What a day (or, the continuation of the soCal ER tour...)

[Guest guest]

Yesterday I had my regular follow-up with my gp. I told her some of

the things going on, and she seemed concerned. My toe is numb, even

with steroids, my right side is weak, I'm losing my hearing,

especially in my left ear, and now I am having little spurts of

blurry whitish vision, as if I'm looking through a fog bank. Also

have strange lower back pain and migraine-like headaches with

nausea. She tried to get a reflex response on both my legs and

arms....nothing. You know you should probably worry when the

doctor's hand starts to shake while writing on your chart. She

asked how old Johanna was. I told her, 20 months, and she went

pale. Lovely. She has ordered a cranial MRI with and without

contrast for next Friday morning. That's cool...I see my rheumy on

Thursday, and should have the test results by then. I was

concerned, but figured what will happen will happen. I AM concerned

that all this " stuff " is starting to progress more and more

quickly...I'm getting the feeling that time may be running out for a

good outcome, here.

I was fine at work today. I was a little wobbly going in, but not

bad, and not so out of the ordinary I took notice. My arms started

getting weak at about 10 or 11, but, again, not severe enough to get

my attention. At about 1, my hands began shaking, and I noticed I

was having trouble typing. By 2, I could no longer type...my

fingers didn't work right, and my arms and legs felt like over-

filled water balloons....wiggly and very very heavy. By 2:15 my

head was shaking, and I was having to enunciate my words carefully

so people could understand. I had my boss drive me to the ER. By

the time we got there, I could barely stand, had very little control

over my arms, and my speech was pretty much gone. I was

thinking " normally " , but as soon as I tried to talk, everything hit

a brick wall, and did NOT want to come out. What did was kind of

garbled and disorganized, and that scared the crap out of me. My

boss (couldn't ask for a better one ) stayed with me until they

brought me back, and called my husband to tell him where I was and

that I was getting worse. I did have a slight fever, and had a lot

of trouble communicating to the nurses and doctor, which was

frustrating. The CT scan was clear (thank god), but my bloodwork is

jacked up, as usual. For the first time, my platelets are low, WBC

is high, and my ESR is slightly higher than my norm at 53. I think

my globulin was high, as well, but I think that may have been the

urine sample? I don't have the labs in front of me, but several

things were off that have not been, before. I want to say SEG

antibodies....those were quite high, and I have no idea what those

are...will have to look.

In any case, I'm still feeling the effects of this " adventure " - my

fingers aren't quite willing to go where I tell them to, my head

still shakes off and on, and I'm walking like one of the dogs in an

early Disney cartoon...all rubber legs.

I'm getting tired of having all these bizarre symptoms and nothing

to call it...this certainly ain't RA! My gp, and I think my

rheumatologist are leaning towards lupus, but don't know for sure.

My gp also wants to rule out MS. I just want to be able to walk

like I'm sober, again.