This is a report from the Traumatic Brain Injury clinic neurologist. I think it is interesting, not because of what the report says, necessarily, but because this is a neurologist I normally do not see and so it is interesting to note what his conclusion would be..."Patient seen today in the TBI clinic...in brief this is a 40 year old man who suffered an idiopathic vertebral dissection in 2008 with bilateral cerebellar infarcts and a brainstem stroke who has had a significant recovery. He continues to have a number of symptoms including limited energy and concerns as to what the future holds...Basically, I spent 60 minutes with him today explaining that the symptoms he has such as the pulsating sensation in the ear, the twitching of his eye, the tremor in his left hand, the balance difficulties, dysphagia, speech problems and fatigue are clearly residuals of the stroke....clearly he is limited as a result of the stroke."
The part that was very reassuring was that, although not in his Dr. notes, he did mention that people with my stroke generally are not able to do what I am doing; that is, my recovery has been extremely remarkable. One more Dr. who has seen my scans, looked at my records and was absolutely astounding at my capabilities.
It was interesting to read that your neurologist never actually gave you a diagnosis for your defects,ie. what parts of the brain were damaged. Telling you that the dissection was the cause is not technically correct. The tear clotted, the clots let go and traveled to the brain plugging some artery.
ReplyDeleteBrainstem strokes are bad so you are defintely better off than most.