Chapter 25: EEG Results And More

Wednesday I had an appointment with my neurologist. I would have updated sooner, but to be honest I came home exhausted then I was balls to the wall (for me, anyway) the next day trying to get done the things they wanted done as well as little necessities like paying my mortgage. Today I was able to put in almost a full 8 hours before I had to pull the plug (I was scheduled for overtime). I am still rather trashed so I am reusing a modified summary of the doctor’s appointment that I emailed a friend. I have to work tomorrow and I just don’t have the ass to type it again. So here it is:

The docs actually got off their ass and did some work this time. I don’t know if my complaining to the head of the entire neurology dept did anything, but they were digging deep this time around. The doctor even moved an appointment with another client to another doctor to spend more time with me.

They did more research into my records and ran more tests

Asked my wife and I much more detailed questions about symptoms, pain levels, triggers, and degradation of abilities, changes in my demeanor.

My EEG came back clean I am not suffering from seizures caused by any form of neural activity.

From what they can tell based on my symptoms is that I have been under such a high level of pain for so long that the pain along with the chaos that the illness has created in my life has created depression and a deep seated anxiety that expresses as the shaking. So anything that increases my migraine symptom’s pain increases the anxiety which in turn sets off the shakes so I meltdown. They have prescribed some new meds and taken some others away and have referred me to an actual Psychiatrist.

They said I can have my CBD back they only ask that I allow the new med to establish a symptom baseline first so we can tell the difference between the effects of the two which is reasonable.

They are referring me to a speech therapist as my speech is getting worse on a day to day basis. I was getting to the point that I was not wanting to even make the effort to speak at times.

They did write a doctor’s note for the days I exceeded FMLA even though they will not adjust the FMLA.

They advised I find work that does not involve speech. I spoke with my HR dept and they are trying to accommodate me.

The doctors are rethinking the Aphasia diagnosis because I can read and write but I can not at this time write creatively and can not read sentences out loud with ease if at all. I still have the cognitive issues. ect.

So the short form is the docs actually did their job for once. I have a complex form of migraine that is extremely painful. I also have some other neurological issues that interfere with memory and language processing The pain has given me emotional issues. Unless I stroke out I am in no danger of dying. Apparently, managing my medication itself and the pain has more to do with losing cognitive ability than the illness itself.

So there we have my current situation. To say I am relieved is an understatement. I’m still trying to ingest the ramifications of this. From what they’re saying I can work my way up to a somewhat normal life. They promised they’re going to work on fixing my sweat gland problem before it gets hot so I won’t be trapped like I was last summer.

To know my brain isn’t frying itself 1 to 3 times per day has me over the moon. It’s much better to be mental. Mental can be helped with various therapies. When the wetware goes you’re fucked. I lost three people in about two years to brain bleeds. One of the 3 was 23 the other two were elderly. The 23 year old woke up with a bad headache. A couple of days later was their funeral. No head injury, no nothing. Just dead.

The speech and cognitive thing is a done deal. There’s no take backs on that. BUT, Apparently, with the right pain management and right management of the medicines I’m taking. I can have better cognitive functioning than I do now. The pain itself interferes with my ability to think as do the medicines. The CBD helped with that part. I won’t see 100% but I might get high 80’s or low 90’s which is better than I have on average and much better than I have sometimes.

As far as speech They think therapy will help but It won’t fix me. I’ll always have some issues. So there you go.