when life gives you lemons

pucker up. 

last friday i had a doctors appointment.  it was a follow-up visit to check my med levels for insulin resistance, thyroid....blah blah.  it was also to follow-up from my recent trip to the e.r.

my gut told me there would be tests as a result of my e.r. visit.  i was nervous as i packed a list of 'stuff' to discuss with the doc.

my gut was right, but they did not find any of the things my wildest imagination could have thought of.

  the cat scan found a lesion on my thyroid.  it was found accidentally.

 just like the mri a few years ago that accidentally found a lesion on my liver when the doctor was looking for something else. the lesion on my liver, no big deal. 

from what the doctor told me and from what i have researched this could be  i have hashimoto's thyroiditis, graves disease, or a birth anomoly.  we have scheduled an ultra sound. 

i still need to call the neurologist to schedule an appointment.  the hubby keeps pushing for me to get it scheduled.  i want to take this all one body part at a time,  if you don't mind.......he is worried.  i am trying not to.

when i was about 10 i had surgery.  it was a skin graft to form a new ear drum. 

i woke up during the surgery.

i saw a bright light, even through my closed eyes.  i felt as though my head was turned to the side.  i heard a man say 'get her......

next thing i remember i woke up in the recovery room to some woman moaning that she was dying. 

yikes, was i dying too?  i asked a nurse.  from her response i think she had rolled out of the wrong side of the bed that day and had not yet had her morning cup of joe....or a really bad case of pms. 

i told the nurse i woke up during surgery.  she quickly told me i did no such thing.  when i insisted, which was not my normal nature to question authority, she told me she would get my father to discipline me for telling lies.  that quickly put me in my place.  that was a no-no. 

after i was back in the childrens ward and settled in a nurse came and talked to me.  she was so nice.  she said she was going to come to my school and tell all of the kids about my surgery.  wow, did they do that for everyone???  never understood why she came and talked to me.

once i was home i noticed while trying to do something, write, draw...my hands were shaking very badly.  they have never stopped. 

i tried to tell my parents, about my shaking hands.  to this day i remember my mom rooting through a drawer in the kitchen, the dreaded junk drawer.  i picked the wrong time to ask.  she quickly dismissed my concern and told me to quit being a worry wart.  it was my imagination. 

i also noticed i no longer could balance on a balance beam.  one of my favorite things to do in gym class.

months later i was watching tv.  back in the day when remote controls did not exist and one had to move their body up off the comfy-ness of the chair or couch they were spud-ing upon.   since laziness had enslaved me at that moment i sat through what must have been the 5 or 6 o'clock news.  a picture of the hospital i had my surgery at was shown.  the upcoming story was about patients who were waking up, or dieing during surgery.  the cause - overworked anesthesiologists. 

it did happen to me!!  it really really did! 

i wanted to run upstairs and tell my mom.  that day was not a good day.  most days were not a good day for her.  my mom suffered with bi-polar.  she had her own worries.

years later when my ears started ringing i was diagnosed with menieres disease. 

right after my middle child was born i got very very sick.  soon after the ringing in my ears became worse, my balance became worse and now i had floaties in my right eye and the pupil would dilate to twice the size of that of my left. 

doctor after doctor...... no answers.

  my hearing loss also changed.  i could not understand words at times.  it sounded as though someone were using the dial on a radio to change the station.  only bits and pieces of words were being heard. other times i hear different words than what is being spoken.  tonight with my youngest it was the word science.  i thought i heard france.  he was sitting next to me.   my brain has had to become like a rolodex at times to play fill in the blank.  pieced together with reading body language, facial expressions.  conversations can be exhausting at times.  especially with my speech impaired son. 

most doctors dismissed me as nuts. thinking i had to be making this all up. after going to several and being treated like a nut, and having members of my family think the same i gave up.  i learned to live with whatever this was and rarely spoke of what i was going through.

last year the e.n.t.  (ear, nose and throat) overheard my conversation with my audiologist who was adjusting my hearing aids.  i was telling the audiologist how i had given up on getting help.  i was tired of everyone thinking i was nuts. ( thank goodness my hubby was there for me though through all of this. )  the ent told me she believed me.  my ears and brain were not communicating.  there was a book on this i could read.  it explained the discovery of this condition.  even gave help on how to deal with this condition.

 finally!  finally!  finally!   again.  i was not nuts.  i was not being a worry wart.  it was not  IN  MY  HEAD!

my balance over the last couple of years has been getting increasingly worse.  bouts of vertigo and dizziness causing me to bounce off walls and furniture at home.  at the store the hubs holds on to me when i don't have a death grip on a shopping cart. 

i have challenging days and moments and then i have great days and moments. 

tonight we went to the pharmacy that fills my thyroid prescription.  they also have a medical supply shop. 

tonight i picked out my forearm crutches.

i wanted to run. 

i wanted to run far away.

but i stopped myself.

i want to be able to walk by myself through the mall and not have to worry when the beast called vertigo would attack leaving me stumbling or cause me to fall.  i want to hold hands with my hubby, not hold on to my hubby.

i hate it when people see me stumble and glare at me with disgust assuming i have been drinking.

i did not run.

i puckered up.

i held back the tears.

i hope this is just my menieres.  the hubs and i are both worried about the possibility of m.s. since i seem to have many of the symptoms. 


i will be making lemonade out of the lemons i have been handed. 

just need to find the pitcher and some sugar.

i know they are somewhere near.