told her my appointment was in February and she could see me then. She emailed me back a compromise, I had to have an MRI done. I told her that that was fine, I could do that.

Last Friday I had my MRI. I had it done at a new facility, which was very nice. The technician was very nice to me. I get claustrophobic in the MRI tube- to me, it's like laying in a coffin with a very loud jackhammer beating on top of you, and your face is very close to the top of the coffin. She put a towel over my face, which helped. I even got a nice warm blanket laid on top of me. The best part was when she showed me a list of radio stations that I could choose from, so that I could listen to music while I was in the coffin. I chose the Christian music station, "The Message". The 45 minutes flew by, because my mind was distracted by the music.

When I got home, I emailed Merle and let her know that I had my MRI. She told me she would call to try to get them to have it read faster than normal. On Tuesday, someone from the clinic left me a message that I needed to call them because they had my results. I had to sub during my plan period on Tuesday- a lot of teachers called in "sick" because of the snow, so I didn't get a chance to call. I forgot to call on Wednesday, because I was writing my sub plans for today (Juliana is sick). So I emailed Merle last night. She told me my scan was normal, which for some reason, I already knew it would be. So that's great! Now we just need to figure out why I'm having these new headaches and slurring and mixing up my words.

5 comments:

  1. You're slurring and mixing up your words because you're stressed...I do it all the time and think I am having mini strokes...maybe its part of our charm! Love you bunches, MOM

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  2. Mom's right. Parents are always right. Except, she isn't having mini strokes. You two are just showing the charm of being moms.
    Love,
    dad

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  3. I was worried about you and I am so glad your MRI came back normal!

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  4. Good news that your MRI is normal & not so good news that you're having headaches like that!!! I don't think that laying on a beach chair (@ the beach) in the sunshine with a good book would hurt any. Maybe you should give it a try? I truly hope that things start getting easier soon! PS...my mom was one of the original Dr. Diamond's nurses when he started his practice before I was born. She loved working for him.

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  5. Jenna - Glad to hear the good news. Glad to hear (from your mom's post) that it could be just a sign of stress. Lord knows you have enough to be stressed about. Will keep praying about that stuff. Thanks for the update.

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