Wealthy and Healthy

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind the past few weeks. I’ve not been keeping up to date for various reasons,  and just not in the mood to write or think about the situation, I just wanted to deal with it. I stopped getting paid, my flat hadn’t been rented out, and my panic attacks have come back. I put plans into place, but it just felt like I was constantly worrying.

I’ve been trying to do the whole positive thinking thing, and I think that in some ways it really doesn’t help. Sometimes I really think it’s just best to say ‘Its rubbish’, and deal with it than trying to pretend everything is OK. I decided to try and get myself sorted out before my birthday.

I went to my doctor and asked for counselling, he has referred me and also gave me a book on prescription. It’s a scheme where you can go to the library and get out a self help book about whatever mental health problems you are suffering from. Funnily enough, the one he prescribed for me was already out.

My flat is rented out now, not for as much as before, but at least the bulk of it is off my hands as is the council tax which I was paying too.

I had an amazing time with friends and family for the entire weekend of my birthday. I was reminded again that even though I do feel like crap at times, that I have some fantastic people in my life.

I had my appointment this week with a neurologist, and I’m hoping this may give me some answers. I went there comepletely unprepared, I usually write down a list of symptoms and dates of what happened when and I didn’t this time.

Because I consider neurology nerves, I focused on telling him about my arm and neck, instead of giving him a complete run down which in hindsight was probably all wrong. They also have the reason I am not well completely wrong, and he did look a bit more responsive when I told him exactly what happened.

I struggled to remember what has happened in the past nearly 2 years. That is something I’m going to have to take up with my GP, because my memory is steadily getting worse to the point where I now have to walk with a notebook.

Anyway the neurologist went through the usual tests. He had students with him and in the way doctors are, he was quite brisk and ran through all the tests until he got to the arm reflexes and then repeated them several times.

He called the students forward and said ‘what is wrong with this?’, and done it again, they realised my left arm wasn’t responding to the reflex test. So now he’s sending me for a rescan of my neck as he wasn’t happy with scans I had already (‘these were definitely not done at this hospital’), and sending me for an EEG.

I’m happy that something is happening, but I absolutely refuse to get excited or tell anyone until I have some answers. I realised that one of the things that made the results of my MRI scan so upsetting is because I had talked about it so much and made it into something really big. I’m not making that mistake again.

I got the neck MRI scans on a CD and the accompanying radiologist report that I paid for. The plan was to show them to some alternative health specialists to see if they see something as I remember an osteopath telling me that orthopaedic surgeons only look for something to operate on.

Even reading the radiologists report was interesting. It says there is a significant reduction in cervical lordosis which is basically that the curve in my neck isn’t really there, it’s also called military neck. Not something that you can operate on, but something that can cause pain. There are conflicting reports about whether that can be corrected.

I’m going to wait now until I have all the scans done,  finish seeing the neurologist, and am thinking of saving up to see a rheumologist as well to rule out fibromyalgia before I buy the next set of scans.