Round and round the wheel goes. Where it stops, nobody knows! I used to have a running joke with part of the Chiari community. When someone would ask if what they were suffering could be a Chiari symptom, I would say yes without bothering to look anything up. Of course, I'd follow up by telling the person that I'm not a doctor, she needed to see a doctor and that there are surprisingly few things that aren't Chiari symptoms. If you are like me with a Chiari II diagnosis combined with a tethered cord, you have damage to your brain stem which controls most of the body's involuntary reactions. You also have a serious neurological signalling problem for lack of a better term.
Walking, for instance, is fun in particular. Your brain sends signals to your legs to simplify things more than a little. The nerves in your legs send messages back to your brain and, especially when walking on bad terrain, back to the spine which replies without bothering to consult the brain. The latter is reflex action that kicks in when there's some sort of emergency. If you touch a hot stove with your hand, the "ouch!" message is handled at your spine which pulls your hand back before your brain registers the pain.
When you have Chiari II combined with a tethered spinal cord, you get something along the lines of double the chance for a symptom to take place. I'm in my 14th year of being a Zipperhead and I still feel the surprise every time something unexpected comes up on the Wheel of Symptoms. This past week or so, an oldie but (terrible-ly?) has put in an appearance. I've been experiencing migraine type headache with severe vertigo accompanied by agitated depression. In addition to the usual background pain centered on my surgical area, I've had severe headaches that felt as if a tornado were contained somewhere in my brain. In addition, I've had full body twitches that have left me wondering whether I could walk to save my life during the worst of it.
I don't know if it's related in any technical sense to the Chiari symptoms (see above point) but I've been suffering bouts of hopelessness as well. We're coming up on the one year anniversary of the deed transfer here. How on earth can we possibly handle paying homeowners' insurance? What about property taxes? I've never done any of this before and I'm a hopeless incompetent. Okay. That's what I'm feeling. The truth is that property taxes aren't that bad here and there's no reason why I can't start dealing with them right now. They aren't due until the end of September and I have my income tax return showing up between now and then. I can make a phone call to confirm my homeowners' insurance questions but paying six months at a time isn't that expensive. If it turns out to be a time when "not that expensive" is too much, it's renewal time and I could go monthly.
What about other issues? I feel like a total failure who cannot even prevent pain from taking over his life. I could say that unless I chose to consult with reality and realize that I am dealing with my symptoms. There's a lot of room for improvement but that's where things like pain blogs and doctors and experimentation come into play. In any case, claiming that I'm a failure or an incompetent at coping overlooks one important Monty Python quote. "I'm not dead yet!" I like the spinning wheel as a symbol for this particular symptom set. Everything is unbalanced right now.
Right now, it's logic and years of training versus perverse emotions and years of other training. I haven't lost my balance except for one time and that was literal. I was sitting on the end of the bed when the world shifted and the edge of the bed sagged enough to put me on the floor. Maybe it's memory of that moment or it could be something far simpler but the world has resumed moving harshly. I must put a pin in this for now.
Weeks Later:
I haven't had such severe symptoms in June since....last year. The spinning pain was so severe that I couldn't bear to sit here at my desk and write. The main result has been me trapped in my head unable to escape the implications of a lifetime of failure. Objectively, I do not accept the lifetime of failure concept. I prefer the model where I have current problems that can be solved in the short, medium and long terms. Okay. Some cannot be solved but those can be managed.
This post can be managed by deciding it is finished for now and posting it. There may be more if I am well enough to write more.
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