Dear Chantlett: Glad to hear someone like me!
I'm so used to helping others in med/field that I was frustrated and thrown when I had to be on receiving end! Imbalance and cognitive thinking was and is very distruptive to my daily life. I can no longer work in the respiratory field and my volunteer work w/asthma pts is almost at a standstill. I never know if the words I'm thinking are actually going to come out right or not. People are always finishing my sentences or looking at me when I'm desperately trying to find simple words like "mall" (finally called them "you know, the little stores in a group"). This is hard for me since I'm used to giving speeches on asthma mgt w/o any note cards, just from the heart. It may still come from the heart, but the brain sure takes a detour.
I can laugh at it now, because it's easier to deal w/things with a sense of humor because it releaves stress. Do you ever have moments where you don't recognize places that should be very familiar or articles you use in work seems as if you are looking at it for the first time? This is very unnerving ... almost like alzheimers, but neuro states it is not. The
location of PVL causes all my problems. Physical therapy (started today) is giving me a new lift as finally it seems that I'm on the right road. Occupational therapy was very helpful in helping me find things that will make housework, etc easier causing less fatigue. Spent afternoon fatigued & sleeping due to P.T., but worth every minute. I now have a home program, too. I'm waiting to see if I am eligible for social security disability. I've heard so many horror stories. This is a little unnerving since we went from a 2 income family to a one income w/son starting college soon. I go back to neurologist Nov 21st. Hope to have more answers on prognosis. I feel like humpty dumpty waiting to be put back together. To occupy my mind and time, I'm writing a children's book for my g'daughter. When my kids were small, I wrote several stories for them and to this day, they remember them and not the ones I checked out at the library. Good luck on your diagnosis and tx. I found that getting frustrated just makes cognitive thinking and imbalance worse ... remember that laughter is the best medicine. Keep in touch and good luck on the seizure tx (so much is available so I hope they find the right one for you soon).