Pale Blue Dot - MRI Yesterday - Start Copaxone Tonight

I start Copaxone tonight.

I had my first MRIs on April Fool's day of 2014. I had my fourth MRIs yesterday. I am curious to see the radiology reports and images in a few days.

Prior to diagnosis, the differential diagnostic sushi menu choices of my MRI reports including chronic transient ischemia, hemorrhagic brain tumor and enhancing lesions of unknown origin. AKA something looks weird but we have no idea what it is yet.

I put on my lab rat outfit  yesterday - black tee, black yoga pants, sandals, no jewelry,nothing metal whatsoever, hair in ponytail, extra socks in purse.

I took two sips of coffee. How was I going to NOT need to pee for two hours? Damn. It was good coffee.

The two hour MRI was strangely exhausting. For me it's not the ice cold room, the gandolinium injection or the lying still in a snug tube. It's the noise. 

I noticed many years ago that certain repetitive mechanical noises affect me physically and mentally in a negative way. This "negative way" can vary from discomfort and anxiety to seizures and MS exacerbation triggers. My Neurologist has no idea what I am talking about yet I see thousands of people with MS talking about this every day. It's described as hyperacusis, startle syndrome and a few other fancy words that basically mean that sound makes you lose your shit sometimes. 

I took a .5mg Klonopin prior to my appointment. It seems to help me overcome everyday noises. Maybe it was because the tech gave me headphones and never turned on the music (they never had music before, just headphones and a lot of foam around my head/much quieter), maybe my hearing is continuing to recover, but the MRI's repetitive squeals made me feel a familiar aura of nausea, migraine and body tightness wrap around me.

There's no mirror in this particular MRI machine. I cannot see the tech doing his tech-like stuff from his brain recording studio. If I open my eyes I just see a big helmet hovering an inch from my face and glimpses of the beige metal tube. Part of the mask grabs the bottom of my chin uncomfortably. I flex my ankles and shut my eyes.

I kept telling myself to lie still, breathe, don't move. Don't push the button to get out. Get this done. Keep your eyes closed. Forget you are here. It will be done soon. You probably only have an hour and 45 minutes left! Fuck. I keep telling myself to just give it 3 more minutes before pressing the escape button.

Afterwards, it is difficult to describe to others that I want to go to sleep for the rest of the day because I feel exhausted, tortured, and empty from lying in a freaking tube. I feel as though I have just survived a major traumatic event.

I cannot find the words to say to others to explain these types of situations. Everything sounds ludicrous before the thoughts forms into words. I will say too much and too little all at once. I will hurt others feelings because the words aren't right. It sounds like I am blaming or pushing away others when I try to explain.

I have not had this noise issue happen during an MRI before. I did not have a speech prepared for this.

I went from MRI to grocery store to home and later to bed.

I woke up at 2 AM and cried and cried and cried. I felt so weird. Out of it. I felt like a two dimensional object drawn on a piece of pale blue construction paper. The two-dimensional nature of the imaginary drawing felt good. It felt clean and stable. It did not hurt. I felt as though I could cut myself out of the pale blue paper and I could float away. I would not have to explain the jaggedly cut lines or the hole left where once my illustration existed.

I sleep. I dream an old memory...

I am in preschool. The coloring page paper is so thin that I end up coloring my circle on the wrong side of the paper. I color the circle cornflower blue. The crayon is in the lines but on the wrong side of the paper. I get kicked out of preschool on day one.

Uncontrollable Crying

I heard the vacuum running in the other room. The vacuum screeched mechanically. Whirring. Oscillating. Repeating. Transfixed by the noise, my brain emotionally shivered until I cried uncontrollably. Whirring. Oscillating. Repeating. My stomach churned nauseously in response. My right temple pulsed with a painful electrical stab. Tears ran down my face and splashed on my arms. I began to sob uncontrollably. Whirring. Oscillating. Repeating.Whirrrrringggg. Oscillatiiiiiiiiiinggg. Repeatiiiiingggg.

A photo of me wailing in the Spring like a heartsick quail.

It reminded me of feverish dreams from childhood. 

Uncontrollable crying occurs in approximately 10% of people with MS. 

It is 100% uncontrollable when it happens to me. Sometimes it is accompanied by seizures. It is embarrassing as fuck. I am fascinated and horrified.

Uncontrollable crying. It is difficult to describe. It is a deeply emotional feeling with NOTHING worldly attached to it. Nothing. 

It does not relieve stress because I'm not actually processing anything emotionally relevant. Does that make sense? It would be like me slipping you a drug that had no effect other than to make you cry for a few minutes. It would not alleviate any existing stress in your system or help you work through your emotions, it would just be an unexpected neurological reaction to a chemical process; like a bad trip, maaan.

What I am describing is distinctly different from depression or grieving, I experience those in their full glory, different animals, this though is what would be described as uncontrollable crying aka Pseudobulbar Affect.

Well Fuck, I Have Multiple Sclerosis

And that's really all I have to say about it right now.

Multiple Sclerosis- The Lumbar Puncture

"I hope you don't have MS. That would be TERRIBLE."

That's what the nurse said to me before handing me a Coca Cola. I was lying down completely flat in a hospital bed. Let me be honest with you, I cringed. I cringed at what the nurse said. I also cringed because no way in hell would I be able to lie completely flat AND drink a soda.

I wondered if Coke reps had to hard-sell soda to Neurology departments as a cure-all for lumbar puncture headaches.

The lumbar puncture (spinal tap) was a non-event. Thankfully. I've experienced more pain buttoning up jeans I should have stopped wearing five pounds ago.

A man two curtains away from me was yelling, "I can't lie still for an hour! It can't be done! I won't!" The nurse attempted to calm him. "Sir, we haven't done your procedure yet. You don't have to lie still."

The Coke and its bent straw stared at me from a shelf overhead.

I spent an hour reading news on my phone and then I went home.

I got my test results more than a week later. It was after I finished jury duty, or rather was immediately excused from jury duty after having revealed that I have seizures inside of a courtroom filled with people. Man, I've never seen doors open so fast. It was mortifying and magical.