April 18, 2011, my head felt as though it would explode from my brain pushing out of it. I went to the doctor. He checked my bp and heart rate, gave me a good look over and told me he couldn't figure out a reason for my pain. So, after a shot of demeral, he sent me home. I mentioned that in an earlier post where the headache came during a few days where Sam was being a jerk.

Well, I had a regularly scheduled appointment with DSr. Mike set for Friday afternoon, which he told me to go ahead and keep, just to be able to follow up on the headache, if nothing else.

I kept the apopintment, and had a few things to tell the doctor, that Sam and I had noticed since Monday.

1) I was pocketing saliva, fluids and food again. It is better if I go back to using a straw.

2) I've lost words again, the onseI had started to relearn.

3) My how I deal with spacial relationships to objects, places, etc. is way off again.

4) My balanace is off again.

5) My toes, on the right foot are slightly curled back, as if I had been wearing high heels for too long

6) I can't bend my right fingers all the way back to the back of my hand any more (I'm double jointed and that has always been my "party trick.")

He ran another MRI. Got the results back just a little bit ago. YEP! Another stroke!!

I've had, according to my MRI back in December, strokes in the past that I never knew I had. Well, this one was strong enough to produce that feeling of my brain trying to break through my skull, but mild enough for me to remain functional and not think I needed to go to the emergency room. Given my medical history, this is what can happen and probably will the rest of my life.

I don't know, I thought if I ever had another stroke, no matter how mild, it would affect me a whole heck of a lot harder than it is. Maybe I'm just in amotional shock. I don't know. When Dr. Mike called me, all I said was , "OK.........I guess that explains the headache." He asked me if I was alright. I told him I was fine. Didn't see much use in getting upset about it if I seem to be basically ok and there is nothing more we can do about it than increase my Plavix dose. He told me he didn't want to do that just yet. Too high a dose and I can start to bleed internally, which would be just as bad as having a clot. So, ok. We let this go and watch for a while. What else am I going to do? He told me to call him if I had any other new symptoms, if the headache came back, or if I felt like I needed anything. I said I would and rung off.

Next I called Sam. When I told him that the MRI showed a new stroke, all he said was, "I thought as much." I asked him what he thought about it. He said he thought I needed to get more rest and he has been a major tool the past week. In Sam's defense, there have been some very stressful things going on at his work. He's having to decide whether or not to drop one of his patients. I told him that I thought he should drop the patients. He said he'd belosing a lot of money if he did that and we needed it. I reminded him that he got a call, last week, about a private patient. I thought he should replace this patient whose family are driving Sam up the wall, with this new private patient. That should take some of the stress off and he won't lose any money. SO, I think that is going to be his call after work this evening - to accept the new patient and drop the current one with teh aggrivating family.

Well, that's where all of that stands. Maybe I'm not a basket case about this newest stroke because there is so much else going on to deal with.

Logan turns 18 in just 10 days and is already planning on moving into his sister's place with her. That means I wil lhave 2 rooms (the kids' former bedrooms) to do something with. Leaving them empty will just depress me.

Monster is taking his Canine Good Citizen Certification test next week, so we are really working on the 2 tests that I'm not as confident about with him.

Sam is looking at some patient switching.

There will be a new division of chores in the house once Logan has left and it is just me and Sam.

I'm starting to write grant proposals to be able to start the new business venture Sam and I have talked about, training dogs and especially service dogs for stroke survivors.

I think that is enough for anyone to tackle all at once. I guess I just don't have time to get upset about having had another stroke.