The Open Matt Project

Fin

And so an era passes. I wish them the best.

CT Fancy

Sometime yesterday, after a fairly short impromptu phone support session, I realized that going to work next week might not be an option. That pretty rapidly sped what's left of my logical ability to the conclusion that it was time to get serious, and fast.

Lily drove me to Alta Bates ER, where I checked myself in under "Dizzy/nausea" - a claim that would dog me the rest of my stay there. Tip for the rest of you: when you check into the ER, give them the symptom you want them asking about when you fill out the entry form.

Skipping the blood sample, pulse, and assorted new-patient requirements and getting to the good stuff, I got an EKG and a CAT (or CT) scan.

This is exactly what it looked like, except there were no black people and I wasn't an infant:

Being inside that machine felt a lot like being a slab of meat in the slicer at the deli. Lights circle your head and you hear a very sci-fi 'whurrrrwhuurrrrwhurrr' and then the whole bed slides in an inch or so, and it repeats. I had some difficulty not laughing (you're not supposed to move) because of how much like a video game it was.

When the scan was over, the large and amusingly casual fellow running the machine left the room. Since I was compeltely lost, as usual, I decided to follow him. After following him for a while I decided to tell him that I was there. "I'm following you, you know," I said. He looked at me and replied, "that's good, because I'm not following you."

Immediately I wondered if he meant that he couldn't understand me.

"There's a play on words in there somewhere," I said, and he looked at me with a stare I assume one can only develop from long hours behind a brain-scan machine.

Hours later, the doc came in and let me know what's what. The good news was that apparently there were no obvious brain tumors or brain swelling - so not much need to worry about encephilitis, cancer, or trauma. These were some of the things I thought more likely, so I suppose that was good news. The bad news is that they don't know what's wrong with me.

Well, at least someone is on the same page as me. That's actually one of the best things I can say right now. I've been referred to a neurologist (or something) and I'll be getting an MRI scan sometime this coming week. That should give them a better look at what's going on inside my head.

I'm definitely getting pictures.

Since I'm increasingly directing people here to find out what's what with me, I might as well say here that I appreciate the voices of concern, even if I can't hear them or respond very well. I'm not well, but I'm taking care of it. Thanks.

Pings and Needles

My visit to the acupuncturist yesterday was one of the weirder things I've done. Lily drove me over, with Joe, to the little Chinese (I think Chinese...) man in an office that reminded me half of a maternity ward and half of a *cough* "massage parlor". It was incredibly comfortable and relaxing. Some kind of ambient asian new-age music played everywhere you went, and the whole place smelled clean. By clean I don't mean hospital clean, but rather the kind of clean you get in a beach house - sand, wind, salt, and nothing overtly human.

The man was small, and obviously very into what he does. He told me to go lay down in the examination room, which I did. A cusioned, papered table/bed, my first thought was it was more comfortable than my own bed. There were pressure-point charts on the wall, and pleasant pictures of nothing I can remember. That soothing bamboo and flute music was the only sound.

He came in and asked to see my tongue. Ignoring the inate resistance I had of being rude, I stuck it out and he asked if Joe could come in and take a look as well. Joe is a student of his, so this made sense to me, or at least as much sense as anything else.

So he came in and the little man began to quietly machinegun comments about the markings on my tongue. He spoke of how I drink too much coffee and you can see how I chew on my tongue and I probably have post-nasal drip from the looks of the back of it, and I have too much fire in the brain and not enough in the belly and the flow of energy is locked in my head so it's going to make me spend too much time thinking and not enough time acting and relaxing, relaxing being more important than anything else, and on and on.

I can tell you that the sound of his voice was infinitely more relaxing to me than anything he was saying. Comprehension not being my strong suit right now, when he said something about relaxing being important I was relieved and happy to oblige by unfocusing on his words and just letting the pleasant sounds of his voice waft over me. It's possible I fell asleep for a bit while he was talking.

Then he got out some needles, which thankfully I didn't see, and popped them into my ankles and my forehead - one for each spot. I didn't feel a thing. He said something about relaxing and "mind like sky" and off I went into a nice, relaxing rest. I fell asleep for a while, which apparently is good, and after a long while he came back and popped them out and told me to sit up and breathe deeply, to get my brain activated again.

I noticed a few things immediately. One, I was not better. The sense that I have, where I can feel something wrong in my head, was still there. Two, I felt a LOT better. I wasn't nearly as imbalanced, I felt much more calm and happy. Three, I was very, very hungry. So we went off to get food.

Status Checked

(For the attention-span limited, like myself, there are Cliff's Notes at the end of the post - just skip down.)

Tommorow I have an appointment to see Joe's acupuncture guy. I'm looking forward to that like I'm looking forward to having someone turn my face into a pincusion. Oh wait.

I think if things don't get better for me by end-of-week I'm going to bite the bullet and just go hog wild with the tests. Neurologist time. I am not certain I can work as I am currently, and things seem to be getting worse. Seem being the ever-more key word.

Although it's good that there are so many people who want to check in with me, take this post as a clear message that it actually is very difficult and unpleasant for me to talk with people right now. In some ways it's like being in a foreign country. You can understand the general meaning of people (especially with gestures) and you can make your intentions known, but it takes a lot of effort to communicate. Currently, too much. That's the mechanical aspect.

The emotional aspect is that I can't feel connections with anyone right now. I used to be very empathic and now I'm generally only semi-aware of myself. This doesn't mean I don't remember how I used to feel, quite the contrary, it means that I know how I'm supposed to feel and cannot feel it. Phantom feeling, I guess. It's a horrible thing to lose an emotional connection with someone - much less everyone at once.

Also, I wanted to try (again) to convey that although my mental faculties are still here for single-aspect things like writing, or talking to one person, it is not without cost. With writing I get a LOT more time to find the words I want to use, and it doesn't require my ... diminished mental skills as much. It's still quite difficult, but infinitely easier than talking on the phone.

Aside from the mental, I'm in fine health. The daily routine is just that. I shower, I eat, I'm still able to move about and play Warcraft (although now it's more like watching it, since my attention span precludes my ability to strategise). I don't have a headache and more or less I'm sleeping fine. I'm ok, aside from the nightmare I'm in.

Cliff's Notes: Please don't call me. Write me email if you want to communicate. It's not you, it's me. I'm handling it.

Snuffed Out

Monday. Next Monday is my appointment, to be exact. It seems hearing exams are all the rage this week and I won't be able to kill that hour until next week. No matter, presumably it won't be any worse than last week.

It started two weeks ago. Just a spot of lightheaded dizziness. I figured as usual it was dehydration or low blood-sugar. Not so, however, as it persisted for the entire day. The next day was the same, then the rest of the week. My world on wheels, rolling and pitching, suddenly became a lot less trustworthy. Maybe it was nutrition, or something I ate, or possibly the bug I thought flew in my ear years ago; I went through as many theories as time and energy allowed.

Last week the burden of conjecture was lifted from me. New layers of affliction had arrived, namely disorientation, memory-loss, and my old friend hallucinations. I lost my ability to think, to imagine, and so to communicate. I couldn't feel or sympathize, reason or remember. Late in the week I found words to describe how it felt. It felt like I was being snuffed out. Like a cup over a candle, my world was being slowly dimmed and silenced. It was, and is, like dying.

There was a test I could use, to see whether or not I was getting better or worse. I'd think about Denali and see if anything happened. I never thought it would be possible, but even she (like everything else) has become a ghost in amber, unreachable for thought or feeling. My perspective has shrunk to what is immediately in front of me. My world is within a stones throw now, and although I remember some of what it was like before the last two weeks, I am losing that as I write this.

So I saw a doctor this morning. He, like most people, thought it might be stress. I'm only going to say it once, here, and not mention it again. It's not stress. He looked in my ears, said it was all clear and clean there. My blood pressure and temperature were taken - perfectly normal there as well. It seemed like maybe an MRI would be useful, but expensive. No health insurance = very expensive for me. And so, referral to an ear specialist for a hearing exam - seven days from now.

If seven days was enough time to make the world, I wonder if it's enough time for me to lose it?