My Off Balanced Life

I want to thankyou for your prayers for me.  Yesterday was a pretty rough day.  I have gone through these balance tests once before.  It ends up leaving me dizzy, with a head ache, and like I will throw up.  I am thankful that after all the tests and seeing the doctor I was able to chill for an hour before we drove home as I knew the stop and go traffic downtown Toronto would have made me even sicker.  

I was hoping that all the tests would turn out normal but unfortunately they didn't.  You might be wondering what kinds of tests I went through.  I had another hearing and ear pressure test.  Then I went through a series of five different tests.  In several of the tests I wore different types of goggles so they could record what my eye movement was doing.  One test I would look straight ahead and focus on a red dot while the lady running the tests had her hands on my head and would jerk it back and forth and up and down.  Each time it recorded what was happening with my eye movement.  Another test I had a different type of goggles on and I would watch red dots move all over the place and my eyes were supposed to follow all the dots.  In another test they put little electrodes down my ears.  Then they hooked me up to a wood pecker noise in my ear and they monitored what the nerves in my ears were doing.  The worst test was when they had some dark goggles on and I was laying down while they poured water in my ears.

Since it was such an ordeal for me to make it there for all the testing it worked out for me to see the doctor right afterwards to go over the results.  On one test my left ear and nerves were not functioning like it should.  On anothr test my right ear and nerves were not functioning like they should.  And in another test both of my ear nerves were not functioning like they should.  I am very thankful that despite everything I have not lost my hearing yet. (This is something that they think will happen yet.). Although they don't know fully know what is happening everything is pointing back to Meniere's disease.  But no matter how knowledgable doctors are they still can not say for sure what is going on.  

So what does the path forward look like?  The doctor is going to have me see a physical therapist who specializes in balance issues.  We have no insurance for this but I am thankful that two sessions are covered since I went through all of these tests and they didn't come out normal.  I will have to go back down town Toronto for this as there are very few hospitals where there are specialists that work with patients.  I will be checking in with my specialist again in six months.  However, if I have another bad bout like I had in August they will work me in sooner so the doctor can see exactly what is going on.  Unfortunately, they do expect I will have more bouts of terribe dizziness that will wipe me out for days.  They just don't know when.  I am so thankful for everyone who has been praying for me, and have sent me notes.  It has been a HUGE encouragment to me on this journey.