More health-related issues for R

Guess who is back up at the house.... Yep, me. R called early yesterday morning to tell me he was going to the ER. He was having some issues with tingling/shaking in his right hand, bad headache on the left side of his head, random/slight tunnel vision, and a bit of lightheadedness. Oh, and he also couldn't talk, as in he would try to say words and they came out and mumbling no matter how hard he tried. Being medically trained, I immediately associate the dysphasia (speech problem) with maybe a minor stroke or blood clot in his brain. Everything else can be tied back to brain injury as well. The doctors didn't focus as much trying to diagnose the dysphasia, they really wanted to explain the shaking in his arm because that was coming and going all day long and the dysphasia resolved itself in 10-15 minutes.

Diagnosis- focal seizure. Oooooh, the dreaded "S" word. Not so scary because it's just in one hand and we're pretty sure we know why (I will get into those details momentarily), but it does prevent him from being allowed to drive at least until his followup with the neurologist, and possibly for 6 months. His job requires driving, so that might be in jeopardy. The military freaks out when they see the "s" word, so that career might be in jeopardy too. We're not going to jump to any conclusions until we get the neurology report, but the future is really up in the air.

So, I am up here (thankfully I have all but 1 day off this week from nannying, and my mom will come up and drive him around that day) driving him around. Waking up at 5:30am so I can drive him to work (ok, he wakes up at 5:30, I sleep until 5 minutes before we have to leave, but I do hear his alarm clock...), driving back to base to bring him lunch so we can eat together, and back on base again to pick him up after work. Plus any driving to the grocery store for whatever we need. It seems so pointless, because he feels fine and even when the episode was at its worst he could still function (speaking isn't his strong suit anyway, so I don't see it as much of a loss) (joking). But, the dr said no driving, so here I am, personal chauffeur.

On to the cause. When R was 17 he got into a car accident, his car basically ping-ponged off the guardrails on both sides of a small country road. His head hit the post next to him. The cop asked if he wanted an ambulance, R was admirably strong and said he was uninjured and didn't need one. The moron cop listened. R walked the mile and a half home, where he promptly loss conciousness and was found 6 hours later and an ambulance was called. CT scan, MRI, EEG. Nothing found, played off as a concussion with no brain injury. 3 months later he randomly passed out at work, that was basically ignored and called an "anxiety attack." Since then, nothing until about 15 months ago when he had the whole speech issue at work one day, but it resolved itself in just a few minutes so R ignored it thinking it was just a tired thing.

CT yesterday didn't show anything, but they are getting all the authorizations required to send him for an MRI and a consult with a neurologist. It is going to be a very long few weeks. I'm supposed to nanny 2 hours away, 10 hour days, there is no way I can drive R back and forth to work and still work myself. It's no career, but I love the baby I watch and with the possibility that R's job might be on the line, we're gonna need all the money we can get. This is going to be rough.

Until yesterday, I really only had the desire to be here on weekends, maybe one or two days during the week if I didn't have to work. Even now, I don't think I'm even close to ready to move back in. But, R needs me and I can't stand to turn my back on that. Yeah, he only needs me for half an hour twice a day, but he does need me. Hopefully he can find another way to and from work soon, because I can't justify quitting my job just to drive him around. And hopefully the neurologist will find something wrong (because that would mean it's fixable and would never cause another problem in the future, which would mean he could keep his job and stay in the military) and we can fix this soon. If only things were easy.