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Showing posts with label cognitive dysfuntion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cognitive dysfuntion. Show all posts

Monday, September 15, 2014

Wellness Journal | Progression Notes

Pain Level: 
4 out of 10. (10 being the worst). This morning when I woke my pain level was 7.5. I smoked a couple of puffs, approx. .125 g, then took a tsp of canna-coconut oil, then took my morning dose at 8 am, so OF COURSE I'm felling better!!! Yay!!!

Symptoms: 
My arms hurt like a bitch. It's difficult to move them. And we had a little bit of a difficult time this morning finding a position to make love because my arms weren't comfortable.

Progression notes: 
I'm starting to feel like I'm improving. My tremors have improved drastically!!!!!! My wrist is pretty straight although it still has pain. My fingers still cramp. My shoulders are stiff. I'm having a difficult time turning my neck. Holding things or doing things with my right arm is painful. My feet are still moving on their own and doing that high heel position when I walk. My cognitive dysfunction is continuing with memory problems, forgetting words, and having difficulty spitting words out. These are still better than they were last week when I went to the hospital.

Therapies: 
The only therapy I'm doing right now is that canna oil and I'm disappointed in myself. But rather than beat myself up, today I am going to do one thing on my wellness plan. I'm going to sit down and create a NEW one.

Happiness Level:
2 out of 10.
(10 being the worst.)

Stress Level: 
4 out of 10.
(10 being worst.)

Bedtime and Sleep issues from last night:
Got really tired after increasing my nighttime dose and went to bed at 10:30 pm.










Saturday, September 6, 2014

Progress | Dysfunction Junction Part 2




The train continued its fast past by making today the very worst that I've ever had in terms of tremors. This morning I woke in terrible pain in my right shoulder and neck. I woke up, stiffly got up out of bed and stumbled into the shower. As soon as the scalding water hit my neck and shoulder I started crying. I was in serious pain. 

I stood in the shower as long as I was able and then I made it back to the bed and waited for 8 am. It came slowly. Bill brought me my morning dose of Cannabis Olive Oil (my healer had authorized an increase) and I was almost in tears again when I saw it. I desperately needed relief. I waited one hour and then I gave up and smoked three bowls of marijuana.

I made love to my significant other and then got up to get dressed. My movements did not get better after smoking, but my mood did and I got ready for breakfast. During a normal Saturday morning conversation my spouse and I converse in a lively manner and today was no different. As I was trying to put on a shirt and yoga pants I began to notice pretty severe tics that I could not control. It seemed like the tics were going to happen today no matter what I had planned.

They are just as weird and odd looking as you could imagine. My neck kept jerking to the left and my speech was noticeably slurred. I could tell that Bill could tell, but he never said a word about the cognitive dysfunction. He made some half ass joke about my tics, but other than that said nothing. He held onto me and asked me constantly if I needed help. I can tell often when he's feeling overwhelmed with everything. He's such a special intuitive and empathic man. I don't often have to tell him how I'm feeling because he just knows and he sometimes knows before I do.

I found an Austin 420 magazine in the car and I began reading aloud an article that Tracy Ansley wrote about the Texas Exodus to Colorado because neurological disorder patients seeking medical marijuana are moving there. It was about this young boy who had to move to Colorado without his father and how much he misses him and wishes that marijuana were legal in Texas so he could be home again with his family. My throat caught in a sob the minute I ended the paragraph. I looked at Bill and saw tears rolling down his cheeks just like mine. We smiled at each other and then Bill helped me into the restaurant. 

My legs began doing a very odd dance as we looked for a booth. Walking that short walk was interesting because I found myself stopping a lot. I also started doing this thing with my feet where I stand up on my tip toes as I walk. We ordered and talked a little. My speech was slurring and I found myself almost stopping quite a bit. Some of it was because I couldn't start a word. Either I couldn't remember it or I couldn't get it out of my mouth. There was a bunch of stuttering. Stuttering has been going on for quite a bit now, but this was new and more pronounced.

The food finally came. I was starving. I started filling my tortilla with eggs, potato and beans and found that I couldn't do it very well. I was moving so very, very slowly. My fork went toward the beans and slowly moved to scrape it into my tortilla. I tried to move faster, but I just couldn't. The eggs were a bit harder to scoop up, but I managed to get some into my taco. The slowness wasn't getting to me I kept repeating internally, but, then again, it was. Then there were three or four fried potatoes to place on top. Then there was the salsa. Then I had to stop and drink a bunch of water because I was so very thirsty. By the time I had finished loading up my first taco Bill had already eaten half his plate and I was sick of eating.

After breakfast we went and picked up my daughter for her weekend visit. Usually I try to not show my girls what I look like when I'm like this, but today I decided that I'm not going to try to hide it anymore in public. It's stupid really, because if I try to stop the movement from happening in one area then it just moves to another or the movements get out of control. I notice that if I just let them happen that I feel better. My muscles don't get quite as tense.

Today I showed my daughters my terrible movements. They were understandably not happy about the day's illness, but they were okay with it. My youngest told me that I looked funny when I did my head jerk movements which, thankfully, didn't last too long. I told her that I'm sure they looked funny, but they did not feel good and that I was embarrassed about what it looked like. My seven year old stopped and thought about it before telling me that I shouldn't be embarrassed and I was the best mommy in the whole world. That made me smile really big and it warmed my heart. She's such a wonderful, empathetic old soul!

After dinner my kid and I went to Kmart to buy her some clothes. There's only one handicapped shopping cart in the store, so M pushed the cart for me and we shopped. I was happy, but exhausted. My body had been through hell already with constant movements and it was tired, but I had a job to do for my daughter. 

While trying on clothes I noticed the attendant paying attention my conversation with my daughter. I wonder if the lady thought I was drunk when I spoke to her. My words were slurred, filled with stutters, and I bumped into stuff when I walked near her. 

My train is on a fast track, but right now I'm having a bit of reprieve. My body is finally slowing down and my brain is slowly lifting the brain fog alert. The aches and pains are at a higher level than normal, but it's manageable. I had someone ask me how I stay so strong which is very sweet. I thought about it before I replied, "It's not that I'm strong. I have belief that there is a reason why I'm on this blazing train. Maybe it's because this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Maybe this is my reason for living."

Friday, September 5, 2014

Progress | Dysfunction Junction


I remember the very first time that I couldn't feel my fingers. It began in my middle finger that morning. The finger just got increasingly numb until I couldn't feel it at all. Then it moved into my fingers next to it. Eventually it also moved onto my thumb.

The very first time I experienced it I cried out of pain, but by the third time I cried out of fear. I was scared that I was going to lose the use of my hand, but, of course, I haven't. My hand is still working, just not at full capacity.

For the past couple of weeks I've been noticing a pattern, but not recording it in my journals because I'm scared again. I'm beginning to lose feeling in my legs. It started with my feet going to sleep. I recall them doing that more a few years ago, but the doctor said that was due to having diabetes. Since I've been controlling my diabetes with an organic diet and marijuana I haven't experienced my feet falling asleep until a few weeks ago. It began happening daily. I massaged them and noted it in my head.

Then I started losing feeling in my legs. I noticed one day that I started scratching my legs and wondered briefly why that was. Went on my merry way until I began to notice that I didn't feel how hard I was doing it and my legs ended up with bloody scratches all over.

Tonight I massaged on some coconut oil onto my feet because they've been uncharacteristically dry lately. I didn't feel my feet really. It was like they were there but it wasn't my body part. I rubbed the rest of my body. Sensation has diminished significantly in the last two weeks in my entire body.

And, so, I cry out in fear again. But I'm not just crying over the loss of sensation.  I'm losing something worse. I'm losing my words and thoughts. I've been having memory problems for a while now. I'm having difficulty accessing commonly used vocabulary words. Instead I find myself hemming and hawing while I try to think of an alternative. I find these memory problems annoying and upsetting, but nothing prepared me for what happened today while I was writing.

I was working on my bio for a flyer because I've been asked to speak on GMOs. I had to take the bio off of this website and somehow get it down to two sentences and have it speak to who I am and somehow convince readers to attend the class. Kind of tricky writing, but not horribly difficult. I had to look at the paragraph several times. Not only could I not piece together the sentences, but I couldn't understand my own writing because my brain was confused.

It was truly devastating, but I haven't cried about it. I don't think I can wrap my head around the fact that this may be the best my writing will ever be. My brain will start deteriorating. It's a fact that happens with most neurological disorder patients. The sooner I accept it the better.  I have a family medical history of Alzheimer's, so it was going to happen anyway. I always thought I had more time, but it doesn't look like I do.

This illness seems like it's on a fast train with a missing conductor. All I can do at this point is get out of the way. I'm not going to cry about my writing. No matter how much it hurts me to see dyslexia type typos, no matter how many sentences I have to fix, no matter how many angry tears I brush aside I will never stop trying to get my brain to function and I refuse to give into fear. Fear is a small measly man sitting on a doorstop waiting to pounce on it's next victim and I solemnly refuse to let that be me.