Tuesday 29 August 2017

Insert more guinea pig and lab rat noises

The past months have been for a large part been about figuring out what's going on with my body, starting with me raising the alarm about the right side of my body going numb. One thing led to another there, and one MRI scan of my head and one lumbar puncture later I have at least learned that I actually have a brain and that I have white spots in my brain, which presumably are lesions from old migraine attacks. Or maybe not.

Currently I'm recovering from the effects of said lumbar puncture, as the taking of just a few mL of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from my central nervous system seems to have knocked me out of commission for at least a good week. Starting on Wednesday I found myself with severe headaches, nausea and so on. I consulted with the neurologist on Thursday and learned that it's normal to experience 1 to 2 weeks of headaches after an LP. Swell.

During that same appointment with the neurologist I also learned that so far the CSF looked good, but they're now waiting for the important tests, all of which will take time. My next appointment with the neurologist is in October. Presumably I'll get the all-clear then, or maybe they have found something else. Not something related to the numbness in my right leg, at least, as I seem to have found the cause for that already.

Well, a good suspicion of the cause, at least. As my body keeps transforming into a regular female body along with all of the hormonal fun that encompasses, various tissues in my body are responding severely to this. During a recent ultrasound at my GP's office I learned that my intestines are unusually active, likely also triggered by the much stronger hormonal cycle that my body is going through. This might explain some of the excessive bloatedness of my abdomen each month.


Another interesting thing that I have noticed is that older and more recent scars on my body seem to have become sensitive all of a sudden, as well as more visible, with the scar tissue seemingly vanishing. This would fit in with other signs of rejuvenation which I have noticed so far. It feels as if my body is reshaping itself; becoming younger and changing into what seems to be a more feminine form.

It's all very strange.


At this point it's mostly just me trying to figure out what is actually going on with this body. I expect the neurological examinations to not result in anything remarkable, leaving that as a dead-end course of investigation. Even though I have a licensed doctor now handling the finding of medical help for me, the going is slow. The clinic in Hamburg turned out to be a dead-end. Now the focus is on Berlin. It seems irrational to expect any kind of medical help with whatever is happening to my body.

Then again, hope is a purely irrational thing. Even though I have zero expectations of any doctor ever finding themselves interested in my case and also capable of helping me, it's impossible to eradicate the yearning and hoping for exactly that kind of help.


In short, my body is beginning to feel ever more alien to me, even though many of the changes do seem positive to me. The main issue I have with it is that I cannot say why any of it is happening, and which other changes I may expect. There's also no backup from doctors or the like as all of this is going on.

There's just lil' ol' me, trying to manage the medical experiment that is my body as well as I can.


Maya

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