Stroke Face

So, we had quite an interesting weekend here. It all started normally, Friday night was Panda Express and unpacking, the former I enjoyed much more than the latter. But Saturday things got....weird. The morning was typical, Max was up at the crack of dawn because sleeping is for the weak and by 9am we were at Home Depot buying shrubs and plants like good suburbanites. As we drove home, we made our plans for the afternoon, mostly planting and unpacking, and we discussed whether we were going to buy a new vanity for the hall bath. It's Max's bathroom right now but the vanity hasn't been considered new since Carter was in office and in addition to the rust and other disgustingly miscellaneous stains I found inside, someone was kind enough to leave me a tampon, you know, just in case. When we got home, Jeff agreed that it had to go and we decided to head out to a Home Depot by my sister's house because we knew they had a vanity for cheap in the scratch and dent aisle. We farted around the house for a few more hours and finally, when we realized Max was NEVER going to take a nap, decided to head back out. This is where it gets weird.

We got about a mile from home, maybe not even that far, and as I was scrolling though my iPhone so that Max could listen to Boom Boom Pow for the 1,245,968th time, I suddenly felt my right hand start to tingle like it was falling asleep. I pumped my fingers a few times thinking it was just a nerve or something and then I felt it travel all the way up my arm and then I couldn't feel anything on my right side. Hmm...this was not right. Then my shoulder slumped down and my arm went dead in my lap and I turned to scream at Jeff but when I yelled "MY RIGHT SIDE IS GOING NUMB!!!", he said that it sounded like I had been at the dentist and was more like "MAH RAH THIDE ISTH GONG NUM!!" and about 20 seconds later, it was gone and I was back to normal. Well, I shouldn't say back to normal because I was now FREAKING THE HELL OUT and we drove slowly around trying to decide what to do. I really did feel fine so while you're probably saying, GO TO THE HOSPITAL IDIOT, I didn't really feel like I needed to go. Instead we drove home and I thought that if I got out and walked around, I would feel better. Jeff decided to hop on his phone and Google what had happened and then he was like "Get back in. We're going to the ER."

Sadly, when we moved, my dumb ass never checked to see what hospital I go to now. My old hospital was about 5 minutes from home but now I had like 4 to choose from and I had no clue which was the right one for my insurance and now I was more freaked out about a huge hospital bill than whatever was happening to me. Isn't that ridiculous?! I know, but it's the truth. Anyway, I was too wigged out to figure out the stupid insurance company website as we flew down the highway to option 1 so we finally called my sister to see if she knew. She directed us, we were at the wrong one, and about 10 minutes later I was checking myself in. The lady was like "what brings you in?" and I told her that the right side of my body went numb and she responded with "WOW! That's not right, is it?" Um no, that's why I'm here. Long story short, and anytime in an ER is a loooooong story, they did a CT scan and determined that I had an TIA, or mini-stroke. They have no explanation for it, I don't fit the criteria of risk factors, but that's what happened. The scan showed no tumors or damage so they discharged me and told me to follow up with my regular doctor today so I guess he's going to try to find out what the hell happened. Freaky. We Googled it when we got home (don't ever do this if you value your sanity) and it looks like I'll either be totally fine, have more of these mini things or I'll have a big old regular stroke. Fantastic! I'm going to assume that I'm going to be fine but I'm curious to hear what my doctor thinks. I'll keep you posted......

UPDATE: Well, I went to the doctor and he wants to do some tests this Friday. They have long names that I cannot spell so take my word for it. He was concerned but not panicky so I'm trying to follow suit. I could obsess over this for the rest of the week but stress isn't a flavor I want to add to this stew so I'm going to attempt to remain calm. Ask me again on Wednesday. I might crack like an egg.