Yesterday morning, at the ungodly hour of 8:20am, I was sitting in the opthamologist chair being tested in various ways. I have iritis. Which is painful occasionally. I was there for follow up tests following an exceptionally painful bout.
During one of the tests, the doctor turned to the assistant and said, I want her to have a field of vision test today. It wasn’t what I was scheduled for. He said to me there is some evidence of narrowing of… (I have lost those words he said.)
So I had a very boring field of vision test and it turns out there is a very pronounced and clear lack of vision in upper right peripheral vision. Both eyes. Which is a result of an apparently small stroke I had in the past. No way to know when.
That is both disturbing and also not really relevant? I mean it’s weird and sort of scary that I had a stroke and was COMPLETELY unaware of it. I’m very lucky that the result of it is that I have a small field of vision problem that I am unaware of in daily life and the doctor says won’t even cause me to lose my license. Indeed I may well have taken the vision peripheral tests at the DMV since the stroke.
It most likely happened when I wasn’t controlling my blood pressure problem when I was in the deepest parts of the abyss.
My primary care doctor wants me to have an MRI. I’m wondering if knowing the extent of the damage is of any fundamental help?
I need to ask that because I’m still paying off the rabies shots and the iritis, separately from this stroke situation, is leading to a bunch of costly tests to see what caused the iritis. One of those tests was to see if I have syphilis. But good news – Nope.
I feel like I’m going to be forever in debt to medical costs. Rabies was going to take me a year to pay off, this round of tests I don’t know yet, but I’m guessing a year again. And now the MRI, which sounds expensive. And all of it with insurance. But because of the deductible…
And all of this is happening when work is kind of a zoo. In fact it’s a major zoo. Zoo Poo is being flung about like it hit a propeller. It’s taking most of my focus and energy just to deal with work. Adding this on top is just not good timing for my brain power. But I’m trying my best to power through. Not with a ton of success, but with moderate adequacy.
It's a Thought 
You can ask what I do when a test is suggested. “Will this alter anything I’m doing now or change any necessary medications?” If the answer is no, there may not be any immediate value in knowing. Good luck. That’s a lot of medical stuff going on there.
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Well I did ask. And apparently it’s not DEFINITELY a stroke. There’s a 20% chance I have a tumor. So, there’s that. And other things are possibilities but mostly tiny.
Mostly she wants to eliminate the possibility of a tumor. And now that she’s mentioned it, I do too. So. I guess I’m gonna have an MRI.
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Yeah. I’d really want to know whether or not I had a tumor also. But medical costs are astronomical, even with insurance.
You’re doing amazing.
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Right. I keep extending the payment period for these bills. One day it’s going to be longer than my projected lifetime
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Oh gosh, from a stroke you didn’t know you had to ruling out a tumor. Don’t want you to have to deal with either one of those, of course. My thoughts are with you. I am hoping you are in the 80% chance of NOT having a tumor!
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