Could this be my Thing?
For a very long time, though I cannot recall precisely when I was first struck with this notion, I have had a firm notion in my mind that someThing is going to happen to me. I mean when I think of this Thing happening, I feel it to be as true as the fact that I am a female human named Wendy.
To be more specific, I have this notion that I am going to go through a very big, scary, serious health event, like cancer or something, and it will be hard and scary, but I will ultimately survive it.
I also mentally associate my late Nana with this. I don’t know why... I’m thinking either my notion told me it would be something she dealt with, or she told me on a non-physical plane that I would go through it.
I know, it sounds odd. But somehow it is something I can shrug at, because I know I will be OK in the end.
I’ve told a few people this and have met varying responses including “No, you’re not going to have anything like that!” and “Well stop thinking you will and putting energy into it, or you WILL end up with cancer!”
Nope. Something WILL happen and I WILL survive. Period. I know like I know like I know. It’s an interesting feeling.
So now I wonder if I might be facing my Thing. I’ve had my fair share (if not more) of health issues. I have a growing collection of autoimmune diseases and have suffered from chronic fatigue and pain on an everyday basis since I was a teenager. And I had some medium-level freakouts about the most recent diagnosis of DDD and a confirmed diagnosis of fatty liver (that made me look at the link between that and psoriasis, which was scary), but this feels like it’s on a different level.
I’ve dealt with sporadic dizziness and vertigo for about 10 years now. I went to an ENT and was diagnosed with Meniere’s. Lived with it. This summer, it suddenly became acutely worse, and it was frightening me, but not enough to make me see my PCP about it - until it happened while I was driving. She referred me to an audiologist and put me on a new med for it. The med was amazing and brought me back to baseline sporadic dizzy and vertigo spells, so I didn’t pursue the audiologist appointment until she said my refill on the med was conditional upon completing this consultation.
So I went, we did hearing tests and caloric tests which is a mindfuck of a test that involves a machine blowing air into your ears that sends your brain into a tailspin, inducing vertigo and nystagmus. She had me wearing these VR-looking goggles that had a camera that traced my eye movement in response, because the eyes and ears are more connected than I ever thought they would be.
The testing SUCKED. It was shitty! It made me feel shitty! I had to grab the wall and exam table to keep from falling, though in reality I was laying perfectly still. During my recovery time, I was talking to the doc in an effort to distract myself from the horrible feelings induced while she was putting together her observations. What felt like about 15-20 minutes of recovery, we talked about her findings.
She said the way my eyes reacted indicated an abnormal reaction, and she was clearly trying to gently break it to me that she doesn’t think I actually have Meniere’s and that the issue is actually inside my brain. She said it sounded really scary, she knew, but... I played it cool and told her “Eh! Everything is ultimately controlled in one way or another by the brain. To be honest, I’ve always felt like something was askew up there. And I figure you would have a great knowledge base of what Meniere’s does and does not look like!”
On the inside, though, I was like... WTF?! Oh shit! In my fucking BRAIN?!
She said her report would take her a week or two to compile (shit - specialist reports usually take 24 hours!) but she REALLY wants me to have my PCP do a referral to a neurologist. We discussed options of specialists in the area since I drove 2½ hours to get to the office.
When I was driving home, I was thinking about the possibility of something being actually physically wrong in my brain. More than the joking “Haha it really IS all in my head!”... it really IS. Holy shit. What IS this?
So, without having the specific names of reactions, I went to the task of researching like crazy. I found out what those reactions were and was fascinated to discover that neurology is so exact that they can pinpoint where in the brain a problem is based on presentation. Coooool!
But also it could be a couple of not great things.
More about that later, as I have to wrap up and go. But... could this be my Thing?