I had 2 appointments at the Mayo Clinic today. I told Dr. Staab, the doc I speak with via phone regularly, that it was surreal being there again. Last October when I left, I truly thought I would never be back. But 7 months later there we were today.
What a blessing that we didn't have to fly commercial; we left our house at 6am today and pulled back in the driveway at 5:45 this evening. We ate breakfast and lunch and had 2 one-hour doctors appointments - pretty incredible! I know of one doctor in West Monroe that may keep a patient waiting close to 12 hours just to see him (Ok, I'm exaggerating but you get the picture).
So, the long and short of it is that we must continue to try different combinations of medicines to treat my chronic headaches and my dizziness. My doctors feel we have pinpointed what may be a good combination for me so we are going to try and find the right dosage with those 2 meds. Dr. Staab was so wonderful, so reassuring, so knowledgeable. He re-emphasized that I'm not alone; that he's going to continue to work with me until we find the answer and that we have to just "build on the little successes" to figure out what's best for me. We're trying to get my brain to shift out of the "high risk dizziness" mode and the headaches are "throwing gas on the flames"... so we have to treat both, which is more complicated than just treating the dizziness.
Since I continue to have terrible nights - waking up from dreams that I'm riding carnival rides or dizzied up on heavy meds - I may also begin taking something at night to help me sleep.
Finally, I have to make some "lifestyle" changes. Instead of cramming all kinds of activities into "good" days and then crashing from it and/or refraining from any activity on "bad" days, I have to pace myself during the week. Being the OCD planner that I am, this shouldn't be too tough. Although I don't do well with boundaries and saying "no" so Jonathan is also going to help keep me on track! Dr. Staab wants me to plan a week out at a time; one or maybe two activities a day so that I don't overdue the good and that I push a little on the bad.
Last October when we left, Staab said to "go home and make (getting well) your fall/winter project." Today he told me to go home and work on getting my meds right this summer. And so I face another literal "season" of working through a recovery (if that's what I would even call it) period. So, that's the gist of it all. I'm sure this is Greek to many and I probably don't explain it well. Since I've lived it now for a year and a half, it's all lingo that makes sense to me, but I realize it's very confusing!
I'm not really sure where God wants me right now in all of this. I am struggling with that too. I desperately want to write, but I feel empty. And that makes me really sad. Please pray that I will listen and act when and where He wants.
On a light and exciting note, Beau & Lydia turn SEVEN on Thursday. We had their party at Chuck E. Cheese last Saturday and 18 kids showed up. It was WILD! Both docs at Mayo knew that I was serious when I told them I’d made major progress getting back into normal activities. They agreed that any “normal” person would get dizzy in an environment like that and commended me for my bravery!
Thank you, again and as always, for the many continued and faithful prayers. I feel like a broken record but I very sincerely mean thank you.
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