So I returned to work. I returned with a funny walk. The tingling in my right calf and now toes, got worse.
Stairs weren't a struggle, but it was the first time where I really valued a hand rail. I needed to use it for going both up and down. I wasn't too worried about how I looked. I just thought that people would assume I had some kind of sporting injury - pft! Those people don't know me. Sascha and sport? No.
I continued going to the gym. Without going into too much detail about my exercise regime, my fave machines were the treadmill (no running though) and bike. After a while on the treadmill, I could feel my left foot start to feel like my right. Tingles, pins and needles. It felt uncomfortable more than painful. Then my stupido left knee started to kind of flop? Flop. Yes. It got weak. I wasn't about to fall into a heap, but it was enough to make me decide to head to the bike earlier than I normally would. I got on the bike and the knee coped and I put up with the tingles. But then I got off and I really had trouble walking.
After a few minutes, it was all good again and my walking went back to just being uncomfortable, no longer uncomfortable and yukky. I now have learnt that this happens when you have MS. Exercise can exacerbate symptoms temporarily, but there is no further damage being done. But exercise is highly recommended.
By now, it was time to visit the quack. Quack? I never use that word. It was time to see a doctor. I was willing to see anyone. So I saw this dude. I told him about everything that had been happening. I told him I had been on 4 domestic flights over a two week period. DVT? The 'advice', and I use that term very loosely, was to head to emergency at the hospital and get this blood test to find out if I was likely to have a blood clot somewhere. Great. What a waste of time. For not just me (an hour and a bit waiting - not too bad?), but hello, in emergency for a blood test? C'mon! He also sent me to get an ultrasound on my right leg.
When it was my turn in emergency, the doc on duty told me that if the blood test comes back negative it's pretty good (obviously) and accurate. But if it comes back positive, it's not exactly reliable. Um right. It came back negative. The ultra sound also came back negative.
I went to the gym a few times before I started to do what we have all done...attempt to self-diagnose. Damn you google and your vast amounts of information!
Stroke. I am going to have a stroke. Even a colleague who had a stroke not long ago said he felt tingling before his stroke. Shit. I am 29 and I am going to have a stroke. But the tests? They came back negative and the ultrasound too. No Sascha. Stop it. You have a double degree in FINE ART and TEACHING. These are very unrelated to medicine. OK. However, I did start to take aspirin everyday, JIC.
So this doctor, when I went back for the 'negative' ultrasound results, did some poking and prodding at my legs. A few reflex thingies. And boy, were my reflexes flexing like Arnie did in the old days. They were fast! STILL I got no answers. There was NO comfort. I was NOT put at ease. I think, and someone else has said this to me before, that if you walk out of an appointment with a medical professional, you should feel some relief, or positivity, or have a better understanding, than when you first walked in. This was not the case with old mate quacky doodle head.
A few days later, I went back to old mate. I was concerned. Nothing had changed, physically or mentally. I was really starting to get very paranoid. You should have seen the look on his face when he saw me again. It was the third time in 5 days I had seen him. He must've thought I was some crazy hypochondriac. It was definitely what he was thinking. The face. I can still see it now *Punches the air*
I sat down and told him there was no change, and that now I had tingling in my left hand. "What are you worried about?" How the fuck should I know? Me: ART TEACHER. You: Doctor. He told me it could be stress related. M was about to go away for quite a few months. It was a stressful time, this is true. Old mate told me to wait until M goes. Let things settle (whatever loser), and if it is still bothering me in a week, go, again, to emergency.
M left. It was emotional. I became very in tune with listening to everything my body was doing. It drove me to small bouts of paranoia (self-diagnosis there again). I would lay in bed to TRY and go to sleep and think (still on the 'stroke' bandwagon), "What happens if something happens and I need the hospital or ambulance and, but what if I can't reach my phone and what will happen if I die and but what if!?". Yes. Some of my thoughts at the time. Now sing with me! PPPPParanoia, paranoia, paranoia.
I took myself to emergency a few days after M left. I saw a young Irish (I think. England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Inside, outside, inside, scales) doctor. He was lovely. Empathetic. But he did put me in a bed where there was a stinky nappy behind it. I was in the kids sections though. I digress. He poked and prodded, I repeated to him all that I had told old mate quacky doodle head doctor. He checked my balance. Blah blah blah. Watch my finger as I move it. Stand on one foot. Blah blah. BLAH. He left and returned.
"I don't know what's wrong with you". Thank you for your honesty ER doc. Then he said, "I will organise a referral for you to see the neurologist."
Ohhhhh, freak out!
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