SOATS

Yes, it’s reached that point again where I’m Sick Of All This Shit.

So the past few days have been interesting again. My temperature keeps going wildly out of control and now sometyhing new has been added – spots in my vision.

It all started around 3:00 AM on 7/28. Whenever my eyes were closed or open (in the dark) I saw colorful spots. These spots are like the afterimage you get when you look directly at a camera flash. The only trick is, there’s a whole bunch of ’em. Imagine staring at the sun through a lace curtain or a tree’s leaves. You’d probably wind up with a lot of little spots like me. If there’s some kind of light on, I primarily see them when I blink. If it’s bright, like outside in the sun, it’s harder to see them. Basically, it’s been constant since 3 that morning. I had a head MRI on 7/28 to see if they can spot anything. They didn’t get all stuttery and hold me there, so I must not have a big ostrich egg sized tumor in my brain, so that’s something.

So just to clarify the spots a little more, these aren’t the “I’m dizzy and about to faint” flashes. For me, those present as little electric worms shooting across my visual field before the darkness closes in. So basically, I don’t have to be dizzy for them to show up. They’re also not “floaters,” as I’ve had those for a long time and they’re totally different. I do have a history of migraines, but I’ve never had visual symptoms with them.

The word came back yesterday on the MRI. Apparently I have three small “abnormalities” in the occipital lobe of my brain – that part in the back that controls sight. SuperCoop said they’re really minor and that the radiologist probably wouldn’t have mentioned them in the report if he (SuperCoop) hadn’t been right beside him and hounding him. Apparently, it just looks like my occipital lobe is older than it should be. Or at least belongs to an older person. I guess that’s why I’m wise beyond my years, but it seems like this should enable me to see into the future or something.

SuperCoop said he’s doing a big literature search right now to see if he can find any references to this happening anywhere to anyone. So far, he’s found a paper from 1999 where a patient had a similar experience after an SCT. He’s going to have me do a follow-up MRI in a couple of weeks to see if there’s any change. Also, I get to go talk to the radiation onc soon to talk about the nuking process.

The last thing, we did another chest x-ray on the MRI day and it came back as clear. Apparently I’m just imagining that I’m coughing my brains out. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen too often.