Thursday, May 10, 2007

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Interesting that when I was writing yesterday, I couldn’t remember what went on, on Tuesday. Tuesday morning, I drove down to CC’s work to meet her when she got off at 11:00 AM and then we left together to San Francisco for me to make my appointment with the neurologist who wanted to perform another EMG test on me.
We got there in plenty of time and once in the appointment, he again shared that he doesn’t feel that I fit the mold of the typical HKPP case. CC asked an unobvious but crucial question of perspective early one while I laid on the table waiting for the testing to begin. She asked him if he felt that HKPP could be linked to Hyperaldosteronism, something which is accepted in some medical fields and is something we believe is likely the case with me. He answered with a solid “no, they are completely unrelated.” which definitively indicated that he won’t even consider that as an option which set the tone for his “testing” which was apparently intended to prove that I don’t have HKPP rather than looking for more information.
EMG testing is two part testing which is essentially setting electric shocks into the hand/wrist and watching for nerve reaction to the repetitive shocking and watching the level of nerve reaction after about 30 minutes of shocking the hell out of my right hand.
Next, the added entertainment (sarcasm) is taking a dull electric needle like probe and having it stuck into my right shoulder then have me move my shoulder (causing sincere pain) and then the same process as he stabs my bicep and then the skin between the thumb and the first finger then he asks you to lift your index finger while this “probe” is stuck in your hand.
When all is said and done, he sits back in his chair and says that he’s glad to note that my results are “normal” and that they would not be if I had HKPP. Basically, he performed a test on me to simply test and “prove’ that I don’t have something that he felt I didn’t have from the beginning…let’s see…back when he received a call from a neurological colleague from Kaiser, a Dr. Gibbs, who called him to “let him know that I was not a candidate” for his HKPP testing because Gibbs doesn’t think I have HKPP either. Are they connected…? I guess it will depend on the day you ask me.
We left the appointment and drove down to Stanford Hospital where my niece, who was just married, is currently due to her disease and needing to be “cleaned out” so to speak. Her mom was there too, so we got to visit with Kimmy and Angel for a couple hours before turning around and heading back up here. We had a really good time seeing Nagel and Kimmy and hearing more about Angel’s honeymoon cruise and all.

Anyway, that was Tuesday. My arm still hurts from the pokes and my hand is tender/sore as well.

Fini.