Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Archives for 2010

Dreading my MRI tomorrow

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Well tomorrow’s the big day. I go in at 8:45 a.m. for my MRI of my head. I’m not looking forward to the experience!

A couple of years ago I had my first MRI. It was of my lower abdomen. Getting the MRI wasn’t that bad, but the position I had to lie in for about an hour left me with an aching shoulder and threw my back out for a few days afterwords.

At least this time going in, I know to really make sure that I’m comfortable before I have to lie still for an hour.

I think it’s the noise of the MRI machine that I’m dreading the most. It’s like having someone hammer right beside you – continuously. I think I’d rather spend that hour shopping for a treatment for hemorrhoids than endure that sound.

As much as I’m dreading getting the MRI I am glad that I’m finally going to have the test. It was ordered for me because I started having worse headaches, different from the usually headaches and migraines that have plagued me since I was about 12.

I also developed visual disturbances – aural migraines where I see squiggly lines in my peripheral vision that slowly close in and make it very hard for me to see anything clearly for about 30 minutes. In the last couple of weeks I’ve also experienced viewing things with lines going horizontally across them – like a bad photocopy. Believe me when I say it’s very strange to look at your dog covered in lines. LOL

Oh and along with almost constant severe dizziness over the last two weeks I’ve also felt like my ears are blocked or I’ll hear ringing in my ears. I happened to have an appointment with my pain doctor on Tuesday and I told her about the dizziness and all the other strange new symptoms I’ve been experiencing and, like me, she thinks they’re all part of my migraines.

She and my neurologist seem think that I’m having Basilar migraines. Apparently people who have this type of migraine have an even higher chance of having a stroke than those with other types of migraines. Great, eh?

I’m just keeping my fingers and toes crossed that they don’t find anything … or at least nothing serious. Wish me luck!





So dizzy and I’m not even blonde!

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I’ve had a rough week.

I haven’t been feeling all that well. For once it doesn’t seem to be my Crohn’s that’s acting up … it’s something else.

I’ve been dizzy. Crazy dizzy … room spinning dizzy … fall over dizzy.

Today isn’t too bad, but the last two days were terrible. I was dizzy even when I was lying down and worse when I was standing.

My doctor thinks it’s another migraine side effect. I seem to get really dizzy hours or even for a few days before a bad migraine hits.

I’ve never in my life been this dizzy … well with the exception of the few times I had way too much to drink and couldn’t shut my eyes when I tried to sleep or else the room would spin even faster. LOL (Ever tried falling asleep with your eyes open – not easy!)

I’d rather have been doing searches for discount diet pills for the last two days than even spend one more hour with this extreme dizziness.

A week from tomorrow I’ll be in the hospital having an MRI (actually two different head MRI’s apparently) so I guess I’ll find out soon enough if anything serious is going on. I’m keeping my fingers (and toes) crossed that it’s just migraines even though that diagnoses will be bad enough as my migraines and side effects like squiggly visual auras have been quite bad lately.

Oh and at the end of June I wrote a post about going to the hospital for a bunch of xrays and ultrasounds? Well I’ve been called back in to have another mammogram and ultrasound of my left breast … God I hope they didn’t find anything. Or rather I hope that this second round of tests proves that there’s nothing there that shouldn’t be there. If there is … well there’s a good chance it’s benign. I seem to grow tumors (breast, thyroid and one weird one in my thigh) and they’ve all been either pre-cancerous or benign … so if there is anything in my left breast lets hope it’s harmless.

It’s about time we get some life insurance coverage

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My husband and I are starting to think about getting life insurance. I guess we should have had life insurance all along, but we just couldn’t afford it prior to this.

When I was a teenager and in my 20’s I had a life insurance policy, but it was one that you could cash in and of course as soon as I really needed money I cashed in my policy and never got a new one.

I’ve been trying to decide what kind of policy would be best and I’m totally lost. I think I need to spend some time looking at the life insurance dictionary so I can figure out all the terms they use for life insurance coverage.

Do any of you know anything about life insurance? Care to pass on some advice?

The best kind of news

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One of my friends has been trying to get pregnant for years. It’s been so long that she and her husband were just about to start In vitro treatments, but wouldn’t you know it – she just discovered that she’s pregnant.

I’m so happy for her. All she’s ever wanted was to have a baby and now her dream is about to come true.

She called me the other day and was practically screaming into the phone. She had just had a call from her doctor and I was one of the first people that she let in on her good news.

Sometime this weekend we’re going to go out shopping for some of the things she’ll need over the next few months. She already wants to start looking at cribs, but I think for starters we should try to find her some good prenatal vitamins and work on things for her brand new baby room over the next few months.

Of course if we do go out shopping this weekend I think I’ll probably end up getting a cute stuffed toy or a tiny baby outfit as a gift for the new baby. I’m sure she’d love that.

I just hope that everything continues to go well for her over the next several months.

Maintaining clear skin in the summer is harder for me

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I’m finding that skin care in the summer time is a lot harder for me than it is in the winter.

In the winter all I need to do is moisturize regularly and my skin seems to stay fairly clear and blemish free.

The summer is a different story. You see I seem to react to my own sweat. Yeah – really! I once had a doctor tell me that she thought I was allergic to my own sweat.

While I don’t know if it’s true or not that I’m allergic to my own sweat, I do know that if I go outside when it’s warm or very hot and I start to sweat I’ll have a mini break out in some of the areas that sweat. For example if I’m outside working in my garden, pulling weeds or pruning roses and I’m out there long enough to start sweating ie sweat on my face etc. I’ll often have a pimple or two on my face a day or two later.

I don’t think it’s true adult acne as it mostly only happens if I’ve been sweating. It also doesn’t matter if I come inside and wash my face and have a shower right away either, I’ll still have a mini break out.

I guess I’m glad that I don’t get covered in blemishes, but it’s a pain in the butt. The best way for me to control these outbreaks is to try not to sweat and as you know that’s almost impossible in the summer without staying indoors in an air conditioned house all the time.

Does this affect anyone else? Do you break out more when you’ve been sweating?

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