Monday, January 9, 2017

Brain testing, psychometrist, and exhaustion.

I have been mentally pumping myself up for my "brain testing" appointment that was last week. It was supposed to be on Friday but it got bumped to Thursday, which meant I had to re-schedule my appointment with my regular doctor and have Matt take the day off work so he could take the kids to school and Penelope to her appointment.

But it all worked out and everyone got to where they needed to be.

Going into this appointment I had no idea what to expect because the term "brain testing" is kind of vague and the neurologist who ordered the testing said it's just a lot more involved testing that what he did in his office, and told me it would likely take me "all day". Which, OK. That's pretty awful sounding, but if it means we can find a solution to my brain feeling like mush, I'm game.
So I drove myself to the Essentia Lakewalk Clinic building in Duluth, which is lovely, albeit a bit overly fancy for what is in there. They also have a terribly rude receptionist who checks you in. My appointment was at 8 and she was already acting as if she's got the worst job in the world, so I can only imagine what she's like by 4. But I didn't have to wait long until my psychometrist came out.

Oh, what's a psychometrist? Glad you asked because I Google'd it and found this:


I will say he was very nice but to be honest, we really didn't have any small talk. He was right to the point and administered hours of tests. I had mentally prepared myself to be there from 8-4 because that's what my paperwork said, so I had vending machine money and snacks. Turns out it was for nothing because I was done by noon.

As far as the testing goes, it was kind of bizarre. A lot of it was testing my attention and repetition abilities. He would recite a list of several words and then I'd have to repeat back how many I remembered. I'd look at 50 images and then be asked which pictures I saw. I was given a test where I looked at an image and then had to draw it from memory. The worst was the computer tests because those gave me an instant migraine. It was a series of letters flashing on a screen and I had to hit the space bar every time I saw a letter, but not the letter X. I know I didn't do well on that one. But the one where it was numbers flashing on the screen was the worst, and I think it's because it was a colored background and it made me feel like I had to blink a lot. It was strange. Then of course, I had like a 400 question survey on all kinds of things, I'm guessing to gauge my mental and/or emotional health? But I left there with a migraine and absolutely exhausted.

So  I did what anyone else would do.
I went to Wendy's to treat myself to some lunch. And it was worth it.

I drove home and told Matt I absolutely had to take a nap. I don't think even taking the ACT's in high school stressed me out that much.
And my elusive cat Ginger took a nap with me.

I find out the results of my brain testing on Wednesday, so we'll see. I don't know what to expect from the results either way. I tried to ask the psychometrist some question and all he would say was that the neurologist would answer my questions. Normally I'd be panicking about this but I guess worst case scenario it yields no real answers and I'm back at square one, I suppose.

But after my nap I came downstairs and decided to have some dinner. I felt pretty terrible to have missed Penelope's doctor appointment and to not have spent any real time with her or Lucy.
And Lucy let me know by staring me down while I ate. It doesn't matter what I'm doing but if she can hear my voice she's always searching me out. Penelope and Jackson did that too, but she does it ALL the time, more so than her siblings. It's like I'm her actual life line sometimes and I wonder what she's thinking. Sometimes I wonder if she knows how I'm feeling, that I'm only here for her, I want her to remember me.

I don't know. Deep thoughts for someone who feels dead on her feet. So we'll see. This week is full of appointments including my regular doctor, my therapist, the neurologist, and then ending the week with the psychologist to get a solution for my depression, or at least something better than what we're doing now.

1 comment:

Julie H said...

Catching up on posts, she's being your little life line <3