According to my neurologist, I'm to report any new neurological symptoms. It's difficult to report anything to my neurologist considering the next available appointment for existing patients is not until November. How f'ing ridiculous is that?

Anyhow, the past few days I've noticed, and this is hard to describe, that my chin and the portion underneath my lower lip seem to quiver for no reason when I relax my face. I use the word "relax" because I typically have some sort of facial expression and rarely have a totally relaxed face. Even when I'm in deep thought, reading, or doing something on my iPhone, I always have a facial expression that requires the use of muscles to generate a facial expression. Granted, it doesn't happen every time I relax my face, but still.

Although this may seem minor, it's still disconcerting. I had a stroke to the left side of my cerebellum resulting in about 50% damage to the left side. So if this is stroke related, why is it affecting both the left and right sides of my chin/lower lip? I'd like to chalk it up to the latest change in my psych meds.

Is this considered a neurological symptom? Do I want to know? I'm thinking the answers may be possibly yes and probably no respectively.

In other news on the negative news front, I received a statement of benefits from my insurance company regarding my ER visit. The cost for my ER visit, including three CAT scans - $12,658! Of that, I'll have to pay 20%. Yay! Add that to the other $12,000 some odd dollars I already owe the same hospital from my ICU stay last year. Unfortunately, the latter balance is 100% my responsibility.

Meanwhile, on the good news front, I won a copy of Stephen King's latest novel, Mr. Mercedes. I had forgotten I entered a contest on his website. I arrived home today and found a package from Simon and Schuster. I knew there was a book inside but had no idea why one would have been sent to me. It's not a signed copy, but hey, I won something! It's the little things that make me happy these days.

Why I Fear Headaches

It's been ten long months since my stroke yet every time I have a headache I have a minor freak out moment (actually a few minutes, okay, longer than a few).

A little background... I was violently woken at 3am by my cerebellar stroke. I was fast asleep and then BOOM, I was wide awake. I had very violent vertigo that felt as though my body was spinning out-of-control backward (feet over head) over and over and over again at a fast rate of speed.

I gripped the comforter hoping to stabilize myself, but that didn't work, hell, I couldn't even feel the bed beneath me. I was yelling "Oh my God, help me, help me, help me" to my sleeping husband who had no idea what the hell was going on when he woke.

The entire back of my head and neck were in excruciating pain - worse than any migraine you can imagine. My neck felt as though it had been beaten with a baseball bat and my head with a hammer (not that I have any idea what either feel like, but it's the best way I can describe it).

I didn't go to the emergency room for four days but that's a different story entirely. When I finally made it to the ER, I described the headache (still there but worse) and vertigo in such detail that the ER doc knew something was seriously wrong neurologically. I've read a number of cases where people go to an ER thinking they have vertigo or severe dizziness and are told by doctors, yep, thats what's wrong, when actually they've learned later they've had an artery dissection (vertebral or carotid) and/or stroke.

Anyhow, the point of this post... (and again, I'm not offering medical advice!) Last night I had a headache on the back left side of my head - the side where the dissection and stroke occurred. It didn't feel like a typical headache and it wasn't exactly the same or as excruciating as with the stroke. It's times like these when I wonder if I should go to an ER or if I'm just being paranoid. I struck out the ER option as I wasn't having vertigo or dizziness while doing the "touch my finger/touch your nose" test with my husband.

Should you ever find yourself at an ER for vertigo or dizziness, be sure the doctor performs this test. It was this test that told the ER doc that I definitely had something wrong neurologically. I failed the test as I had Nystqgmus (Wikipedia can show you show what it looks like and describes it in detail). She ordered an MRI and CT scan, but "touch my finger/touch your nose" may have made the difference between being told I had vertigo and to go home rather than being diagnosed correctly!