Taking Bets

Hello, Tumor fans!

Weird day in a weird time.

K-BWE and I planned to go on a walk with Willow late this afternoon.  I was driving us all to the park when I noticed I was seeing double when I look up, down, or to the right.  It turns out that it is really annoying to see double when one is driving.  It was a very short drive, and I was OK if I closed one eye, so I got us to our destination.  Then I handed K-BWE my car keys.(1)

So, like I said, weird, and a bit distressing. But on the bright side, if I look a certain way, I have two dogs now, and I have always wanted to have two dogs!

Anyway, I've decided to start a pathology betting pool.  For the next 24 hours, I will be taking bets on the cause of my sudden double vision.(2)  Please place these bets as comments within the webpage instead of e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter comments.

Is my double vision from:

A) A ministroke? 

This is a pretty good bet.  I have had lots of ministrokes, and I have never even noticed them before.

B) A transient ischemic attack (TIA)?(3)?

Like in most strokes, with a TIA, there is blockage of an artery but it goes away, sometimes as much as 24 hours later (which is why I am only taking bets for the next 24 hours).  Only time can tell.

C) A migraine?

Migraines can mimic strokes.  I do get migraines occasionally, and I do have a litte headache.  (I get headaches all the time because the tumor has infiltrated the muscles in the right side of my jaw, so it doesn't necessarilty mean anything.)

D) The tumor?
The tumor could be on the move and attacking my eye muscles or the nerves for them.  That's kind of grim.

E) Eyedrop?
Since the giant blast of radiation I got in 2005, the right side of my face has been slowly turning to goo, and my right eye has been gradually dropping downward.  Kathleen noticed that it seemed to have dropped a little further lately, and that can give me double vision if it happens too fast.

I will be taking bets until 6 o'clock, April 12, 2020.  But please note that I will accept only monopoly money as currency.

Anyway, I don't love this turn of events, but I refuse to freak out.  Even if we were not living through the zombie apocolypse, I would not go to the ER for this.  Strokes and TIAs are boring, and I am already taking aspirin to prevent them.  If I were taking anticoagulants like warfarin (aka Coumadin), I would bleed to death through my nose, so there's nothing to do about that.(4)

If it's a migraine, it'll get better.  If it's the tumor, we'll deal with it later, and, if it's eyedrop, well, whatever.  One gets kind of jaded after a while.

I'll let you know what my doctors think when I finally get around to telling them. (Doctors make the WORST patients.)

Finally, I am announcing my new product for the prevention of COVID-19 infection!

By mixing the essences of beans, onions, garlic, brussel sprouts, and cabbage and distilling them down to pill form, I have developed a special way to prevent infection with COVID-19.  It creates a special "forcefield" that means that no one ever gets within 6 feet of me!  Instant physical distancing. I call it Flatulessence.  Look for it in stores soon.

Be safe. Wash your hands.  Stay home if you can.  

Tom

(1) We took a brief walk because Willow decided to be a brat and run off into the woods for 10 minutes at a time, so we had to leash her.  That and the double vision thing really made is less fun than I had expected, so we went home early.

This is the second time our canine brat has done something like that in that particular park, and we're not going back until I train her to come back more quickly.

(2) Anyone know the going rate for bookies?  I don't want to charge an exorbitant cut, but it seems wrong to do this for free.

(3) The medical TIA is different from the government's top secret TIA, the Temporarily Ischemic Agency.

(4) Patients often call warfarin and other clot-preventin drugs 'blood thinners.'  Technically, they do not thin the blood.  The blood flows just as it always does, but the drugs will prevent the blood from forming clots (which are like scabs) where it shouldn't.

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This is the mask I wear when I go out!