To go or not to go??

Okay, I know the title of this blog is a bit cryptic so let me explain. For the last month I've been having some weird medical symptoms again.....yep, again! A few days after Dan's birthday back in July I woke up with my legs practically on fire with an electrical/prickly sensation. I just figured I slept wrong and that it would go away. After the sensation still being there after a week, I made mention of it to my PT. We were hopeful that the "weird" sensation was a good sign that my body had finally decided to wake up from the paralysis caused from the syrinx on my spine and that the decompresssion surgery was finally showing real signs of working. Since I wasn't in pain perse just had this rather annoying sensation in my legs I didn't think too much of it. Yeah, that was until the pain really set in and the tingling wouldn't go away no matter how much medicine I took. Then the other symptoms started. To date, I am headachy almost all the time, nuaseated more frequently, losing my balance, extremely bad memory problems (I had to ask Dan today what my SSN was and almost forgot my birthday!). I went to my regular doctor a couple of weeks ago finally and she ordered the battery of MRI tests. Then I went to the pain specialist for my regular monthly appointment and she was able to pull up the MRI results. To her it looked like nothing major had changed since May so we were hoping it was all due to medication changes (okay that was her thinking and not wanting to face the inevitable I agreed with her). I still didn't think things were going quite right though even though I started back on my meds. so I made an appointment with the neurologist just as a precaution while waiting for the neurosurgeon to get back with me.

Well I stayed home from work last Friday with another bad headache. Saturday was a tad bit better and Sunday was okay, but I still felt very tired which has been the norm for about a week or so now. Yesterday I felt pretty good so we went to the fair for a bit. Then at 4 a.m this morning I started feeling nauseated and did throw up. My headache isn't too bad today, but my mental abilities have gone down the drain today so Dan had me stay home. My appointment with the neurologist was suppose to be tomorrow and I was just trying to hang on until then so I wouldn't have to go to the ER. As luck would have it, the neurologist's office called with a cancellation and felt like I would be the person they would need to see the most (thank you Heavenly Father!) so we rushed right in. Dr. Downs did all the usual neuro exam things and I don't think I passed as well as I had hoped cause she kept repeating a few of them. She reviewed the MRI results and she was a bit more concerned about one thing it said that Dr. Bertrand seemed to miss. Apparently the report said that there may be other things that they couldn't see very well in the imaging that could be contributing to my symptoms and that was because my spinal cord has had so much damage to my mid c-spine that it is hard to see exactly what is going on. There is apparently some more fluid around there than there was in May. So there might be a possability that the syrinx has changed or there is something else going on. Dr. Downs is deferring to Dr. Schmidt at this point. So we are just waiting on him to call back now.

So there might be the option of needing to go back down to Utah yet again for another visit with Dr. Schmidt. The only reason I wanted to be visiting Utah this soon was for Grandma's 90th birthday in October. I was checking on airfare and as luck would have it the tickets wouldn't be too expensive to go in October. I really don't want to be stuck back in the hospital this soon. I am sick of hospitals and sick of being sick all the time. If there really isn't anything more that can be done and this whole vicious cycle is just going to continue with more and more surgery, I really am doubting if it is worth it. I would much rather just learn to live with the symptoms. So that is the question, do I go to Utah now and see what these symptoms are caused from and face the possability of another surgery, or do I just finally say enough is enough and live with the symptoms? I suppose either way I'll be in Utah if not in September we'll be there in October for Grandma's birthday.