Listen to your body

The last couple of weeks have been an eye-opener for me, quite literally J

I have been noticing some visions issues of late ie, things blurry, not able to focus on things until I put my glasses on, things still out of focus even with my glasses on.  I had even noticed that it felt like there was a film of gel over my eyes and no matter how hard I rubbed them nothing made any difference so I would just wait it out and eventually my vision came back to normal.

About 9 days ago I was walking to the station and out of the blue I lost complete sight in my right eye, again I did the usual rub the eye – nothing, clean my glasses – nothing so again I just waited it out for about 10-15 minutes and made my way slowly to the station.  By the time I got to work I was ok but feeling slightly off but continued as usual throughout the day at work with a slight headache.  

Now at this stage I just put the vision loss to a potential migraine but thought I will just mention it to the doc when I see her in two days’ time.  Imagine my surprise when I tell my doc and her reaction was "ummm this can be a sign of a stroke and probably should off gone to the hospital".  So she ordered an urgent ultrasound of my Carotid Artery to ensure that there was no blockages and strict instructions to go to the hospital if it happens again.

When looking at the signs for a TIA or Stroke I can honestly say that I get these symptoms on a daily basis and when living with a Chronic Illness it is very hard to know what is part of the illness and what is a new symptom – there has been a few times my doctor has said to me “your really should of gone to the hospital” Now I’m sure there is an inner voice in me that does tell me to go to the hospital but I obviously ignore it for the same reasons we all do – I’m too busy or I really don’t want to sit in the ER for hours on end, I will just take a couple of Panadol and get some sleep, I need to cook dinner and the list goes on and on. Without getting all preachy I cannot stress enough how important it is to LISTEN TO YOUR BODY…Its turned out for me that I wasn’t having a stroke or TIA thank goodness but I spoke up and said to my doc things are just not right, there has been a shift in how I’m feeling and some days’ it feels like I have regressed back to the beginning, so that been said I now have to make an URGENT appointment with an Eye Specialist and when I see my neuro next month request that we run another MRI just to be on the safe side – it’s possible that all the vision issues are due to migraines but as I wasn’t getting a slap around the head migraine thing happening it best to get the MRI done.

So to everyone out there that has something niggling or just doesn’t feel right, I plead with you to get it checked out, even if you think it is nothing it could very well be something, without your body working to full capacity then you cannot be the best version of yourself and as for me well I like to think I’m unbreakable which can only mean I’m close to perfection J