Tag: diagnosis cha cha

Saddiversary Part the Fourth

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Four years ago, I was told I was going to die.

Everyone dies. To know the mechanism of your demise, though, is a terrible and powerful thing. Oh, certainly, something else might kill me before ALS squeezes the breath from my body, but there is now a subtitle to my timeline, a definite path. The future is a language tainted with exceptions and qualifications.

I took the news and buried it deep in my chest that day, taking the bus home alone. I don’t remember what I was thinking. I remember tripping over a curb walking home from the bus stop. I remember wincing internally, absolutely certain that was going to be the catalyst for the meltdown to come. It wasn’t. I picked myself up, and thought to myself, “There will surely be much more of that.” I got home, looked around the house I had just bought, the house I would no longer get to keep, and wondered how the ever loving fuck I was going to break it to everyone.

My life is a timeline of things lost, now, a perverse sort of baby book in reverse. Vashti’s last unaided steps. Vashti’s last time putting on makeup one-handed. Vashti’s last time dressing up all by herself. Vashti’s last time feeding herself. Vashti’s last words. Vashti’s last breath, someday.

For now, I can still speak, and breathe, and feed myself mostly. I need help cutting food these days, a job my friends do graciously. It’s very sweet, even. Walking with a walker is still possible, but exhausting, and it feels more precarious than ever. I stay in the wheelchair when I can. I have the motorized one now, but no way to transport it (but I’m working on that!). My hands are just about useless; I type with two fingers that have very little strength left in them. I need two hands to lift a soda can to my lips. I bought a hand strap yesterday to put eating utensils in because I’m almost unable to grip them. Bladder control is almost completely a thing of the past.

But you know what? Fuck this disease. It doesn’t own me. I have to make allowances for its dumb ass, but it’s not who I am. I am still going to eat at all the fancy places. I am still hanging out with my friends. I am still working. In one week, I will have another birthday. I am still planning for a future, even if that future has heavy caveats.

Because fuck that shit.

Even four years later. Even knowing what it’s going to take from me. Even though it would seriously be so much easier to end it now, before it gets REALLY hard. Fuck that shit.

My saddiversary has come around once again, and it’s one more year I can give this disease the middle finger. It doesn’t fucking own me. Even after I’m a non-speaking, drooly, pees-my-pants useless lump of meat, it won’t own me. Even if I decide to take my own life before it gets that far, it doesn’t win.

One more year down. One more point for me.

Fuck yeah.

This Was Spinal Tap

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This Was Spinal Tap

So yeah! Part of my diagnosis cha-cha was getting a spinal tap – lumbar puncture if ya wanna be all techyface about it. It was primarily to eliminate the possibility that I had MS. Of all of the testing and poking and everything, this was the only procedure that I had any real nervousness about. I got some practical advice from t3h J03 who had been through one already, which helped, but I was kinda braced for it to be awful. I’d seen a lot of episodes of House, where they tell the patient to curl up on their side and brace themselves because… *dramatic sympathetic look* …it was going to hurt. I knew it wouldn’t be NEARLY as bad as House makes it look; I wasn’t afraid of the pain, but I had concerns about the possible side effects or complications and just kind of freaked out in general because OHMY GOD THEY ARE GOING TO SHOVE A NEEDLE IN! MY! SPIIIIIIINE!!! YOU HAVE A FINITE AMOUNT OF SPINAL FLUID AND IT COULD ALL LEAK OUT EVERYWHERE!! I COULD DIE!

Obviously I did not die.

It was actually a piece of cake. I’ve honestly had routine blood draws more painful. I wanted to post about it, for the curious, and also to reassure anyone who might need one. THEY ARE LEGIT NOT A BIG DEAL. Technology is amazing, and it’s not nearly as archaic as the tv shows make it to be, and it seriously did not really even hurt. Here’s how it all went down:

I was crazy early, and they also had some emergencies come through so they actually took me back 45 minutes late. They were playing The View on the little waiting room TV, which cemented my hatred of daytime television. So many screeching women talking about shit that doesn’t matter. When you have the former World’s Fattest Man on your show to talk about his amazing weight loss story and his reentry into society, and his girlfriend joins the panel, IT IS VERY RUDE TO ASK ABOUT THE MECHANICS OF THEIR SEX LIFE. Specially as he was so, so very British. I could FEEL the discomfort off of the television.  UGH HOW DO PEOPLE WATCH TELEVISION.

So I was very happy to be taken back!

I changed out of my clothes into pants and gown big enough to swim in. My tech apologized that she did not have smaller pants, just do the best I could. I could have fit in them three times over. We went into the radiology room, where I had a bit of blood drawn for something or other, and I literally did not feel it. I watched him do it and everything, and commented on his magic touch. Blood draws aren’t particularly painful or anything, but it was weird to feel nothing at all. 

The tech explained everything that was going to happen, step by step. Here is this big-ass table, upon which you will lie as still as you can, we will use live x-ray to see exactly where we are going, and if you feel any discomfort at all please tell us. The radiologist came in and did the same, and I signed the consent forms and crawled up on to the table. They had me lay flat on my stomach, and the tech was all “I’m just gonna pull these down a bit,” meaning the pants, and promptly exposed my entire ass to the room. THANKS LADY. HI HAVE THAT. They chatted amicably while they worked, about skiing vacations and everything while he washed my back down with iodine which I swear to GOD they store in the freezer. I was warned it was going to be cold but HOLY CRAP KIDS. That, I think, was the worst part of the whole ordeal, and really it was nothing. He marked the spot he wanted, and jabbed lidocaine under my skin. That pricked a little, but no big deal. He was watching himself work under the x-ray monitor to guide the needle through. I felt it push in, which was a weird jolt of pressure, and kept waiting for the pain, which never came. He pulled out a vial of maybe like, a tablespoon of fluid, and then three more vials of like a half teaspoon each. One of them would be tested for MS, and I’m not sure what other battery of tests were done. It was weird to see these vials of clear fluid and think that your brain is floating in that stuff. 

And then we were done. I think I was in that room for twenty minutes, most of which was waiting for the doctor to show up. Maybe ten minutes on the table, tops. I was wheeled on a gurney to a recovery room, where I had to lay for twenty five minutes or so to make sure my spine wasn’t going to leak out everywhere. They gave me a sammich to eat while hanging out. I kinda expected to feel…something. But I was totally fine. No headache, no nausea, no dizziness, nothing. So I got dressed and we got out of there. Danielle hung out with me that afternoon to keep an eye on me, but I think she was a little surprised at how little I needed tending to; she even made a comment as she left about feeling useless. I was perfectly fine, and able to get around okay.  The only result from the tap was eventually I got a bit of soreness across my lower back, which just felt like I was sitting too long, and the rare side effect of a spinal headache. I had actually resigned myself to getting a spinal headache, since headaches and I have such a close relationship, but most people don’t. Spinal headaches are strange; if you stand up, it hurts, but reclined in bed you feel perfectly fine.  I was able to go back to work quickly, but I had to kick my feet up on the desk and recline for most of the day. It’s not a conducive posture to actually getting much work done.

All in all, I think it felt a bit anticlimactic, if anything. I was geared up for ….something, and it was totally nothing. No big deal. At all.

So now you know.