Strokes are nothing to joke about - unless you've had a tumour.

Okay, in MY mind, I have a tame sense of humour. I'm just saying.

This may sound like an obvious statement, but the human body is just weird. It has thrown me some curveballs in the past, and the latest is just fascinating, frankly.

First of all I would like to add how refreshing it was to go and see a doctor today about something *other* than my mental health. Why? Because I'm not used to ailments people can see. No wonder I constantly feel like a hypochondriac! Usually it's all "I FEEL sad, I'm currently FEELING like I'm dying from panic even though I'm sitting here functioning... kinda." My doctors have to give me the benefit of the doubt. I won't go onto my usual rant about how people living with mental health disorders are often marginalized because one can't see their disability. Because to some people, it is in fact an extreme disability. But I digress, again.

Fourteen years ago I noticed a small flat mass on my chest that I presumed was the way my muscle mass just... grew. My friend urged me to go get it checked out and *surprise* it was a very rare and scary tumour the size of a navel orange, growing all over the nerves on my clavicle region. I had it taken out, got a lot of attention from the neurologists in the hospital because they'd never seen anything like it, and once my 15 minutes of fame was up and they did surgery, I was out and have been fine since. I've tried not to let that experience send me to "the bad place" when I have minor and odd body stuff going on.

A few years ago, my optometrist discovered "something" and sent me to a neuro-opthamologist, who diagnosed me as having a large blind spot in my left eye caused by some thing I can't pronounce that basically means my optic nerve has scar tissue and damage on it. He sent me off, not too concerned, because if I have vision in both eyes, my vision makes up for a blind spot and I don't notice it. I think he said something about checking it out in a few years to make sure it doesn't get any worse.

Fast forward to last week. Now I have blurry, fuzzy vision in the bottom of my left eye. I sat with it for a week, but now that it's affecting my reading (it makes me feel kinda queezy to focus on words) I decided maybe it was time to check it out. I saw the doctor, he looked at my eye and noticed my optic nerve is chunky with nerve damage (scarring) and has re-referred me to neuro guy. He noted that he's glad I came in to get it checked out right away.

Since I seem to think I'm really funny even when others don't, I made some comment along the lines of: "yeah, after that whole tumour thing I figured it be best to come in and make sure I didn't have a minor stroke last week!" (as I chuckle away).

He didn't laugh.

Moral of the story? Strokes are nothing to joke about! Unless, of course, you've had a large neurological tumour. After all, I had to listen to all those damn "it's not a tumour" jokes fourteen years ago.

Ringing in the New Year with a wonky optic nerve...

PS