I’ve said before that when it comes to the health challenges I face, there are good days and bad days. This week has started with two particularly rotten ones.
Yesterday and today I’ve had headaches, terrible balance, and slurred speech. Guess which one of these really makes my job difficult? Every commercial I’ve had to record in the last 48 hours has been a war of wills between my brain and what comes out of my mouth. I’ve had to repeat phrases 9 or 10 times until I get one that doesn’t sound like a druken zombie. Of course, the morning show is live, so I’ve been talking much, much less than a host should.
At the end of the day yesterday I picked up the nebulizer my doc ordered for me, hoping my symptoms were asthma-related. I used the nebulizer–which did improve my breathing– but everything else was rotten again today. Kalin, my friend and secondary health care consultant, said that I might be dehydrated, Which is something I’ve had to go to the ER for previously. The symptoms–cracked lips, headache, slurred speech–it made a lot of sense. Honestly, feeling this lousy with no decent answers, if you told me I had cholera, hoof-in-mouth disease or hysterical pregnancy, I’d be like “Hell yes! Let’s go to the hospital!”
So I went to the ER.
As always, there’s a fairly in-depth questioning period where they ask about your medical history. It’s in this situation that I realize how truly foul my situation is.
“Yeah, I have this thing called chiari malformation. C-H-I-A-R-I. Yeah, I guess it’s not very common.”
“I’ve had 4 MRIs, a couple of cat scans, and two ultra-sounds in the last year.”
“Sometimes I have headaches for days on end. Like 4 or 5 days where every day I have a headache basically all day long.”
“My eyes have been like this as long as I can remember.”
“I’m on 5 different medications plus 2 different asthma treatments as-needed.”
Yeesh.
So at the ER they took my vitals. They’re great! I don’t know whether to be infuriated that my vital signs are normal when exactly nothing else is; or just be happy SOMETHING is right.
I got some IV liquids so hopefully that will make tomorrow a not-awful day. I’m not convinced.
Honestly, I might take all this stuff in stride if I just knew WHY.
“You have days where you stumble around like a drunkard because _______________________.”
“You have long stretches of bad headache days because ________________.”
“You have problems speaking/walking/etc. sometimes because ______________________.”
If it’s all because of the Chiari, I should get operated on. But now it’s too late to schedule it before the new insurance year starts. And I don’t know if they think I need it anyway. I’m not feeling too positive about things right now. I probably would be better able to handle it all if I could just talk on-air. If I could fix just one of the maladies cursing me that would be it.