Ode to a neuromuscular specialist

For those of you keeping track at home, my neurologist recently handed me over to a neuromuscular specialist. I had an appointment today with said specialist, and while the "follow my finger, walk heel to toe across the room, touch your nose, try to push against my hands, shut your eyes real tight" is always kind of fun (maybe because I do really well or maybe because it makes me feel a little like a circus clown), it does seem quite pointless. Because other than my short yet annoying list of symptoms, there's nothing else wrong with me.

Considering how often I seem to be at the doctor, not much surprises me in terms of the questions they ask. Which is why I was so puzzled to hear her ask this morning, "Do you look significantly different from your siblings?" Um...what exactly was she getting at? Had I been hit with the ugly stick? Is that what she meant? I shrugged it off and answered that no, we all have pretty similar features. I was still mulling over what condition she thinks I have that might cause me to be horribly disfigured to the point of not resembling my siblings when she hit me with this one: "Did you have any problems as a child, physically? Like were you picked last on teams?" What is this? The wallow in the horror of your childhood hour? Was she actually a shrink? Although I don't remember that I was ever picked last for a team, or even almost last, so I assured her of that. That is, as soon as I had recovered from the image of the physical handicap she most likely was about to diagnose.

She threw another curve at me when, along with more blood tests and a prescription, she sent me over to cardio. And that is how I came to be wearing the holter monitor that now has my chest covered in sticky patches and my shoulder carrying the little recording device in a rather ugly carrying case. I'll be like this for 48 hours, in which time I was instructed not to shower or take off my bra. The shower thing, fine. 48 showerless hours are totally do-able. But the bra? Are they insane? I realize they think I'll mess up the wires that are surrounding the area, but really? It doesn't exactly take a mission impossible to avoid disconnecting the wires during removal. I should know. I've already done it.

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