It's been a very busy month for me between work and dealing with all of the symptoms of ptc.
The bronchitis and cold-induced asthma made me miserable for atleast two weeks, and even now, at the end of the month, I still don't have my voice fully back despite feeling ok.
I contacted my doctor about two weeks ago and told her that I had been dealing with LOTS of double vision. I hadn't fully put two and two together to realize that what I was experiencing was double vision. I just thought I was overtired, which I was, however, had never dealt with that before. The double vision felt like I was crossing my eyes, and then they would shake. The problem with this was that my eye muscles could not pull my eyes back to the proper position they should be in. I am actually seeing my neuro-opth. on Tuesday so this is something I am going to discuss with him when I go in. It seems to be getting worse.
When I spoke to my doctor (neuro) she felt that I should go and get another spinal tap to help reduce the pressure in my brain to see if that would help the double vision. Not the answer I was looking for, but I knew this was probably what she was going to say. I scheduled the tap for the friday before a long weekend so that I had time to just sit and relax or sleep to help recover.
The tap was HORRIBLE. Much worse this time than the first one I had had. I hate to speak poorly of a doctor, it's not my field of expertise and as a teacher, I hate it when someone talks bad about another teacher that isn't in the field and doesn't know what they are talking about, however.....I truly do not feel as though this doctor was experienced enough with doing taps. Normally a thirty minute procedure turned into a two hour procedure. The doctor had to give me two local shots to help numb me, and even using the floroscope machine (xray) he still could not find the right pocket to get the fluid. He ended up doing a tap four times!!!!! Luckily this was my second experience and not my first, because I think if it was my first, I would have really freaked out. It was obviously a painful experience. I handled it better than the first one I had, but I think part of that was that I knew what to expect. It's been over a week now, and my back is still very painful. I find it hard to stand for a long time, I get stiff easily and it's been hard to teach!
The good news about the spinal tap was that my pressure went down from the first tap I had. Opening for my first tap in December was 36 and this time it was 29. So, I am hoping that is due to the diuretic working. My problem is that sometimes I forget the diuretic or don't take it on purpose. It's difficult to constantly be running to the bathroom all the time and with my schedule at work, I can't just get up and go when I need to. Someone has to watch the kids! Ugh.
A few days ago, I ended up going to get a sleep study done because I feel that I have sleep apnea and I know that isn't helping me in dealing with the ptc. I haven't gotten the results of that yet, but should get them in a few days and then begin to move forward with a cpap machine. Kinda stinks, but I feel that my health is important enough to try and get a good handle on it and I know that if I am better rested from better sleep at night, it's going to make it a lot easier to deal with the headaches, etc.
Well, today has been a rough day with headaches, probably because I had been overdoing it all week with testing and work and it is finally catching up with me. I am supposed to be going to my sister's house this afternoon (an hour away) to celebrate my sister's and dad's birthdays and I'm nervous about driving because I've had some nasty headaches although they are better now, I'm worried that if I drive there and it gets bad again, I won't be able to drive back. It's frustrating because I am not close to my family (distance wise) and it's difficult to get the help I need sometimes. *sigh*
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