As the saga of my health problems draws to a close, I can't help but feel a sense of relief over the fact that I had such a great doctor to begin with. Seriously, it becomes more and more clear each time my family and I visit with him that without him, my recovery would not have been so smooth - or quick! I was reminded of his greatness when we visited with him yesterday for (what we hope to be) the last time. I was told that I am "90% cured" and "on the road to normalcy" so YIPPEE! Secondly, I was told something else - not as "yippee" but equally interesting; I will never get my deep tendon reflexes back. I don't really feel either way about that one so I guess if I were to have any casualties to this thing, I would rather it be my reflexes than the motor nerves in my face! Another element to this appointment was this:
"To test how well your nerves transmit signals to muscles, doctors use a test called electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies. Using small electrodes placed in and on the skin, the technician can measure the speed and strength of electrical messages being sent along the nerve. Nerves damaged by GBS conduct signals at a slower speed. "
The EMG was so awful, I would not recommend it. First of all, my lucky parents got to sit and chuckle as they watched their daughter flinch in pain as she got ZAPPED almost 100 times in various parts of her body at different voltage levels. Sometimes, these tests would go in a big surge of 8 zapS, each zap getting progessively stronger as we went along. The worst was the zap behind my knee...Lord, was that hellacious. The doctor had to hold my leg down so that I didn't smack him in the head but since I have no reflexes, it just sort of twitched but that twitch doesn't mean I didn't feel an intense pain for only a few seconds but man, that was a tough few seconds. On the plus side, I can now say I know what it feels like to get ZAPPED and I got to see what my signals look like on a monitor. My mother compared it to a Jackson Pollock painting...
It's quite fascinating, actually. Later, he stuck (more like shoved) a thick needle into the muscle of my hand and then hooked up all the red and blue wires. As I flexed my wrist a huge surge of colours flew across the screen and a big fuzzy noise (like when there's static on a telephone) blared out of the machine. It was really cool and made me realize all the work that my body does when I go to simply shake a persons hand or hold onto a cup of tea. Ahh, the human body...c'est un sorte de je ne sais quoi, non?
-K xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment