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Showing posts from November, 2015

"Woe is me" and Samuel Johnson

Over the weekend, I did a blog post about a hospital stay last week. I was not trying to an alarmist or to say "woe is me." Rather, I try to use by blog to describe my stroke journey. My blog is published in different ways. Usually, it is just in the blog sphere. That is it. The audience is limited to readers who find it on my blog. Sometimes, I put my blog on Twitter where I have two accounts: My personal account but also the Idaho Aphasia twitter account. I have sometimes posted my blog on my Facebook account. And, also, the Idaho Aphasia Facebook page. My last blog post was about the hospital stay. In that blog posts, I wrote " I have a condition called Fibromuscular dysplasia. FMD  is a progressive twisting of the blood vessels throughout the body. It causes abnormal growth within the wall of an artery . It is rare: Fewer than 200,000 US cases per year.” It can't be cured, but treatment may help like taking blood thinners. I ended by writing that " I

My Fibromuscular dysplasia is heart wrenching

  When you have a stroke – or two and seizures like me – a simple headache causes worry. In the back of your mind, your damaged brain thinks “it is happening again!” Recently, I had some severe headaches. They were different from the headaches when I had my strokes and seizures. These were a pounding ache on the left side and the top of my head. When they started on a Sunday night, I thought “they will go away.” They did not. I took several painkillers. My head kept aching. Finally, on Wednesday, I went to the hospital where I had a MRA and a MRI. The good news, I have an intense sinus infection. I forgot that a headache could be something else other than a “brain attack.” However, we discovered that had a brain incident. Or I did NOT have a brain incident. To explain, here is what I know about my brain. I have a condition called “Fibromuscular dysplasia.” “ FMD” is a progressive twisting of the blood vessels throughout the body. It causes abnormal growth wi