Oh, yeah, NOW I remember

Stuff I haven't mentioned to my neurologist because I've either blanked on it completely (hmm, what does THAT say about my brain?) or because it never occurred to me that it might be relevant:

I got two concussions within a few weeks of one another about five years ago. I was working in I.T., and I was underneath someone's desk dealing with wires and whatnot, and raised my head quickly into a sharp piece of metal on the underside of the desk. I saw stars. Had a ridiculous headache, went to the doctor, she said it was a mild concussion and not to worry. A few weeks later, I'm at the *same* client (where I had dropped a firewall on my foot and broken a toe, once upon a time -- that place was cursed), and I'm picking up something off the server room floor, and again, upon rising, bang my head into the metal handle of the server room door. I fell down, was disoriented and confused, and had blood gushing out of the back of my head. It was a dramatic moment, one I'm surprised that I had completely forgotten. But I had totally blocked it from my mind until my husband reminded me of those two incidents the other night. ("Head trauma? Didn't you get those two concussions a few years back?" "Ohhhhh... riiiight...") Anyway, whatever, people bang their heads all the time. But I just had never mentioned it (even when she specifically asked about head trauma) because I just didn't remember.

Another thing I haven't mentioned is my arthritis attack from last December. One day, I woke up and my right ankle felt sprained. I couldn't put weight on it, and I was literally scanning my brain, thinking "how does a person sprain their ankle in their sleep?" I had only been diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis a few months before, so I wasn't used to thinking about it, but I soon realized it must be an arthritis attack. I mean, it happened first thing in the morning, and seemed to get better throughout the day. Classic arthritis. It was bad -- and I mean, limping, horrible-bad, for exactly one week, and then one day I woke up and it was all better. Never thought anything of it, besides, oh, I guess this is what arthritis is like. Except, as far as I can recall, there wasn't actually any swelling in the ankle. And it didn't just hurt, it felt weak. What if that wasn't arthritis?

And here's the other thing about the ankle incident -- something else happened right before that. I had horrible, wrenching, can't-sleep back pain. It was in a very specific area -- in fact, an area that has bothered me in the past -- at an exact point along my spine. Oh it hurt like the dickens. I was so miserable, I went to my internist, and she ordered an x-ray of that spot on my spine (normal), and then prescribed physical therapy. By the time I went to the physical therapy, I was limping badly because of the ankle thing. I had to explain to the PT that the ankle wasn't the reason I was there, it was this spot on my back. I had one session, then it was Christmas, and by the time Christmas was over, my back felt fine and so did my ankle, so I didn't go back. It never once occurred to me that the back thing and the ankle thing could be related. But now I wonder.

One more thing my neuro doesn't know, and this isn't because I forgot to tell her but because it happened just last week and I haven't seen her since. Last Saturday, my left arm went funny on me. It wasn't just the pins and needles, it was achy and felt weak, and I had a hard time lifting it. It felt super heavy and weird. And I was so tired, I couldn't get off the couch. The next day it was fine, but that was different from the tingling I've been experiencing on a day-to-day basis, and it kinda freaked me out.

The last time I saw my neurologist, I told her that my symptoms were about the same. That was only two weeks ago, but I would now have to say that they are getting worse. I've been kinda in denial about it, because I just don't want to think about it and I don't *want* it to be getting worse. But when my mom said to me the other day, "but you have your symptoms so rarely, right? I mean, what's the likelihood that the 72-hour EEG is even going to pick them up?" I realized that the last I had updated her, it really was infrequent. Days would go by with no symptoms. I had three weeks between the first episode of tingling (which lasted 3 days) and the next. Now it is not just every day, but every hour.

I want it to stop.

So when I go back for my next follow-up, and we hopefully have some information from all of these tests, I'm going to make sure to mention all of these things that I forgot. Maybe it's irrelevant. Maybe it won't help with a diagnosis at all. But dammit, I'm going to do everything I can to get some answers on this. Because when it feels like someone's playing a little game of electro-shock therapy with your voodoo doll, you want to find the little sucker and punch his lights out. For the record, I'm still not having any fun.