July 2012 to March 2013-my journey to diagnosis

My journey began with a decision to quit work at the end of July 2012 and be a stay at home Mom.  I decided to quit because I was always so exhausted and stressed which often led to depression.  I thought maybe I was just spreading myself to thin, trying to work full time, be a Mom, and wife, oh and every once in awhile think of and take care of myself...and all the other stuff that ties into those three titles.  So I made the decision to eliminate the stress, and make my family life priority.
The summer months passed and I wasn't seeing any real improvement in my exhaustion or depression.  As fall started, I began to notice very bizzare things going on within my body.  I was becoming very weak, every part of me just hurt like I had spent hours at the gym (and anyone that knows me know thats highly unlikely, unless they were holding a bake sale of course(: ).  To be honest, I sort of chalked it up to getting older-I had turned 30, and we all know by that age you might as well start diggin your grave! Haha...ok, well for me it seemed that way at least.
So, in October I finally decided to make an appointment with my Primary doctor.  The symptoms began stacking up and progressing, and denial flew out the window then came back to smack me in the face.  I began having strange numbness in my face, hands and feet.  I had a tingly feeling running thru my body like electricity.  My neck and shoulders were oddly stiff and sore.  The bottoms of my feet and palms of my hands felt like they were on fire!  I began having more frequent and painful headaches.  I was also feeling off balance and dizzy.  I was having a very hard time falling asleep, and getting restful sleep.  My Doctor thought that my symptoms were very similar to Multiple Sclerosis. To help with my symptoms, Doc put me on a high dose, one month routine of Prednisone.  She sent me for a brain MRI, which because of insurance complications I was not able to do until late December.  The biggest issue was that I had never had an MRI, and I am extremely claustaphobic!  So waiting to get a refferal to have it done off base in a open MRI was over a month! :/  I must admit that a few Xanax, and a washcloth over my eyes was still necessary with the open mri, but felt pretty proud of myself for following thru with it.
The follow up appointment with my primary Dr. was a couple weeks afterthe mri, and of course I was incredibly anxious for the radiologist's report and news from my brain mri.  I prepared for the worst, but truthfully ready to find out what was going on with my body!  Oh-and word of personal advice...I stopped the prednisone, and will never ever again take that unless my life depends on it! I felt like the amazing hulk waitin for my next fix of roids-yah-I was crazy.  Ok so...back to the appt.  to her and my surprise...it was clear!? No lesions, no tumor...just a brain.  Ok-so I went with it...but was starting to feel a bit crazy!?  Maybe I was over analyzing this and just worried for nothing?  Doc decided to try Neurontin to help with the pain I was having, and hopefully the headaches also.  She also decided we needed to run some labs (bloodwork) to rule out the usual MS mimicks, and any other bizzare thing that could be causing my symptoms.
We scheduled another follow up to talk about the lab results, and see how the neurontin was helping.  At this appointment I became even mpre frustrated! All the labs were fine! According to my blood-I was one healthy girl!  I was also seeing no differance in my symptoms from taking the Neurontin, so we stopped that.  Then of course the-"depression can cause physical pain and that may be what we are dealing with here" talk.  I am not usually one to go against my Dr. or really speak my mind, but now was the time time!  I told her that I think the symptoms were causing my depression to peak...not the other way around.  Of course this conversation was with me sobbing.  I was really scared and really felt like maybe I was just going nuts?!  Thankfully I have an amazingly wonderful Primary Dr. and she reffered me toa Neurologist.
The first appointment with the Neuro in Feb. 2013 was great!  I didnt feel so crazy telling him my woes.  He spent quite a bit of time with me getting history, symptoms, and did a neuro exam.  He also pointed out a tremor in my hands-guess I had never noticed it!?  He looked over my previous brain mri, and blood lab work.  He also felt that much of my issues seemed to fit a diagnosis of MS.  He ordered a lumbar puncture to run tests on my spinal fluid, and also a neck and spine mri.  He seemed to be fixated on one of the brain mri images, but never said anything about it.
I had the lumbar pucture first, and recieved the reaults from my Neurologist by phone-all is well! No signs of MS!?  Much to everything in me saying I really do not want to lay in that tube for almost two hours...I did the mri on base so that I wouldnt have to wait a month to go off base for the open one.
So, this mri required an extra xanax, and really the worst part was how uncomfortable I was laying still for that long.  My Neurologist called me the afternoon, just hours after the mri.  He said that we dinally had an answer, and I was gonna want to find a pen cause he would be apelling the diagnosis.  Ok, so I anxiously search for the pen and await my fate.  He says "you have a Chiari Malformation and a Syrinx"  Um yah-no spelling needed, I have watched my Mom suffer from her Chiari for many years, but the Syrinx was new to me.  We spoke briefly and scheduled a follow-up to speak about the diagnosis in person.

>please keep in mind that one of my symptoms is trouble focusing, finding the word that I want to use, and memory issues.  So as I attempt at cataloging, I will most likely bounce around on thoughts and make it a bit more confusing.  But I appreciate your interest in reading and learning about me and this condition!  I will post again soon to update from diagnosis a month ago to now...but as for tonight-I can't do anymore!