”The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Sorry I am behind on this post as life happens. My mom and I drove up to
Columbus on Tuesday July 9th for my 6 month follow up with my Neurologist. Overall I am doing really good from DBS surgery. I am having a few deficits though which is nothing that a few tweaks in the programming couldn’t help. A tiny bit of a tremor on some days, some speech issues, and some numbness and tingling in my left hand and fingers and also occasionally in my left foot and leg. I had written down a few questions I wanted to address while I was there. Although I understand the purpose of having the stimulator, it was in an online zoom meeting that someone said we are our best advocates and should understand what’s in our bodies. With that being said I want to know and understand everything when it comes to the equipment that is inside me. I want to know the type, how each part works, and everything about it.
A couple months ago I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder. I have now been on my new medication a couple months and the anxiety is much much better. Because my anxiety is better I have wondered if the stimulator strength should be turned down and that would help what little tremor I have now go away. I mentioned that to the Neurologist and he suggested that he do some checking with my programs. So he first turned the left side off and did some tweaks and made it better. Next he turned off the right side and made some tweaks that helped the deficits. I asked about what side was I truly making changes to if I have the tingling on the left or right side. Reason being is I know that the leads on the left side of the brain controls my right side and the leads on the right side control my left. I know I should have already know this answer, but going through is procedure and process up to it is a lot and a lot of information is given to you so now I have had more time to think about it. Well when it comes to on my controller if I am having symptoms on my left and I make changes on the left side of the controller then I am controlling the left hand, and vise versa.
My appointment with Neurologist was a huge success. I have been home now from that appointment now for 10 days and am almost a 100% better than before the appointment. I still have some speech issues, but they aren’t every day and as often as before. I am hoping with time and a few more tweaks on my side even that will go away.
I do have to share a funny from that day. When I woke up Thursday of the same week I was like whoa my tremors are back at before surgery. I call my mom every morning so while I was on phone with her we were trying to remember what the Neurologist said about leaving me on program 3. Which he redid the program 3 and 4 with his new tweaks. After turning the app on I realized that before leaving my appointment on Tuesday that he did not turn me back on. Once I turned it on I have been doing great. The joke with my mom is I talk so much I made him forget to turn it back on. lol. Until next time….
So of course there never is a Columbus visit without my mom and I going somewhere to eat. This visit we went somewhere where neither one of us have been before. It was really yummy, but not sure if we will eat there too often as we felt it was rather pricey. We ate at Zoup. Mom had a chicken salad sandwich and broccoli cheddar soup. I had a tomato and mozzarella sandwich with chicken pot pie soup. Pictures below. Yum!!
