hey kat10! we've got to keep our sense of humor -- i do the same thing with my nightly prayers. my story is not too unlike so many others... since the early 1990's, i have complained to dorctors about
abnormal dizziness/vertigo. i live in northeast ohio and used to commute to denver, colo for work. traveling up and down all the curvy mountains is when i really began to notice the vertigo. i was literally unable to tell if we were going up or down the mountain, even when looking out the window. amazing that i never blew chunks in the vehicles of the brokers i was working with, LOL. anyway, i just didn't feel right, either. you know, right? the headaches were next. then the exhaustion -- or maybe those were all together. i used to train for triathalons and compete, but by the mid-90's, i couldn't keep up on a regular schedule. if a ran two-three days in a row, i'd be out for a week just unable to perform at all. plus the work schedule just beat the crap outta me! so, i thought it was the work schedule, so i switched careers to 'save my life'. even though i absolutely loved what i was doing, i just couldn't do it anymore. well, it wasn't the work schedule... then i got married to a real piece of work, (married for 1st time at 40 cuz my career was my life). well, he wouldn't 'permit' me to work. i know, i know, what was i thinking? so, i got really healthy and left him in december '06. starting in '07, i was so excited to get back to a career. the good Lord had a different path. i thought it was my sugar cuz my mom had diabetes...i felt mentally fabulous and physically...again, you know. i noticed that i my legs were trembling up and down stairs, i would miss the steps and fall, trip over things that weren't there and my eyes/vision were super funky monkey. by february of '07, i was in the hospital. i lost the vision in my right eye and 50% in my left. optic nueritis. at first they were sure it was MS. that's been completely elimated as a supspect, now. the optic nueritis would heal after steroids, but kept coming back. i was on liquid and high dosage pill steroids for more than a year. then the other stuff started cropping up. memory/cognition, speech, tingling, muscle and joint pain,urinary, gastro, nausua balance (wicked bad), continued dizziness/vertigo. over the past year, we've uncoverd mild brain atrophy, livedo reticularis, heart murmur, iron deficient anemia, spastic colon along with the now labeled recurrent autoimmune optic nueritis. my ANA always comes back borderline aka negative. my sed rate is flagged H (high) but they say it's 'not alarmingly high. my clear creat is actually low, whatever the heck that means. maybe all those steroid treatments over the last four years. who knows. my RBC, Hgb, HCT are all low and my MONO%, EOS%, EOS# are high. the doctors sure act as if it's nothing! what's worse is the first nuerologist i went to said it was all in my head (and she's from the mellon center at cleveland clinic, so she should know, hahah) and that i'm depressed that none of the above are connected. as a result, that goes with my file everywhere i go. depressed, uh, ya, what would you be miss know-it-all lady nuero. so, once a business minded real estate guru, now i have a hard time on the day of the week, have mini-black outs where all of a sudden i don't know where i am or how i got there (scariest of all sysmptom by the way), speak dyslexically or drunk-like and i don't even drink. get confused and lost in simple conversations like hello (lol), have perminant vision loss in both eyes, double vision all day everyday. yada yada yada. i just keep looking for the silver lining in each phase of my body break-downs. i'm a much better listener, more compasionate, empathic and sympathic and as a result, have been able to help people just as you did and are helping me. so that's my story in a very large nutshell, kat 10. i am looking forward to hearing back from you. if not today, sleep with the angels!