Tag: numbness

Random Thoughts on a Random Friday Morning

It’s Friday morning again, thank goodness. 8.5 hours of work day left until the weekend. My team at work is at half strength today (and Monday too) so I am a little nervous about what might happen today. I’m sure we won’t get slammed with urgent, critical issues or anything. It’s going to be a nice quiet day (he said while knocking on wood and crossing his fingers and all of that kind of stuff he doesn’t even remotely believe in).

I’ve been having a bit of a physical issue when I wake up in the morning. It’s happened at least four times now, including yesterday and today, and I am not sure what to make of it. When I wake up and get out of bed, the base of my left thumb is ever so slightly numb. It lasts for a good chunk of the morning. By lunch time or so it’s passed. It’s not a problem. It doesn’t limit me at all. It’s just there and I am not sure what it could mean, or what could be causing it. I don’t think I sleep on my hand in any funny way or anything. I’m sure it is nothing, but maybe I’ll try to see what position my left hand is in every time I wake up. Maybe there’s a pattern.

Speaking of annoying little health things, my right ear was completely blocked up when I woke up today. I slept on my right side for most of the night last night so that’s probably why. It was partially cleared within a few minutes of getting up and walking around, but it’s not 100% open yet and it’s been three hours. Maybe it’s time to invest in some ear wax softening stuff. Uh, I hate having blocked up ears.

What other random thoughts can I spew out at the universe today? Hamburgers. Yeah, that burger I had for lunch yesterday was so good. It was like a lunch time treat or something. If the weather is okay today I might do it again.

Speaking of weather, we rented a dumpster to help me clean up about a year and a half’s worth of junk that has accumulated in the cellar (mostly) and in the kids’ rooms. It is being delivered today and picked up on Monday morning. We chose this weekend because the weather forecast wasn’t bad. Now though, the forecast is showing thunderstorms over the weekend. I just checked the AccuWeather site and it says to expect storms in the afternoon both Saturday and Sunday. I guess that means I should plan on morning cleaning and afternoon music then? Something like that at least. Our dumpster delivery window opened over three hours ago and still no word. How long before I start stressing about the possibility of them not coming today?

I just got a spam email from Nextdoor on my work email account. Insert a hearty sigh of frustration here.

Okay, I am punched into work now. My exercise is done for the day (no running, just yogging) and breakfast is done and everything is set for a good start to Friday. Except music. I didn’t do any pre-work music today. Maybe after work I’ll sneak a little in. It’s time to start the day. I’ve got some stuff to get through today. Wish me luck.

Happy Thoughts Request Explaination

Okay, I’m going to give a quick explanation of why I keep asking the internet to send us happy thoughts and positive vibes.

My beautiful, radiant, amazing wife started having a couple of weird things happen on the side of her face.  At first it was short periods of numbness or tingly, pins and needles feelings.  After a while she also started having shorts periods of unbelievable pain in the same spot.

She went to the emergency room and they told her it was  a sinus infection and gave her antibiotics.  When they didn’t affect anything she went to her doctor, who sent her to an ear/nose/throat doctor who sent her to a neurologist.   The ENT doctor used the term Trigeminal Neuralgia.  That scared the shit out of us.  The condition is, according to wikipedia and a few other sources, also known as suicide disease.  On top of that it us often a symptom of other illnesses such as brain tumors and MS.

The neurologist sent her to get an MRI.  The MRI hinted at increased spinal fluid pressure, but did not definitively give a cause of the numbness and pain.  The neurologist sent her to an ophthalmologist and ordered a spinal tap.  The spinal tap relieved some of the spinal fluid pressure, which helped for a day or so.

We then went back to the neurologist who said he didn’t know what the cause of the numbness and pain was, exactly.  You would think we’d be upset about that, but we were actually happy.  For two reasons.  First, he ruled out all of the really scare things that can cause trigeminal neuralgia.  He said it was not MS, not hemorrhaging, not an aneurism, not a clot, and not a tumor.  He actually said, “its not a tumor” in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice which gained him huge 1990 pop culture points.  He also refused to call whatever is going on trigeminal neuralgia.  He called it an unknown trigeminal nerve event.

So the reason I kept asking the universe for happy vibes was because we were either going to a procedure or a consultation and we wanted as much good luck thrown toward my beloved wife as possible.

Like I said, we still don’t know what’s causing the problem, but we have been thoroughly reassured that it is not anything dangerous.  The current theory is that she either had or has a very low level infection that was too mild to be caught on any of the tests they ran that is causing the nerve on the side of her head to act screwy, and is causing an increase in spinal fluid pressure.

At this point, I don’t care what it is as long as it stops.  I don’t want my love to have to deal with this anymore.

So if you took a millisecond or two to send a happy thought in our direction recently then I thank you on behalf of the woman of my dreams who I love so much.  It was appreciated.