Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3...ad infinitum

Nausea set in hours before departure. As with so many events in my life, gastroenteritis decided to make an uninvited entrance. Nevertheless, I made it to Houston, Mr. DMFP driving, only to find that I'd booked reservations for us at the wrong hotel. Apparently, there are three Holiday Inns in the medical district. Three. We arrived at the one I hadn't booked, took about 15 minutes to find the one I had, and then had to walk by the window of a grossly obese man with a huge chest scar, which he was proudly flaunting, shirtless, from a chair in his ground-floor room. With the window wide open. Facing onto the parking lot. On purpose. We were sure of that. As if I weren't nauseated enough, buddy.

The Holiday Inn we were booked into does not have room service. It was 9 p.m. My vision had been to ameliorate the somberness of the occasion by making an "order in room service have some great quiet snuggling time without the kids with the A/C jacked up on high in the hotel room" kind of evening. Instead, it was a "no room service, A/C took awhile to kick in, damn I'm freaking tired and feel like I'm gonna throw up" kind of evening. Seriously. Story of my life. We punted, Mr. DMFP picking up the biggest serving of halibut I've ever seen from Pappadeaux. Me, a Sprite.

Then the people next door started screaming at each other. Loudly. I called the front desk at 11:30 p.m. He went to ask them to be quiet. Midnight, noises emanating from the room as though they were playing basketball in there. Called the desk again, and the poor beleaguered fellow sighed to me that they were going to ask these folks to leave tomorrow, hinting that they were troublemakers. Troublemakers, who, by the way, had left their children unattended in the room, hence the basketball game. Where were they, you ask? Apparently outside having a marathon smoking session.

Bad night, much intestinal discomfort. My only prayer was that I wouldn't hurl on Dr. Top MS Specialist at 9 a.m. the next morning. And I didn't.

The upshot of this entire adventure? He didn't say I'm crazy! (Yay!). He did say he'd talk to my home neuro about meds for pain and fatigue (Yay!). He's still reviewing my MRIs, so nothing definitive (yeah). And because of a certain little pesky list of criteria called the McDonald Criteria, I'll be going back to Houston for a last (I hope) round of tests, tests that measure the time it takes my central nervous system to respond to triggers (yep). Positives on these tests are highly indicative of MS. Negatives, not that much help either way. They don't rule anything out. (Sigh. Most testing for MS is like this.)

He talked a lot about PPMS, said that if there were drugs available for treatment right now, he'd call it that. But he wants to avoid doing that until he's got an objective clinical measure because once they slap that label on you, insurance won't have you. And I've already been rejected by private insurance for much less compelling reasons. Yes, I'm one of those people who has no choice thanks to "pre-existing conditions." All that can be done right now is what's being done: Meds for the symptoms, to alleviate distracting pain and fatigue.

And, as has been the case since October 2007...testing, testing, testing. Seemingly ad infinitum.

We now take you back to our regularly scheduled parenting blog. Thanks to everyone for their well wishes, thoughts, and prayers. It's a notoriously frustrating and slow road, this one.