After all these weeks of waiting, leaving for the VA hospital in Columbia at 0730 in the morning. They keep piling more and more what is being scheduled , due to the distance it is for me to go the hospital there. It's a 240 mile round trip, and suppose to rain all day tomorrow which sucks.
Had to go to the VA Outpatient in Greenville today at the last minute, was informed only this morning that I had to have special blood work drawn prior to the scans. Didn't have to wait too long.
Come home, and there's another letter from the VA, knowing that I would be going on the 3rd, now they are squeezing in a visit with the neurology team.
So in this order, this is what's going to happen, all tomorrow. CAT scan of my neck. Then MRI of my left facial cheek. Then visit with Neurology team. Them MRI of entire brain. Then MRI of right eye socket and surrounding area.
If all goes well, won't get home till at least 6 PM, which will make for a day way beyond my normal fatigue and pain limits. But, I need the tests, and more importantly, need some real hard core answers. My wife is taking a PTO day off to accompany me. Feel bad for her, as most of her time will be in waiting rooms. Between her I-Phone and her Kindle, she plans to keep busy.
As far as an update, the place in my cheek, is approx. 4x bigger than when first found and reported, so its definitely on the grow. It's as hard as a rock beneath the skin. The place behind my eye, is probably at least 2x as large as first found. Been getting increasing headaches daily (extremely rare for me to ever have one at all), and past two days, lots of unexplained severe dizzy spells. After seeing my weight stabilizing for about a month, plus or minus 2 pound range, its taking off again with rapid declines. Averaging between 1 and 1 1/2 pounds loss per day, regardless of how I eat.
The eye pain is only adding to my already high daily pain load, and been getting additional migrating type pain episode above and beyond my normal daily pain. Especially in the front of my upper legs, feels just like my veins are filled with hot liquid, a seriously burning feeling. Or if its not that, severe pain in the tips of my left toes (never the right ones), or severe left side of the neck/left shoulder pain. According to the last full body bone scan, I don't even show much evidence of common arthritis, even when age factored. Most of its being attributed to severe nerve damage.
All I want out of these visits, is something definitive to show up, something(s) that can be properly identified and diagnosed, and hopefully this will lead to some type of treatments or relief.
Tomorrow is simply testing, not sure how long it will take to get the answers. Unless the VA changes their mind, I am not scheduled to see my VA doctor with the results until March 23, almost 3 weeks from now. And that's with my case being marked urgent.
We will see.