So about that BRAIN problem there...

The OTHER reason I've been slow to return to blogging...



I think I mentioned some time ago that I'd been having some neurological problems? Right. They started appearing not too long after my pancreas declared itself a Sovereign Nation and began its saber-rattling (stoooopid organ.)...


Anyway. The whole pancreas thing gets a little annoying but I can tolerate it just about all of the time. But the brain issues... that was worrisome.


Liiiiike calling my husband by the wrong name, which I have never, ever, EVER done. Worse? Calling him by my exhusband's name and we've been split for 17 years.


Or moments of utter and complete disorientation. Absolutely, positively not knowing where I was. Falling down stairs, tripping over nothing, walking into walls, slurring my speech, stuttering, losing words, insane memory problems, dropping things because I couldn't feel them in my hand... etc etc & lather, rinse, repeat.

Now certainly all of this is symptomatic of Momnesia (what Pregmentia turns into) Or a drunken stupor. In fact, someone at work finally came out and asked me if I was drinking, and I most definitely was NOT. (but at that point, I was about ready to start!)

I asked my doctors a few times if they thought it could be related to the pancreas problems, since it started about the same time that the pancreatic revolt became a noticeable problem.

Apparently the idea that I might have the audacity to start wondering about coincidences was laughable. They didn't think it could be the issue, thereby launching me on a 6 month campaign of blood tests, CT scans, MRIs, you name it, it got tested. We determined that I don't have cancer, I have a perfectly functional thyroid, I don't have hydrocephalus, I don't have lupus, I don't have a vitamin B deficiency, I DO have a lesion on my brain but its absolutely inconsequential and almost definitely from any one of a dozen good knocks I've taken on the ol' coconut in my days....

then they referred me to a neurologist.

And it was about that time that I decided I was going to have to give up the pumping for my son... I was sick all the time, the supply was dropping and he was perfectly happy with the formula we were supplementing with. I'd really wanted to make it a year but it just wasn't working that way... and so, three weeks before my appointment with the neurologist, I stopped.

And butter my butt and call me a biscuit.


What do you think happened??


I started to get better.


I kept my appointment and what a freaking waste of my time THAT was. That man? Was an ass. A HUGE ass. An entirely insulting, patronizing, undescended testicle of a man. He accused me, pretty much, of making the entire thing up. And the only thing that hauled him up short was the discovery that my gastroenterologist happened to be someone he knew.

I'll spare you the ugly details. I'm still pissed as hell weeks later and am drafting an official complaint, which he will certainly receive a copy of, certified mail.

And then after three weeks of noticeable improvement, I asked my gastroenterologist if he thought that the breastfeeding, combined with the malabsorption issue I have from the pancreatic insufficiency, meant that I just wasn't getting what **I** needed to function?

"Absolutely!" he told me, "I think you hit it right on the head."

And I was all agog. I've heard that phrase before and wondered how it felt... well now I know. Because how freaking ironic, really. My determined effort to feed my son with my own body was actually kicking my own ass. And all those tests, all this time...

and the solution was as simple as a can of Isomil.*

But the silver lining? I got my first grilled cheese sammich in a long long time. And it was awwwwwesome.

* please note that I take no particular position on the formula/breast-feeding debate - its a PERSONAL choice. I wanted to breast feed. That was MY choice. And then I couldn't nurse anyway and had to pump. Still my choice. And now that we've had to switch over? He's healthy, he's happy, he's well-fed. That's all I need. The odds of anyone else having the exact same set of circumstances and timing as to cause this to repeat? Right. About the same odds as my life getting less weird.