May 20, 2005

In which I wait

The doctor was lovely: respectful, good listener, gentle. A keeper. Woo hoo.

So: blood work being done for a few things, including the big C. I will receive a letter if all is well and a phone call if all is not. I wait.

Meanwhile, she is more attuned than I was to this neuropathy business. I just want to be able to keep eating wheat bread and oatmeal. She actually wants to find out what's wrong with me. Go figure.

So: next Wednesday I will have a pokey, ouchie (or, if you prefer, pokie, ouchey) test on hands and feet. An EMG. This is to assess whether there is nerve damage, and if so, what can be learned about it. Perhaps in conjunction with the blood work this will solve the mystery.

Meanwhile, I wait. And observe a thing I hadn't before, namely that at night the tips of my toes seem to go a bit numb. I can still feel the sensation of my fingers making contact, but in an oddly distanced way. From the point of view of my fingers--err, not view, my fingers have not grown eyes, at least not YET--it feels like I am touching someone else's toes rather than my own. Or that they are slightly dead. Egads.

If this is from diabetes, I am just a freak. You don't wind up this way with 2.5 years of poor control, which is about the span when I might have been diabetic and not known it. Have been wracking my brain to try to remember when the Big Weight Loss began. Maybe it was 2001, not 2002. Even so. 3.5 years of poor control? Still not enough time. Dr. Patronize, my endo, said 5 years. The ADA says 10-20 years, average, for neuropathy to start.

Hmm. Deep breath. This is not constructive. Time will tell, maybe, what's going on.

Meanwhile, I wait.

5 comments:

  1. Hang in there Violet. And try not to worry (I know, much easier said than done). Keep telling yourself that "odds are, nothing is wrong, and if I keep worrying I'll drive myself nuts only to find out later that I've put myself through an emotional wringer for nothing."

    Now, you might say "but, what if there really is something wrong?" Well, then you'll deal with it then. This was my way of coping during the interminable wait for test results after I found a breast lump the week Joseph was diagnosed with diabetes, & my sister with breast cancer. I was convinced that I was doomed. Had all of the risk factors. But then, I just had to let go of the fear until I could find out definitively what was going on.

    Obviously, I was fine, and I'm going to assume you are too unless proven otherwise.

    Take care,
    Sandra

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hang in there! Was the Dr. cute?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I would tend to think along the lines that not enough time has passed for nerve damage to occur. I'm going to go investigate. I'll get back soon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Violet,

    Go here for more info if you haven't already: www.joslin.harvard.edu/education/library/neuropathy.shtml

    ReplyDelete
  5. Aieeeeee, Sandra, that must have been terrifying. And on top of everything else. Wow. What roller coasters we all ride. I'm trying hard to do that letting go thing.

    Glitter, lol, you definitely win the award for non sequiturs this week. I'm not sure which of my doctors you're asking about? Dr. Patronize is NOT cute. He is dadlike--not in a big handsome way but in a repressed, graying way--and well suited to bow ties. Dr. Keeper is a lovely woman in her fifties who looks to be of Scandinavian descent. So I guess it all depends on what trips your trigger. But I personally have never been attracted to any medical professional in a clinical setting: it's way too serious and freaky for me to think in that mode.

    Shannon, thank you, that's so kind of you to go digging on my behalf. I think the Joslin site has some of the best stuff out there.

    ReplyDelete