My almost-9 year old nephew got his purple belt in Tae Kwon Do on Saturday. Mom and Dad and I drove down to watch him do his test, break his boards and get his new belt. Then we went out to lunch with the entire Pickypants family, and I discovered that you can now get Woodchuck cider in Ohio. It was wonderful, and exactly the right beverage with my filet mignon sandwich.
The Book From Hell went to Manufacturing yesterday, which is good. This morning, I got the results from my neuropsych testing, and I'm still trying to process them. I'll write more when I have a handle on what it means for and to me.
One thing related to this morning's appointment:
I don't mind when people correct me when I use the wrong word or something similar, especially not now, when I'm grappling with cognitive issues and have caught myself using a completely wrong word in e-mails or in conversation. I also don't mind having my pronunciation corrected. I have what I call "oldest child syndrome," by which I simply mean that I read a lot as a kid and didn't have older siblings to tell me when I was saying things wrong. I think I was in fifth or sixth grade when I found out that "suicidal" was not pronounced "soo-iss-iddle."
I do mind when I've been running around using the wrong word and making myself look like an idiot and no one tells me. I've been saying "neuropathy" to mean the tingling in my hands and feet since September of 2003, when it started and the resident at my doctor's office called it that. This morning, my neurologist told me that what is going on with me is not neuropathy, as that is a specific syndrome which can have tingling as a side effect. I wish he'd corrected me five years ago! Sheesh.
2 comments:
if it will make you feel any better - i never would have known you were using the wrong words....
I had to take some time to think about what your neurologist said, and, although he knows nerves better than I, so he must have had something in mind, I can't figure out what he meant.
"Neuro" means pertaining to nerves. The suffix "pathy" means feeling, suffering, or perception, as in "telepathy". In medical terms, "pathy" means disease (dis-ease, meaning out of the ordinary in an uncomfortable way).
So, feeling tingling or prickling in the hands IS a neuropathy, unless you happen to be holding a vibrator or hedgehog.
Diabetes is the most common cause of peripheral neuropathy. Some chemptherapies cause neuropathy. Fibromyalgia is a general neuropathy.
I think you can use the word without qualm. Your neurologist may be thinking of a particular side effect of a particular treatment you're not getting, or symdrome you don't have, therefore you don't have THAT neuropathy.
But that doesn't mean what you have is not A neuropathy, idiopathic though it may be.
Check your hands. If they tingle and you're not holding a hedgehog, it's neuropathy, as in "weird nerve sensation".
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