Since my last entry was quite short and not very specific, I'm going to go into more detail in this entry about what sorts of tests I've been through and what the results are.
First off, the MRI. My doctor finally called me back that Thursday before Thanksgiving and told me that he was going to go over the results with me, but my next scheduled appointment is in a week. So, he went over them with me briefly on the phone and we'll go over them some more when I see him next week. Basically they found two things. The first was some sort of sinusitis. I think the MRI caught that my sinuses were inflamed or something of that nature. This makes sense, since I had a cold at the time. The second thing they found was a bunch of medical jargon that my doctor translated into English for me. They found two non-specific vessels in the white matter of my brain (the part that separates the two hemispheres) that looked like they were hardened. So, my doctor wants to get a blood test from me to check my cholestrol. Hopefully it's not too high. It may not be since there were only a couple vessel found there. But, I'm not sure. We'll see next week. The good news from this is that I don't have a tumor or aneurism, so the cause of my headaches is not part of my brain.
The second test I went through was for my eye. My optometrist saw a spot on my eye that she wanted to get checked out by an ophthalmologist and he sent me to a retina specialist to get a second and more qualified opinion. They all wanted to make sure that the spot is just a mole instead of a spot of melanoma. The retina specialist determined that it was only a mole and it was benign, which was quite the relief for me and my mom and my sister (who came out here to support me through the cancer scare). I just have to go back to him in four months to have a follow-up to be certain that it isn't cancer.
So, I'm relatively healthy, with no tumor or cancer. And that's very good news. The only bad thing is that I still don't know the cause of my headaches, besides them being from tension. At least they don't happen every day anymore. I've had a pretty bad one yesterday and today, but I'm attributing that one to the stress of having a paper due in oceanography.
Anyway, that's the more-detailed news for those of you that care to know.
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2 comments:
John,
Glad to hear it. Thankfully there are no serious issues. As with me, the headaches are likely just related to tension. Anxiety gets the blood pumping, and then inappropriate amounts of oxygen get to the brain, so it strains to take what it needs. (My interpretation of events, anyway.) A nice cold cloth on the back of the neck can be a huge relief for a little bit, too.
Thanks for the tip, Steve! :)
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