Big day at Mayo

We made it safely to Mayo Monday afternoon.  We went as far as Sioux Falls Friday and spent the weekend with our friends Dick and Lois Howard.  Had a fabulous time with them.  Left Monday morning in a snow storm and poor Skip had to drive the entire way in snow and ugly road conditions.  Praise God that we made it with no mishaps.

We spent the entire day today testing!  It started with a hearing test (I passed ~ no problems), next was the balance test.  Its just what it is, testing my balance in this half circle machine.  I even had a harness on to keep me from falling. It tells them what part of the balance system I am relying on.  Next was the rotary-chair; it went in an arc, circle, in the light, in the dark.  I had these lovely goggles on which kept track of my eye movements while the chair did its thing.  The last one was an ENG which records the interaction of the eye movement and inner ear.  That was the most unpleasant one.  All these tests took about 3 1/2 hours.  We then had the consulatation with Dr. Shepard, the head of the Imbalance and Dizziness Clinic.  The diagnosis: my vestibular nerve is severely damaged, it does not repair itself.  He thinks it was damaged during the first embolization and probably further damage occured during the second.  Because the vestibular nerve is the balance mechanism for the left side it is sending mixed signals to my brain, thus the imbalance.  He also said I have 2 out of the 4 criteria suggesting I am having migraines.  The official diagnosis, from his clinic, is chronic subjective dizziness (CSD).  He is saying the pain I am experiencing on the left ,is part of the migraines and that my brain has "trained" itself to be off balance.  Movement triggers the headaches and the mixed signals and I am stuck in this cycle.  I will start vestibular therapy tomorrow and, if all goes the way it as they expect, I should see improvement in a few weeks with the expectation that I will be back to "normal" within 3 months.  I will always have a problem with turning my head to the left quickly because of the damage.  I have more testing tomorrow and then the final consultation with the neurologist on Monday, Februay 28th.  There could be more components to this, but this is the diagnosis as of today.

Until the next post:  Ps. 27:14  Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. 

Please continue to pray for a complete and accurate diagnosis.

Blessings to all,
Jeanne