thessalian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thessalian) wrote2009-01-13 09:06 pm
thessalian) wrote2009-01-13 09:06 pm
Entry tags:
The State of the Thess
I've been trying to focus on Other Stuff in the LJ of late, but I think it's probably about time to go into the health stuff.
So I get migraines. These are pretty bad, generally speaking - photophobia, raving pain, the light spots when I close my eyes, yadda yadda yadda. I'm not entirely used to them, but at least I know what they are, what my triggers are and how to deal with them as best as possible. Inconvenient and occasionally vaguely crippling, but at least we're not dealing with an unknown quantity here.
...Well, we weren't, anyway. Recently, however, the symptoms have become a bit more disturbing. Firstly, there are the pinpoint headaches - recently centred in a couple of spots along the right side of my skull. My typing's gone to hell - typos, transpositions, slowed speed generally, for no apparent reason, when the migraines don't do this to me normally. Sometimes I just lose a really simple word that I had a minute ago, and have to grope for it. The spots of light I get when my eyes are closed now make appearances when my eyes are open, my vision swims more and more often of late, and every so often I hear this deep hum in my right ear. There's something not right here, and so yesterday I finally bit the bullet and went to the doctor. I was picky about the doctor, understand - there's only one at my surgery that I can really stomach, even if![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dodgyhoodoo does think he's smug. He's also the most competent GP in the place, and I speak from experience.
I had to wait 'til 5pm to see him, but when I did, I ran through the list of symptoms (mostly the pinpoint headaches, the light spots and the humming) and he immediately went, "Sounds like it's time for a neurologist to have a look". Now, I had expected to have to ask for a neurology referral, because I'd personally like the opinion of a specialist at this point, so I guess it's not a bad thing. However, with the way the NHS is at the moment, generally speaking they will not refer unless they actually have to. Given the 18 weeks thing they've got going here, it's a miracle anyone gets to the hospital at all. So having that conclusion immediately pounced on, when he wasn't referral-happy when I was having the symptomatic hiatus hernia thing the other year, is a little sobering.
I'm dealing with this as best I can, but I have to admit it's not easy. I know the symptoms of tension headaches and migraines - I've had 'em for years now - and these are not them. I know how melodramatic it sounds, but every so often it hits me that seeing lights and hearing noises that aren't actually there is called hallucinating, and that is never a good sign. This stupid entry is taking longer than I thought it would because stringing a sentence together actually takes effort, which is new and disturbing, and worse yet, I'm actually having a vaguely hard time reading. This is on top of the pain. I'm coping reasonably well on the emotional level, but the fact is that while it could be anything, 'anything' that is likely wrong with your brain is rarely an easy fix. So ... yeah, I'm kind of scared, and I think I have the right.
This also means that my hopes for completing Suicide Blonde in time for the ABNA are totally scuppered. I've been off it for over a week because of this and I'm in no state to bash out something that I'd actually be proud to submit. I'll RP or play FFXI or whatever as and when I can but I'm probably not going to be remotely on form when I have to type more than a few macro keys. You can imagine how this thrills me when I can't even find distraction in taking to bed with a book at the moment.
So ... yeah, you may have to deal with hearing me blab about FFXI in here for awhile because I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about the state of my head and I'm really fit for little else right now. (To be honest, I'm not even fit for that, but if I don't find something to do, I'm going to go spare.)
So I get migraines. These are pretty bad, generally speaking - photophobia, raving pain, the light spots when I close my eyes, yadda yadda yadda. I'm not entirely used to them, but at least I know what they are, what my triggers are and how to deal with them as best as possible. Inconvenient and occasionally vaguely crippling, but at least we're not dealing with an unknown quantity here.
...Well, we weren't, anyway. Recently, however, the symptoms have become a bit more disturbing. Firstly, there are the pinpoint headaches - recently centred in a couple of spots along the right side of my skull. My typing's gone to hell - typos, transpositions, slowed speed generally, for no apparent reason, when the migraines don't do this to me normally. Sometimes I just lose a really simple word that I had a minute ago, and have to grope for it. The spots of light I get when my eyes are closed now make appearances when my eyes are open, my vision swims more and more often of late, and every so often I hear this deep hum in my right ear. There's something not right here, and so yesterday I finally bit the bullet and went to the doctor. I was picky about the doctor, understand - there's only one at my surgery that I can really stomach, even if
dodgyhoodoo does think he's smug. He's also the most competent GP in the place, and I speak from experience.I had to wait 'til 5pm to see him, but when I did, I ran through the list of symptoms (mostly the pinpoint headaches, the light spots and the humming) and he immediately went, "Sounds like it's time for a neurologist to have a look". Now, I had expected to have to ask for a neurology referral, because I'd personally like the opinion of a specialist at this point, so I guess it's not a bad thing. However, with the way the NHS is at the moment, generally speaking they will not refer unless they actually have to. Given the 18 weeks thing they've got going here, it's a miracle anyone gets to the hospital at all. So having that conclusion immediately pounced on, when he wasn't referral-happy when I was having the symptomatic hiatus hernia thing the other year, is a little sobering.
I'm dealing with this as best I can, but I have to admit it's not easy. I know the symptoms of tension headaches and migraines - I've had 'em for years now - and these are not them. I know how melodramatic it sounds, but every so often it hits me that seeing lights and hearing noises that aren't actually there is called hallucinating, and that is never a good sign. This stupid entry is taking longer than I thought it would because stringing a sentence together actually takes effort, which is new and disturbing, and worse yet, I'm actually having a vaguely hard time reading. This is on top of the pain. I'm coping reasonably well on the emotional level, but the fact is that while it could be anything, 'anything' that is likely wrong with your brain is rarely an easy fix. So ... yeah, I'm kind of scared, and I think I have the right.
This also means that my hopes for completing Suicide Blonde in time for the ABNA are totally scuppered. I've been off it for over a week because of this and I'm in no state to bash out something that I'd actually be proud to submit. I'll RP or play FFXI or whatever as and when I can but I'm probably not going to be remotely on form when I have to type more than a few macro keys. You can imagine how this thrills me when I can't even find distraction in taking to bed with a book at the moment.
So ... yeah, you may have to deal with hearing me blab about FFXI in here for awhile because I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about the state of my head and I'm really fit for little else right now. (To be honest, I'm not even fit for that, but if I don't find something to do, I'm going to go spare.)