My health

Some of you know that I'm not healthy. Some of you don't.

That has created a rumor mill. So, to address that, here is the elephant in the room:

I'm not feeling well. At the moment, this is marked by:

• Fatigue. Without 8 hours of sleep, my day is ruined. With 12 hours, it's okay. At any given time, I'm tired and ready to go to bed.
• Muscle Tightness/Cramps. This has been causing me a lot of pain. It feels like I've run a marathon, and I'm too tired to move muscles. When I do, they say "STOP, or I'll cramp!" ...If I don't stop, or if I move too quickly to begin with, they do cramp, which hurts a lot. Yes, weird. The worst muscle groups are the legs, so getting up, sitting down, and walking are difficult, but possible. I can walk LONG distances for a LONG time without stopping... but I need to do it slowly, and it's uncomfortable--sometimes painful.
  
• Some potentially neurological problems. I have difficulty articulating some words, some of the time. It's not reproducable. I have trouble typing: many more typos than usual, much slower, more fatigue in so-doing. I am having trouble focusing, lately: my eyes feel tired, like they don't want to coordinate. For most of these, the best description I have found is that it's like I've been out in the cold for a few hours, and I've just come back in: I feel... slow, stiff, and sloppy.
• Strange Bloodwork. My red-count, white-count, and sodium levels, as well as two or three other levels that didn't mean anything to me, so I forget their names, are all low. Lower than "normal". But only slightly. For example, if "normal" is 35-50, my level would be 34.5... It's bold and flagged on the report, but only just barely. Yes. Weird.
  

I don't know what's going on. People who have limited information are worried that it's something serious... but there's nothing saying it is. At the moment, all these effects are really mild: I couldn't walk into an ER in this condition, and it's debatable whether I would even get looked at seriously in urgent care. At the moment, I'm just keeping in frequent touch (biweekly) with my usual doctor.

Nothing has been eliminated. It could be Lupus. It could be MS. It
could be heavy metals. It could psychosomatic: nothing truly
"measurable" has developed. It could be progressive, it could be
benign. It could be side-effects (there's a word for it which I
forget) from plain old infections (I work with Pharmacists, and one of
them just suggested this yesterday--apparantly one can get
neurological side-effects with some fancy name because of some
auto-immune behaviours). If that's the case, the antibiotic I was
just put on yesterday should clear things up in a few days, or it might
require more serious antibiotics for a much longer course. I'm getting
a test for arthritis this weekend, and that will
(strangely) rule out another host of possibilities, which include some
auto-immune problems, like Lupus. We're still avoiding the whole
"cancer" thing, because none of the usual cancer flags (like weight loss) are there.

Personally? My mind changes. I've gone from thinking it was
somatising to thinking it was a side-effect of something I was taking
to being absolutely convinced it was MS to (presently) thinking it
probably has a lot more to do with my *blood* than neurons: what it
feels like is that my muscles are just absolutely fatigued: like they
cannot get any more oxygen, and so they're cramping (by using
anaerobic metabolism), aching all the time (from the lactic acid
buildup), and then just refusing to work properly (thus the slurring
and difficulty typing, etc, etc). To me, that just makes the most
sense... but my knowledge is very limited.

That's news from the horse's mouth.

Of course, we're all hoping it's something benign, and of course there
is risk that it's something more serious. Neurology is very hard to
diagnose, which is why I'm seeing a neurologist on the 19th. Unless
something develops between now and then (antibiotics fix things,
bloodwork is more telling, condition crosses the "serious" line), the
likely outcome of that appointment will be an MRI, which should fairly
quickly rule out a whole lot of other stuff.

Speculation before then is nothing more than speculation, of
course... which is the path to the dark side (speculation leads to
worry, worry leads to fear, fear leads to anger, anger leads to
burning up in lava and wearing a shiny hat that makes breathing sound
effects for the rest of your life).

So stop the cycle as early as you can! :)

I'm in a good state of mind, and to me, that's the most important
thing right now. I'm feeling very positive. If I come out of this
with new limitations, that's something I can deal with: I'm a firm
believer that everyone has limitations, and as such, the limitations
we have are somewhat arbitrary. As long as I'm able to appreciate
what I have, I have something powerful. And at the moment, I see
nothing to worry about in that regard! So, honestly--*whatever* this
is--I can handle it. This doesn't have to be negative: this could
even make me a better person, in a lot of ways. For example, I've
always wanted to... slow down.

Of course, knowing what's going on would bring an additional layer of
comfort that I would greatly appreciate. ;) So I'm looking forward
to that, too.

That's the most honest answer I can give.

All is well with me.