compulsive

*ticktickticktickticktick*

I'm late to the party, but this. THIS. moonvoice.livejournal.com/1075184.html

Kickstarter - Between Heaven & Hell Exhibition: kck.st/bVQurq 5 days and counting. Please get the word out!

Leaving today at 2:45 pm for urgent doc appt. Please hold me in the light.

This is the diagnosis and why I'm going in to the doc. www.merck.com/mmpe/sec09/ch107/ch107e.html I want to scream.

Adrenal fueled terror is wonderfully focusing. I don't recommend it though.

Leaving in ten minutes for the doc. Trying to remember to breathe. This fucking sucks.

3 opthomologists later, hoping it's buried optic disc drusen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optic_disc_drusen won't know for sure till MRI

Calling neurologist first thing tomorrow morning, hoping to get MRI tomorrow.

Oh, and saw my field of vision test results. Fuck. Just fuck.

Oh, and it's only found in less than 1% of the total population. Whee.

Tequila puts so many things in perspective.

*tocktocktocktocktocktocktock*

Choices Made

Choices Made, originally uploaded by quennessa.

And here we go.

Sometimes you end up sitting at the feet of the Devil, your choices made and done.

Update: The State of Anji's Eyes

As I put on Twitter, I'm hoping to get in to the neurologist today for the MRI of both eyes.

What we're hoping for is to rule out for certain that it is Papilledema. We're hoping that what's happening is that I'm presenting pseudo-Papilledema due to Optic Nerve Disc Drusen, or buried drusen.

The test results from my field of vision test are horrific. The only reason I don't notice the areas that I'm not seeing is that apparently what one eye can't see, the other one can, and due to the miracle of the human brain, like a patchwork or puzzle, the other eye is filling in and piecing in the missing bits. But it does nothing for the apparent horror that is sections of my peripheral vision. There's no there there. Yet I "see" stuff in my periphery all the time. The Ant and I have decided that possibly the reason I'm not clairvoyant and only clairaudient is because, well, I'm not using that part of my ability to "see" the future.

I'm using it to see the present.

For the few of you who've read bits of Strange Weather so far, you know how freakish this is. I wrote this about a character back in frikken' 1996. Thank you, my brain, for trying to give me the heads up. Don't use fiction next time!

Now, if it's Papilledema... Let's just say I've never seen doctors that frightened.

If it's ODD, there's nothing they can do about it. It's benign, but but BUT... There's no guarantee that my vision won't continue to deteriorate, no guarantee that areas won't start to drop off in the center of my vision. My left eye already has some difficulty in center path sight. My fucking dominant eye. My right eye's been doing all the heavy lifting to mix my metaphors hugely.

I'll be blunt. I'm devastated. This is a horror show of the first water. The best case isn't very good and the worst case is about the worst news you can give a person, up there with telling them they have cancer. Because well, if it is Papilledema, 50% of the time it's an indicator for a brain tumor.

We don't want it to be this, folks. I need you all on board for a bit of quantum engineering. Right now, the cat is both alive and dead in the box and we don't know if the isotope has triggered the poison. I need every observer to hold that the cat is alive. That I'm going to go in to the MRI, we're going to see nothing but pretty pretty fucking drusen crystals camped out on my optic nerve and *nothing else*.

So that's what I'm asking of all of you. Pray. Whatever. Slaughter a chicken. Invoke the gods. Hold me in the Light.

I've got too much to do.

And yes, the irony of a visual artist with vision problems isn't lost on me. Or that as of this morning, I do feel literally between heaven and hell.

And now I have to run to work before I'm late.

Update: No Papilledema, No Tumor - Confirmed Drusen - Anji's Eyes

And that's it, right there.

To say that I am pathetically, wrung out, falling down grateful, is to put it so mildly as to be an understatement of the first water.

The neuro, Dr. Regev, was a treat. Soft spoken, blunt, and on his game. Saw me at 2 pm promptly. Did some basic physio. Was actually surprised that yes, I really am ambidextrous, but was fairly much in agreement that it was buried drusen. Looking at the photos of my optic nerves, (he was a mutterer), he kept saying, "No, no, I don't think it's that (mutter mumble)," which was great, but I couldn't understand a damn thing he said. He then called his friend who is apparently one of the best radio-neurologists *in the country*.

By the way, this was a neuro I got through referral from Dr. Schneider. You know, my epic awesome OB. Yeah. Jessica Schneider for the win, *again*.

She got me an appointment at 4 PM for the MRI. An hour and a half from me sitting in Dr. Regev's office. This would be Dr. Rachel Gordon at the MINK center. Seriously. It's called MINK.

The husband and I left there, he went and got food, I went and found a Coffee Bean and made my first round of calls as promised. And then we went to MINK.

They were running late, and I could tell how seriously they were taking it, because the admin at the front desk came to me only to let me know they were running late, but they'd get me in as soon as possible. Amusingly enough, they saw me about five minutes after that. Where my first tech reminded me that I had to take my bra off too. Metal clasps.

Jonathan was the name of my MRI tech. Dapper young black man who gave me ear plugs and got me as comfortable as possible.

And then he dropped the plastic guard over my face and tucked the foam blocks around my head.

Some of you know that I'm claustrophobic.

I nearly panicked.

Yet again, I am grateful grateful grateful, for the years of meditation practice. I closed my eyes. I made myself not open them. And I went to my Center and I *stayed there*, seeing myself in the open, while the MRI howled around me like the interior of a BMW engine, shifting through all five gears on the Audubon.

30 minutes went by in what felt like about ten, when I felt the table roll out of the MRI and I let myself open my eyes.

I put on my shoes, got my stuff, stepped outside, where a handsome woman only a little older looking than me caught my eye and said, "Ms. Hunt?" (She was wearing this gorgeous turquoise necklace.)

I stopped and looked at her.

"I'm the doctor."

I just stared. I don't think I breathed.

"There's nothing there," she said. "Your brain looks fine. No tumor."

"Just the drusen?" I asked stupidly. It hadn't sunk in.

"Just the drusen."

The rest of the conversation was just noise in my ears. I walked into the waiting room and told the husband. I managed to not break down in the waiting room. He just held me. I only broke down when I was in the car, was on the phone with the Mad Model, and we both began to cry.

It's not great news. The drusen are still there, camped out on my optic nerve. The damage to my visual field still exists. But this? This I can deal with. This I can work with.

I know, I know, I know down to the bottom of my soul, and I knew while I was in the MRI, that you all had my back. I could feel how well I was surrounded and protected.

The cat and I thank you.

*kisses each and every one of you*