MS Walk Monday & test

This morning Lou & I made another trip out to The Cleveland Clinic. I was scheduled to have some testing done. My first scheduled test was a Visual Evoked Potential test. This test was done because the neurologist saw that there was nerve damage (paleness) to my retinal nerves due to MS. The evoked potential measures how much damage has been caused to my brain or optic nerves by measuring how long it takes a stimulus to go from my eye to my occipital lobe of my brain.

The Cleveland skyline taken from the parking garage at the Cleveland Clinic

I was called back and the tech began using an adhesive to glue little probes to the top & back of my head, behind my ear and on the back of my neck. This took a loong time. Little did I know that it would take three shampoos to wash the majority of the glue & gauze out of my hair! The tech showed me a television with a blue sticker on it. He then covered one of my eyes so I could only see from one eye. So now I am sitting there feeling very silly with wires coming off my head and looking like a crazy pirate. Oh well! From then on I was told to stare and focus on the blue sticker while a bunch of blinking checkerboards flashed on the screen. This was super tough and my mind began to play tricks on me. It was hard to realize that the blue sticker was not moving all over the screen and at times I began to daydream only to "snap" back to it thinking "Oh my gosh was I even looking at the dot!" lol I had to stare in 5 minute intervals for 20 minutes. I got about a minute in between to rest my eye. The tech told me I did a great job focusing but he could tell there was a time I was kinda "not all there" hah! I'm not going to lie. This was a really challenging test-at times I felt like I was being tortured-I will for sure never look at those eye trick patterns again for fun....because that's going to bring up bad memories! haha!! I'll find out the results of the test on February 2 when I go back to the Mellen Center. I'll keep you all updated! :)

An example picture of the test. Now imagine these squares blinking, moving around and getting smaller/bigger. Oy vey!!

We have officially signed back up for the Cleveland 2010 MS Walk on April 10, 2010 at the Cleveland Browns Stadium. This year the walk gets a bit more personal for me (as if my mother having MS isn't enough) as I have been diagnosed with MS recently and have just begun my journey. If you'd like to join our team or donate go here!

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/DMiracles <--sorry I can't make it clicky..yet!

We raised over $775 last year with our team "Daly Miracles" and this year I hope to raise even more! I'd love to add more walkers to our team as well!! Thanks everyone! I now am going to let my eyes rest a bit (the screen is bothering them) and I also want to pay a little more attention to The Bachelor! haha! :)