Tuesday, April 16, 2013

So much has been going on!

Well you all should be happy to know that I am still alive despite my lack of blogging. I really have no good excuse besides the fact that things have been kinda tough, in my personal life, as well as physically. In particular, I was in the hospital a little over a month ago and then had to move the week after getting out. So it has been a little crazy since the new year.

I went to the hospital because of weakness, numbness, and pain mostly on my left side. I had to stay there for three days and get the dreaded steroids pumped into me. Surprisingly I didn't end up with too bad of chipmunk cheeks this time. I was happy to be out when they finally let me go and finish up my treatments from home. But home wasn't going to be home for long, so I had to start packing all of our things to move after just being out of the hospital. I made it through the packing and now that we are at our new house it feels really good to be here. The best part about the new house is that there are NO STAIRS!! That makes me really happy!

Since moving my time has been full of appointments to keep me busy. I have been going to physical therapy a few times a week.The PT actually does seem to be helping, even though it has been painful at times, but no pain no gain, right? I also had an evaluation last week for speech therapy. It's interesting because I really didn't know exactly what a speech therapist does. They are going to help me with cognitive things, like memory, attention span, and also word recall. I am really excited about that because I would like to go back to school and I'm hoping she can help prepare me for it. She is also going to be helping me with swallowing. Sometimes when I'm eating it feels like food gets stuck, which is really scary. So that should be good. I also have an evaluation this week for occupational therapy, so we will see how that goes. I think speech therapy will be my favorite though because it only involves exercising my brain and my mouth. :)

I have also started seeing a new neurologist. It has been so difficult to find a decent neurologist around here. I really like him and feel like he actually listens to me, which is very important. At my age I think it is hard for doctors to take me seriously. So it is really important that I find a good doctor that I can communicate well with. I saw him yesterday and he thinks that I may also have fibromyalgia. There isn't really a test or anything to diagnosis it so I guess I will never really know. There are quite a few people who do have both MS and fibromyalgia though according to my doctor. Add it to the list right? But really that could explain part of the pain that I am in all the time.

Besides all of the physical stuff, emotionally I have been kind of on a roller coaster. The doctors were switching my antidepressants around so much it was not making me feel well at all. Now though I think the medication that I'm taking is helping. I still have my days, but I think that is just to be expected with this disease. Honestly I have been more concerned about the anxiety that I have been feeling. It's been going on for a few months now. I'm always worrying about something and sometimes I worry myself so much that I have panic attacks where my heart races like crazy! It is really scary. I am trying to learn ways to calm myself down. I really need to learn how to just let things go and focus on things that I can change. Optimism is just really hard for me at this time, but i promise I am working on it!

I plan on updating more often so check back and see what I'm up to!