My MRI...I Did It!!!

Had my repeat MRI this morning. I'm SO proud of myself!!! I made it through the entire thing without freaking out one time!!!

I was all ready to take someone's advice to ward off the clausterphobia and had a great CD picked out to take with me to listen to. In true ME fashion, what do I do? That's right...I left it laying on the counter at home.

I thought to myself I CAN DO THIS! So I marched myself right into that room, laid down on the table, squeezed my eyes shut, and started counting to 30 - about 900,000 times! Why 30? Not sure, but it worked. (Heck...think I'll be counting to 30 in my sleep tonight!)

There was one point at the beginning where I had to open my eyes because they were starting to hurt from being squeezed shut so tightly, and I almost started freaking out, but I quickly gathered my composure, took some deep breaths and started counting again.

After about 45 minutes, they brought me out, put the contrast dye into my vein and shoved me back in. I was surprised when they only did about 5 more minutes worth of scans after they put the dye in. I guess I thought that they would do the whole 15-20 minute series again after contrast was given. Oh well...it's not like I WANTED to be in there for another 15-20 minutes anyhow. Sheesh!

The only problem I had was that my whole body started twitching and jerking everywhere like I do anytime I lay down to relax. The lady kept telling me through the microphone that the scans were showing movement and that I HAD to be very still. I couldn't be still no matter how hard I tried, and actually it would get worse the more I concentrated on trying to stop it. I felt like yelling back at her - "HEY! You come try it! It's not exactly a walk in the park!!"

It's over...it's done. Now I just pray to GOD that I'll be able to get some answers when I go back to the Neurologist next Thursday...and that I won't have to do another MRI again for a loooonnnnggg, looonnnggg time!

Good Times, Sad Times, Fun Times, Bad Times...

Wow! Have you ever just leafed through some of the blogs on Blogger? S-T-R-A-N-G-E!!!! Of course, someone coming upon my blog might think BOOOORRRRRIIIINNNNGGG, but I digress. HA!

First of all, my heart and prayers go out to my best friends, Tabitha and Tammy, and the rest of their family. They lost their grandmother - a very wonderful, beautiful, sweet woman - very unexpectedly on Sunday. I have been friends with them since 7th grade, and this loss is certainly felt in my heart as well. Tabitha and Tammy have had a rough year or so, and I just wanted to send all of my love to them today and let them know that I'm thinking of them.

In other news...of course, my repeat MRI is tomorrow. My goal is to work more after the test, so I'm going to ATTEMPT to not take any Valium. The results of that may just be disasterous - I'm just SOOOOOOOOO clausterphobic! My follow-up appointment will be on March 2nd - that's when I'll learn my fate...I mean, find out what the results are. If there are lesions found, I imagine my next step will be a Spinal Tap. If no lesions are found, I'm back at square one. This is one of those bittersweet things in life because while I do not WANT anything to be wrong with me, I know that there is, and so I only want answers and help now. It's not a matter of not wanting lesions to be found...it's a matter of wanting SOMETHING - ANYTHING to be found so that I can get treatment to feel better once and for all. Does that make any sense whatsoever?

In funny news, Mackenzie got new shoes. Why is this funny? Because she wants to wear them 24 hours a day! The first thing she does in the morning is get a bottle of milk. The second thing she does is run over and grab her shoes for us to put them on her. As soon as you put them on her, she starts doing this stomping kind of dance with her feet, and she just stares at her shoes. She loves them! I've never seen anything like it. Silly kid!

Maddie has been acting more and more grown up lately. She really cracks me up. On Saturday, I made her a hotdog and gave her some Chex Mix with it. She kept calling me "server girl" like I was her waitress. Anyway, I sat down across from her, and she looks at me seriously and says, "So tell me about yourself." I - CRACKED - UP. I made up some story about how I've been working too many hours on my feet, etc., and then I asked her to tell me about herself. She told me that she has lots of kids (I'm laughing...). I asked her if she had boys or girls and she says that she has 3 boys and 4 girls. (I'm laughing harder...) I asked her what their names were...she says, "Monna, Gonna, Connie, Ganafranamanga..." I didn't even hear the boys names because by this point, I had tears running down my face, I was laughing so hard. She was completely serious, too!

So later, I told her to tell her Daddy how many kids she had, and she said, "3 girls and 3 boys." I said, "Wait! You lost a girl somewhere along the way." She replies, "Oh, that was Angie...she fell in a hole."

That is my 3 year old, folks...no dull moments around my house! : )

Finally!!!!!!

Don't have but a minute - getting ready for a tax appointment, but I finally got my MRI date after 5 weeks and numerous, numerous phone calls:

Next Wednesday, February 22nd at 10:45 am!!

MRI of the brain and cervical spine with and without contrast...

I don't like to tell people what to pray for, but if you are so inclined, please pray very hard not that nothing is found on the MRI, but rather that ANSWERS will be able to be apparent once and for all! I'm desperate here!

Thank you for all of your love and support...I will update as things progress.

Still No News...

Nope...Nothing...Nada...

Apparently the people at this office have NO organizational skills at all - not that I do either. HA! Someone from the Neurologist's office called me on Friday just to tell me that someone would be calling me on Monday. How about that for fancy?? That had me laughing pretty good, I must say. (And of course, no one ever called yesterday...or today!)

I'm seriously considering calling and leaving a message for Dr. Fee to let him know that we're going on FIVE WEEKS that I've been waiting for an answer. Surely he doesn't know...does he? Surely he would be angry about the fact that they are being so slow about it all...right?

So hopefully I'll have a date to report soon...not holding my breath, though.

In the meantime, the fatigue has wore me down to the core. It seems to get worse and worse every day - almost back to the point of falling asleep wherever I am. I'm sure it doesn't help that Mackenzie has been waking up during the night for whatever reason. She's normally a PERFECT sleeper, but lately, she's been waking up SCREAMING. Guess maybe it's a new tooth or something like that...who knows!

That's about all that's going on with me...just been getting tax things together left and right, and the rest of this week is going to be full of tax appointments for me. Ahhhhh....I hate tax season! Guess what I'm thinking of getting into, though....HOME STAGING!! Have you ever watched either "Design to Sell" on HGTV or "Sell This House" on A&E? These are my absolute favorite shows, and I really, really want to get into doing something like that! I found a course that I can take to get into...I am really thinking about doing it. We'll see...

Oh, and RHONDA - if you're reading...I'll be waiting for ya in June, girl!!! WOOHOO!!!

I Met Adrianne (and other daily ramblings...)

I've been SOOOOOOO busy lately. Meetings, deadlines, organizing, taxes, etc... Bleh, bleh, bleh!

I got to take a little break out of everything last night, though. My buddy, Adrianne, from the original online buddy group that I've been a member of for 4+ years, is in Lexington for a conference. The girls and I met up with her last night...we went to the mall to eat dinner and shop. It was REALLY nice to get to meet her. She is just as sweet and wonderful in person as she is on the board.

Of course, my children were HEINOUS acting the entire time. Maddie took quite a liking to her, though, and talked about her all night before she went to bed last night. Mackenzie did her usual song and dance - screaming at the top of her lungs every 5 seconds. Anyway, we had a fabulous time, and I hope that we get to meet again one day in the future.

The sweetest part of the night, though, was when Maddie told Adrianne, "I'm sorry I didn't get to play with your little boys," talking about her little ones, Logan and Cole, who had to stay behind in Texas. So sweet!

In the "health" department - still no word on the MRI date, and at this point, I don't think I could care any less. This whole waiting with baited breath thing is getting OLD - FAST! I'm tired of constantly questioning myself and wondering what the deal is. I'm tired of dealing with doctors and doctors' offices and health insurance and just everything in general! Why can't I just feel better and not to have to worry about any of it at all!?!

I think I've mentioned this before, but my arms have been "falling asleep" during the night no matter what position I sleep in. It actually wakes me up in the middle of the night, especially if I try to turn over or something...I can't even lift myself up, my arms are SO incredibly weak. This is getting worse and worse and worse all of the time, and it's fairly frightening.

Whenever Maddie comes into our room in the middle of the night, it takes a good couple of minutes for me to be able to help her up onto the bed. Even after that, they remain so weak and almost unusable...I don't know...

OK...that's it for now, I guess. Gotta get lots of things done this afternoon....

So I thought I would share pictures of my bedroom...I'm kind of bummed because you can't really see much of the color on the walls. It's actually a light olive green color, and it's beautiful...wish these pictures showed it more. Oh well!

This is a picture taken standing by the bedroom door looking in. We are planning to put up a decorative curtain rod over the big window and then wrap sheer curtains around it (you know, like you see on HGTV - HA!), and then we are going to add some decorative pictures/paintings on the walls.

This is standing from the opposite side of the room. Please disregard my shabby bed-making skills. Same thing here...add a curtain rod with sheers on the window and add some pictures to the walls.

This is just my favorite corner of the room. The chair sits to the right of this picture (aka, the seating area). The picture on the wall is the Mother/Daughter picture I had taken with Maddie in white gowns when she was 3 months old.

In other news...I talked to my Neurologist's office yesterday. Still no word on the date for the MRI. The lady who does the referrals said that she cannot make an appointment until she has the notes for my file and that the dictation office is "very backed up." GRRRRRRR..... She said that she *should* be able to call me by the end of this week with the date. Then again, they told me that it would be 7 to 14 days after my appointment, and it's now day #18. Ahhh...the joys of University medicine!