Dinner

Busy Girl

Missy has been such a busy girl catching up on business stuff. Redesigned the website and it looks great. Brushing up on the QuickBooks changes for 2014 for both desktop and online versions. Studying for enrolled agent exam that I am registered for in December. Then add marketing into the mix and taking care of the house and the boys. Plus being sick adds for a very tired Missy. Oh did I forget marketing and boy is marketing tiresome. Tomorrow is Halloween so I will taking Dom out for a while unless he decides he would rather to something fun or get a new toy. My glands are still swollen and irritated but my mouth is finally healing. Hopefully I can go see my mom on Sunday. I hope everyone has a happy Halloween........time for sleep.

Tooth Extraction Equals Bad Experience……..

So I went to have a tooth extracted back on October 5th. Well what an experience it was. My simple extraction took nearly and hour and a half and I have had nothing but problems since.  Because it took so long I ended up with a dry docket because the clot was destroyed and disappeared. Apparently the roots wrapped around the bone, which I might had I was not expecting nor have I heard of this before. Secondly I put on Clindamycin,Ibuprofren, and Vicodin.

Well it was a nightmare. After taking the antibiotic to the very end, on the last day I go to take the last pill and it goes down and it feels stuck. I can’t get it to go down and it wont budge. After a little bit I start feeling really sharp chest pains, and it continues on to then include difficulty swallowing. It really begins to get worse because I am really hungry and after conducting research on line about what it could be it sounds like my esophagus is irritated so I try some toast like the websites said and that did not go over too well. Let say it really hurts to swallow it and when it hits the esophagus or what I think is my esophagus it sends to my knees in pain and the tears are just streaming down my face. So I try to manage it with Prilosec and Mylanta with no improvement.

So I finally go to the doctors and do to the amount of damage the clindamycin and ibuprofren I may have gastric problems forever. Apparently the antibiotic or should I say my reaction to it caused my body to lose all its healthy bacteria and no I am prone to infection because my immune system can’t fight all anything. Also my esophagus is ulcerated and there is a possibility that I may now have a gastric ulcer……….So I go home with three more medicine which I am now completely afraid to take anything else at this point. The tooth extraction side still has not healed………….Moral of the story know the dentist really well and do your research and pay close attention to the fine print on the printout of side effects the pharmacy gives you.

Autism

Being the parent of a child with any form of autism or any intellectual disorder can be very frustrating on the parent. My son has PPD-NOS with major sensory integration and perception issues and I must say people who don't deal with a child with problems should just shut up and try living one day in my shoes. Just because my son is having a meltdown does not mean the I am bad parent or he is just a spoiled brat. So when you see a child acting out take a step back and thing well maybe there is a reason for his behavior before passing judgements. Ok thank you I feel better now.

Falling Leaves and Brisk Mornings

Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year. It's not too cold nor too hot and  living in New England I find the most beautiful leaves of all different assortments of the rainbow. It's sweatshirt weather in the morning with a nice hot cup of coffee especially pumpkin spice that makes the day. I love to wonder around with my phone or camera and take breathtaking photos of all the beauty that we normally take for granted. So I ask what is your favorite season and what about it makes it your favorite.

What a day!!!

Why do I work so hard to be accepted and wanted and not lied too. On the bright side I was very productive as far as business research goes. On a side note my mouth seems to be finally healing after a week long painful dry socket. I just realized I forgot to eat today so I guess I shall go have some soup and relax with my book. If all else fails I will finish going through all my papers that I did not get to accomplish earlier.

I will not always be here sitting in wait that I can promise you.

Missy's Rants: Hydrocephalus - A subject that is near and dear to...

Missy's Rants: Hydrocephalus - A subject that is near and dear to...: Hydrocephalus is a topic of discussion that hits close to home for me as I was diagnosed in my early twenties after acquiring the chicken bo...

Hydrocephalus - A subject that is near and dear to me......I was not born with it.

Hydrocephalus is a topic of discussion that hits close to home for me as I was diagnosed in my early twenties after acquiring the chicken box virus from my 4 year old son. I never had chicken pox as a child. This whole diagnosis has been a mystery to me for quite sometime until recently when I was able to uncover some answers. It has been a very long frustrating battle as it has caused difficulties that have affected me most of my life. First off young and middle aged individuals with hydrocephalus is not the same as Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus which affects the elderly nor is it the same as the kind that infants are born with. When young adults or middle aged people acquire it the term they give it is called "SHYMA" (Syndrome of Hydrocephalus in young and middle aged adults). 

Individuals with SHYMA remains poorly described in any medical documentation that I have been able to find during my research which I have been conducting for over ten years. I also came to the conclusion that most are not diagnosed and not treated. Most find out they have it due to other reasons that required a CAT SCAN. So basically the symptoms are treated under another inaccurate diagnosis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15978182

Which leads me to my journey. 
I was rushed to a level one trauma center with a very high fever, loss of vision, and the worse migraine I had every experienced accompanied by weakness and fatigue. This was two weeks after my 4 year old son acquired the chicken pox from daycare. After having a spinal tap, and numerous scans of my brain, I was admitted to the Neuro Intensive Care Unit.  During the next few days there were no changes and my mother continuously asked the doctors if this all could be from exposure to the chicken pox virus and my husband and my mother were constantly told no. What they were told is that I had hydrocephalus. Which was most likely caused from a trauma or I was born with it and it was never detected. During this time I was kept sedated because of the extreme pain from the inter-cranial pressure from the fluid increase. The doctors informed my family that I would need a shunt surgically implanted in the morning and that would be the only option or I would continue to deteriorate. The following morning before the procedure they were bringing me down to CAT SCAN for yet another scan to check the fluid levels and I broke out in what I thought were hives and nurse advised me that they were indeed CHICKEN POX!!! Okay so I contaminated the entire NEURO ICU with chicken pox. Which was very upsetting to both my mother and my husband because they kept asking the doctors about that being the case. So I was treated for chicken pox and sent home. No shunt needed......YEAH RIGHT.

Well the headaches never went away every. Every day I live with a headache in one form or another.Year went by and life went on and we never heard about hydrocephalus again. The doctors assumed it was all caused from the chicken pox virus.

So life goes on a few years and BAM!!! I had been working as an ER Technician and while at work I started feeling funny. I got this metallic taste in my mouth and this weird feeling of deja vu. Then BAM there is a bunch of nurses above me asking if I was okay. Apparently I had a syncope episode which has never happened before. Meanwhile I work in the ER and they don't even look at my head or anything just send me home. Well When I get home I have to huge knot on the front of my head so my significant other rushes me back to hospital because he feels they should have done a cat scan. Well I should have never went back to the hospital I worked at. The CAT SCAN showed non-communicating hydrocephalus again as well as them telling me I had a massive concussion. I was not allowed to return to work until I got clearance from a neurologist. Off to the brain doctor we go again.

After yet another brain scan and a EEG, it is determined that I not only have hydrocephalus but I have temporal lobe epilepsy as well. Due to the fact that I have had hydrocephalus for many years at this point a shunt would not reverse any of my symptoms. To understand the what was happening to me, my mom and I sat down and went over my child hood and realized some things........

Apparently I had been in a car accident prone my whole life, I also was quite a day dreamer. I also had cognitive issues that did not become noticeable until much later when we were putting all the pieces together. Through out my childhood I received special education and had learning difficulties.

So the symptoms of hydrocephalus in young and middle adults I would say are migraines, cognitive delays, balance issues. Without early treatment symptoms progress and simple things in life get more difficult and it gets very hard to complete tasks and maintain employment because of the cognitive deficits. The cognitive difficulties that I had growing up were very similar to someone with severe ADD. I fall constantly. Throughout my life I have always been that person that has to have a to do list or gets off track.The doctors now believe that a car accident that I was in when I was five is the reason for the hydrocephalus. I went through the back window and ended of with a bruised brain. The neurologist I see now concludes that traumatic brain injuries are a major cause of SHYMA. Also my daydreaming was most likely absent seizures. Luckily for me I have never experienced a grand mal seizure.To date I have never had a shunt put in because it can't reverse the damage. Also note I have always had difficulties keeping on track and keeping interest in anything for any long length of time. I have changed my career a few times because of it. When you have SHYMA life is far from normal.

I am not looking for sympathy I just want to raise awareness to this lifelong illness. It is very frustrating to be the person that has this illness and all of the material out there is based on normal pressure or infant hydrocephalus. More awareness and more research is definitely needed. Currently I am undergoing Neuro Cognitive Testing and Therapy to see what more they discover has been effected. One symptom that I have had for as long as I can remember is that I am very difficult to wake up and I go into a very deep sleep where I don't hear anything including a fire alarm.

Symtoms of SHYMA is as follows according to the link below.
Headache, difficulty in remaininf awake or waking up, loss of coordination or balance, bladder control problems, impaired vision, and cognitive skills that may affect job performance and personal skills.

http://www.aans.org/Patient%20Information/Conditions%20and%20Treatments/Hydrocephalus.aspx

Missy's Rants: Intro to my world

Missy's Rants: Intro to my world: So allow me to introduce myself. My name is Missy I am a thirty something single mom of two sons. One son is 21 and one is 8. My 8 year old ...

Intro to my world

So allow me to introduce myself. My name is Missy I am a thirty something single mom of two sons. One son is 21 and one is 8. My 8 year old son have high functioning autism with sensory integration disorder. I was born and raised in Bridgeport, Ct and relocated to eastern Connecticut when my older son reached school age to provide him with a non-city life. I have numerous interests......I love to read and I am addicted to that stupid Candy Crush unfortunately. I have an accounting degree and work for myself. I also suffer from hydrocephalus and epilepsy.

I have a very close relationship with my mother even though she lives 50 miles away from me. My opinion is you only have one mother and when she is gone there is no one to replace her. So enjoy your time while you can. No one can foresee the future or what is going to happen. I have never blogged before so this is all new to me. So if anyone wants to give me some pointers please do because I am a bit lost with this whole blogging world.