::::knockonwood:::: I rarely ever get a cold or the stomach flu. I run from a cold like it is the black plague. If people at work come to work sick I send them home. I really try to eat healthy, get plenty of rest, take my vitamins and keep myself exposed to enough germs to keep those nasty bugs away. I ride on Bart on a daily basis, so I am exposed to TONS of germs.
I seem to be attracting the "rare" things. January I was diagnosed with Medullary Thyroid Cancer. I thought there was just one type of thyroid cancer and it was the cancer to get. If you follow my blog I have wrote a lot on MTC and there is NO type of cancer to get period. I haven't been feeling right for a little while. I have been feeling off. Very tired, sluggish, no energy and the list continues on. I haven't felt right since surgery. I chalk it up to my thyroid being gone and I am just a hot mess. It has been very frustrating me because I am 32 not 92. I shouldn't be so run down all the time.
I had taken Monday, October 21 off work. I had done a lot of cooking in the afternoon, so I was on my feet for hours. When I went to bed Monday night my feet really hurt. I just figured it was from being on the tile floor for hours. Tuesday I woke up to my feet still hurting and a little tingly. As the day went on my feet were freezing, tingly, getting a little numb. By Wednesday my feet were completely numb, legs were tingly and I was loosing feeling around my waist. It was the strangest feeling. I had worn some slipper socks on Monday with little rubber grippers. I figured those gripper things pushed into my feet, cut some nerve off or my back had a pinched nerve.
Thursday I called the chiropractor for an appointment, but I couldn't make it before they closed. By the time I got home Thursday night I told Art I couldn't feel my legs. I planned to work from home on Friday to see a doctor. Art was cooking in the kitchen and he smacked me with a spatula. He asked can you feel that? I couldn't feel it at all, but I had a big red welt on my leg. My legs almost felt like they had fallen asleep or they were frost bit. A little later that evening I started to wonder if my calcium was low which was causing the problems in my feet. I called Kaiser to set up an appointment for Friday. The person answering the phone put me right through to a nurse when she heard I was feeling numb, the nurse talked to the doctor and told me to come to the ER right away. I told them it was necessary that I just needed to see a doctor the next day. Oh boy was I wrong.
Off we went to the ER where I was admitted. The doctor was very concerned I had Transverse Myelitis. I had a lot of the symptoms and they would be doing an MRI the next day. They started me on steroids immediately and monitored me very closely. They were concerned it could spread to my lungs which would cause me to stop breathing. I barely got any sleep Thursday night. I had told Art to go home around midnight because someone should sleep, so one of us had a clear head the next day. I was so tired I remember barely waking up in the middle of the night to a nurse taking my blood pressure, asking me to open my mouth to take my temperature and rolling back over to sleep. The next morning the neurologist came in to meet with me just as I was waking up. He was pretty convinced that I had TM. He had ordered a MRI of my spine and brain.
Steroids are NOT my friend. Those things got me sooooo hyped up I became a lunatic. I was so hyper, anxious, mean that I barely made it through the MRI. I actually pressed the button to see when they would be done because I thought I was going to hyperventilate. Luckily there was only 5 minutes left, so I sucked it up. The MRI showed I have TM. I have had 3 steroid treatments. The neurologist will be monitoring my progresses closely to make sure the feeling comes back into my body. Currently I am still numb. I still can't feel anything from the waist down. I am thinking I might stop trying to avoid the common cold. I know my family could handle it a whole lot better if I started to get colds instead of these random other issues.
Thankfully my mom was able to come take care of me for the next few weeks. I am so grateful she is here. I don't think there will ever be a time when I will be too old for my mom not to take care of me when I am sick. No one can replace a mom!
I have declared myself a rare gem! In 20 years I am going to look back on this time remembering how much stronger it has made me. I also want to remember all the funny stories. While I was in the ER I kept asking for coffee. They refused to give me coffee. I asked Art to smuggle some in to me and he refused. He insisted on following the rules. That just made me even madder! Roid Rage! Finally I convinced one nurse to give me one small cup of coffee. I told him he was my very favorite. I will not disclose his name because I don't want him to get in trouble. lol Later Friday afternoon a new nurse came on and asked where did you get coffee? I said listen I finally talked someone down after 12 hours of begging for coffee. He just cracked up laughing. He said I can see why they gave you coffee finally.
I am off to continue recovering. I am happy to be home with a FULL pot of coffee. =)
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