Quiz #81. Tremor
Why have I not written a quiz in 14 days? The story behind my mid-pandemic brain scans in Steve's Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz for August 30, 2020.
I was born and raised a Roman Catholic. I went to Catholic grammar school and an all-male Catholic high school. In 8th grade, I was President of the Altar Boys.
My Christening cake in 1957
A central part of that Catholic education was guilt. The nuns taught us that if you even thought of cursing or getting in a fight, it was a sin--even if you refrained from saying the word or reacting in anger. So, one of the first times I went to confession, I told the priest that I’d broken all Ten Commandments. The priest asked me if I knew what adultery was. I told him that I did not--but I was sure that if I had not done it, I’d thought of doing it. He told me to go home and ask my parents to explain adultery to me. I did not follow up and did not ask them. We were a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” household. My father’s sex education talk happened when we were out sailing. “Do you have any questions about sex?” he asked. “No,” I responded--and that was it.
My First Communion, circa 1965
My Confirmation, circa 1968
Except for weddings and funerals, I haven’t been to a Catholic church since college. 40 years of life as an ex-Catholic--if there is such a thing. And so it is, that I always remember the words the nuns taught us to say at the start of confession, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been “xx days/weeks/months” since my last confession. These are my sins.”
Three simple sentences that set the priest up for what is to follow. A Google form preview that you might find in a doctor’s office.
Why are you here?
When did we last see you?
What are your symptoms?
All of this is my long preamble to acknowledge that I have not written a quiz since Quiz #80. Waiting on August 16th.
Bless me, Reader, for I have not written.
It’s been 14 days since my last quiz.
Here’s what’s caused the delay.
On a macro level, I think it’s because little has changed in my coronavirus outlook since the last quiz, Quiz #80. Waiting. I’ve given up trying to figure things out. I’ve watched both political conventions for work. Sara watched them to find out what both sides were saying. I watched network coverage. Sara watched C-Span, not wanting any interruptions or analysis from pundits. Our minds long since made up, the virus is still here, the country’s more of a mess than ever and we are just waiting for the election to come and the vaccine to be ready.
On a micro level, I’ve also been dealing with my own health scare. As mentioned in Quiz #15. Old Dogs on March 31st, back in March, I noticed that the pinkie on my left hand was shaking when I used my laptop, inadvertently hitting the “esc” key in the upper left. Over the last few months, that tremor has moved to my left index finger. My left index finger now shakes almost all the time. Sara has noticed the tremor for a while and when she commented on it one night while we were just sitting and watching TV, the next day I got an appointment with my doctor.
I went in on Wednesday, August 12th. My primary doctor was out so I saw another doctor in the practice. The office was set up for social distancing and I was told to text when I arrived but wait in the car until I got a return text that the doctor was ready to see me. I wore a mask and so did everyone in the office with a temperature check at the front door.
The exam consisted of the standard checkup. Blood pressure (normal), pulse and a check of my chest for breathing and heart rate. A series of neurological tests followed with me holding my hands out, following the doctor’s finger with my eyes and walking with my arms out.
I’m mostly healthy, but the biggest medical event in my life was in 2017. I had brain surgery, a craniotomy where they removed part of my skull, put in two titanium clips to clip two aneurysms to keep them from bursting, put the piece of skull back in place and stitched me up with 28 staples and a 9.5 inch scar across the inside of my hairline. I was out of work for 12 weeks. It all happened by accident. Driving alone, I was sitting at a red light and was rear ended by a distracted driver going 50 mph. My seatbelt saved me, but our minivan was totaled. The other driver was taken away in an ambulance, but I walked away with only a small scratch on my head. (My head hit the rear view mirror.) That night, I had a headache so Sara and I went to the ER at our local hospital. They did a brain scan which showed I had a small cyst in my brain . I stayed overnight in the hospital and the next day a brain surgeon told us the cyst was small, not related to the accident and not a cause for alarm--as long as it did not get bigger or move. Come back in six months to get scanned again.
Our mini-van after the 2016 accident that sent me in for my first brain scans
So, one week before Christmas in 2016, I got scanned again and went back to the brain surgeon four days before Christmas for a follow-up. As soon as I walked in the exam room, I could tell that something was wrong. The cyst, he told me, was not a problem. Same size, no movement. I’d probably had it my whole life. But the scans showed I had an aneurysm, 6mm in the right MCA. I needed to have brain surgery because if it burst, it had a better than 50/50 chance of killing me. A second test, an angiogram in which I woke up in an exam room with doctors probing the inside of my brain, revealed a second aneurysm. I had no symptoms, no pain and there was no sign it was caused by the accident.
This surgery is part of my medical history and it’s the first thing that the doctor talked about after my exam for the tremor in my finger. Was I having headaches? Had I hit my head? Any kind of brain trauma like a fall or an accident? (The answers all “No.”) She was concerned that I might have another aneurysm or that there was some kind of brain bleed in the area of the first brain surgery. She called my brain surgeon’s office and they agreed I should get scanned again.
I had gone into the exam thinking the doctor would tell me it was a pinched nerve. Maybe I was drinking too much coffee. Maybe too much time on the laptop. Maybe get a wrist brace and type with my right hand. Brain scans and another aneurysm were the last things on my mind.
It was another of those before and after moments in life. Before finding out a diagnosis--and after. Before losing a partner, parent or child--and after. Before finding out you were being laid off--and after. (Something that’s happened to millions in this pandemic including dozens of my own colleagues in the last month, some of whom I had worked with for decades.)
The next two days after that exam were a blur, scheduling ths scan, getting it approved by insurance and getting a blood test to make sure my kidneys could handle the dye they inject in you for contrast during the brain scan.
We decided to get the scan done at the Philadelphia hospital where I had the brian surgery in 2017. If there was a new aneurysm, I wanted my brain surgeon to have the results in their system from their machines. The Philadelphia hospital also has its own separate hospital dedicated solely to brain surgery with their own MRI testing center. They do brain scans until 10pm every night and mine was scheduled for 7pm on Friday, August 14th.
I joked with Sara that it was date night, but it was a disturbing deja vu. Returning to the hospital where we had both--together and alone--endured the nightmare of surgery 3 years ago. We traded stories of the things that had happened to us. In the parking garage, Sara showed me the machine she’d jammed in the hours after my surgery, tying up the line of people waiting to leave the facility. In walking to my appointment, we passed a medical professional who smiled at me and said an enthusiastic “Hi!” as if he knew me. Sara and I did not recognize him. Maybe he treated me in 2017? Maybe he recognized me because I'd been part of a “Grateful Patient” campaign at the hospital and they’d used my picture for in-house publications and billboards?
Even at 7pm on a Friday night, the waiting room for the brain scan was crowded. Everyone had masks on, but Sara did not come inside. Instead, she waited in the adjoining atrium. We could see one another through the glass as I waited in the waiting room. I’d come out to talk to her, but she refused to fist-bump me when I’d go back inside. They were a little behind schedule and when I was taken back for my exam, the tech was a nice young man, mid-thirties. There were two MRI machines inside, and as the tech took me into the room with the MRI machine, he told me that I'd gotten the room with the better machine. (I wondered if they told that to everyone going into both rooms. Imagine if they didn’t. “We have two machines and I am sorry to tell you—this is not the best one.”)
The room was brighter than the ones where I'd had previous scans. White on the walls and bright lights on the ceiling. Somehow it really helped to calm me down for what is an intense experience.
Your head locked into place as they send your upper torso into a tube for just under an hour, the rim of the machine just inches from your nose. The attendant asked me if I needed anything before sending me in. I asked him to get the score of the Phillies’ game. When I emerged one hour later, he had it. 4-4, tied in the seventh. As I left the back area near the machines, I saw the man who’d been in the waiting room with me and who’d had his own head examined in the other MRI room. He told me, “Good luck” and I was touched. I returned the well wishes.
As I left the hospital with Sara, I was relieved the test was over. It’s harrowing and even though the tech told me he had no idea of the results, I felt there was no way they would let us leave if there really was a brain bleed. On Monday morning, I got the official results. No brain bleed. No new aneurysms and no problems with blood flow in the area of the previous brain surgery.
I’ve now got an appointment to see a neurologist the Tuesday after Labor Day to try to figure out what’s going on with my tremor. I’ve also had extensive blood work. The only thing out of line is an elevated glucose count.
No more Lucky Charms for breakfast. (Oatmeal with raisins instead.)
No more throwing a scoop of lemonade mix into the 4 large tumblers of water I drink each day. (As noted in Quiz #76. Before Now After, I find drinking plain water just boring and tasteless. I’m now squeezing in a slice of fresh lemon.)
And no more weekend whisky sours made with fresh-squeezed lemons and simple syrup--which you make by boiling down equal parts of water and sugar in a saucepan. (That alone was two cups of sugar each weekend.)
What happens next? I don’t know. The tremor in my finger is no better, no worse. It’s more annoying and distressing than painful and disabling. I’ve lost a bunch of emails because my left hand is unsteady and sometimes causes me to inadvertently delete what I have written. At the dinner table, I’ve noticed that I keep my left hand in my lap without thinking about it.
For now, I am again waiting to find out what’s next.
What did not happen?
A. In a phone call with my son Ted, we talked about other things that might be causing my tremor. He asked how much coffee I was drinking. I told him 5 to 6 cups a day. That’s probably too much. I’ve since cut it down to 3 to 4 cups a day;
B. Even before the tremors, I knew I needed to exercise more than just the 2 dogs walks I take every morning and night. Months ago, Sara and I ordered an upright exercise bike. It arrived the day I went to the doctor. I put it together after my brain scan and have been “riding” every other day since;
C. Before heading back to teaching 4th grade at the school in our town where they are still planning on “in person” learning, Betsy decided to take another trip to Michigan for a baby shower for a college friend. Sara and I agreed to watch her 2 dogs, Fred and Brownie, so we’ve had 4 dogs for the last few days. Twice the fun and twice the dog walks;
D. I needed a break from heavy reading and picked up “Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story” from Bess Kalb on a whim after seeing it on Twitter. I read the book in a day. Even though it’s about the death of Kalb’s grandmother, the book is great, sweet and life-affirming;
E. As the football season gets closer, I was approached by “Big John,” a Texas doctor who I met on the internet. He wanted me to join a special fantasy football league he’s put together with different rules for 2020 that one website has called “pandemic proof.” A man of my word from Quiz #62. Football Fantasy on June 28th, I told “Big John” that I would not be playing fantasy football in 2020.
Want the answer?
If you’re a subscriber, the answer will be sent to you as a separate email when the question is published.
Want more?
Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #82. Promise Made, Promise Broken.
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #80. Waiting.
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
Want to let me know how I’m doing with this quiz?
Please let me know about any typos or misspellings.
Comments, corrections and confessions welcome.
Thank you and good night.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for commenting.