One Down and Two to Go

[CrazyCatWom]

Yesterday, I got to go to my appointment with my neurologist--an appointment that took 6 months of calling every week, to schedule. But it was a really weird visit. My neurologist works at the neuroscience center at the University Hospital. But because of the COVID Appocolypse, the whole staff to temporarily moved to the neurology wing of the University's Med School. It is a place my neurologist is very familiar with because he teaches neurology there.

However, I swear, the exam room I was led to, was a broom closet and the exam table was a borrowed lunch table, LOL! My poor neurologist didn't have the computer every exam room at the neuroscience center has, so he had to keep running over to some room he was using as his office, to see the results of my spinal MRI that I'd had done in June. He'd come back to the broom closet after he look a something we were talking about. It was all good news--no significant changes to my spine except for one leision that used to really stand out, no longer does! He didn't tell me what that leision effected because he got snagged by a nurse on his way back to the closet so I think he forgot.

He did a full exam--the whole "Touch your nose, then touch my finger, then close your eyes" routine and he actually started laughing with me when my finger rarely went anywhere near his finger when my eyes were closed.

He strted laughing!

There has always been some belief with his patients that he didn't even have the capability to laugh. They were wrong! He can laugh! In fact, we actually had fun during the exam! He's still concerned that I can't feel any tuning fork vibration on either foot. And that many of my problems are old leisions that just have more effect on me with age. Nothing new, just a well aged vintage!

In the end, he will be ordering my anual brain MRI, he said, and I was scheduled for a follow up in June. I then gave him the Christmas card I'd had made for him (I always use Zazzle.com to create greeting cards using my photography). He really liked it and wanted to know the equipment I used and was delighted when I told him it was 35 mm film.

So, like our virtual appointment in June, yesterday's visit was weird, but good, and, surpringly, a lot of fun!

[greaterexp]

Hurrah for good, though weird visit!

[CrazyCatWom in reply to greaterexp]

It was just such a bizar neurology appointment. Everything got done that needed to be done. I got to talk to my neurologist about everything that was on the list I'd made from important things I'd noted in my journal. My neurologist never hesitates to take as long that is needed to explain everything in his answers to my questions. And I just got to see another side of him that I hadn't before. Now, onto a nutritionist's appointment Friday morning.

[Iona60]

Smiles and hand clapping for a great neuro visit!

[BettysMom]

That sounds like a great visit. I also have a very kind neurologist who will take all the time I need. However I rarely see her and I haven't had an MRI in years. That's because my MS has been dormant for a very long time and I have stopped my DMT (Avonex.) But even while I was on the Avonex (16 year) I rarely got MRIs. They show extensive scarring in the brain but never change. I had spinal cord lesions years ago which were very symptomatic but they didn't leave any scars that can be seen on MRI. I hope you will report back after your nutritionist appointment.

[CrazyCatWom in reply to BettysMom]

I would imagine after 25 years, I would be in a similar situation. Except it is like I'm being treated as if I'm a new to MS patient because there was such a wide gap between when I WAS first diagnosed 1995, and when I was "newly diganosed" 2018. It was just a weird situation where I'd even lost all of my medical records due to a warehouse fire. Originally, the neurologist I had at the time wanted to put me on Betaseron, but I said no. So I was never on a DMT. I was assigned my current neurologist when I showed up in the ER in 2018, and the MRI they did not only showed the brain bleeds, it showed how the entire left side of my brain was white with leisions. As to the University Hospital's protocol, whenever a patient presents with evidence of possible MS, a particular neurologist (ironically, my original neurologist from '95) is called in to assess and confirm a MS diagnosis. He, then, assiged my case to one of the MS specialist neurologists in his department. I consider myself so very, very fortunate that my current neurologist was the one who was chosen. He wasted no time in putting me on my first DMT. So he's tracking how well I'm doing with Aubagio, and also the tiny brain anurysms he found with the MRI I had done in 2019.

[mrsmike9]

Sounds like fun and with a good outcome! Yeah!!