I am so glad that I am done with that neurological assessment. I would rather them do something painful then to have to go through that again. I started out with Dr. Morgan and he asked me some questions about my background, education, family life and work. He told me that I have a very busy life already and that could very well have something to do with the problems that I am having. I thought to myself, it really isn't that much different then a lot of other working mom's that I know. . . He had me look at a drawing and copy it while looking at it. Then he tested my hand dexterity to see how fast I could put little key shaped pegs in a puzzle with first my right hand and then my left. Next he gave me a blank sheet of paper and told me to draw from memory what I just copied earlier. "Oh boy, so this is how it is going to go." I did the best I could, but got no feedback from the doctor.
Then he turned on a tape of a man saying numbers out loud. I had to add the two numbers together in my head as he kept going and going and going. I got through that OK, but then he started talking faster. He told me if I got lost to just pause and jump in when I could. I hate to say it, but I got lost quite a few times. I began feeling frustrated. He told me that this testing was going to push me to my limits and that no one that comes in is able to do everything 100%. That put me at ease a little.
Dr. Morgan then informed me that he was hading me off to his assistant and he was going to work with me for the next 2 hours. After that then I was going to take the MMPI (I believe that was the initials) which is a personality test at the very end. He walked me over to another office down the hall.
The next man, I cant remember his name, had me look at some pictures and tell him what was missing. The first few were very simple, but then they got harder. I looked at a few of them and saw nothing missing. I asked him, "Is this a trick question?" The only feedback he ever gave me was to say no. We got to the end of the book and he said, "That was a warm up so you know how things will go in here. There are no trick puzzles or questions. Things in the beginning of each exercise will be easy and then it will get harder at the end." OK I thought so straight forward and no tricks!
I cant remember the order of things, but he had me do some drawing exercises after looking at a picture for a few seconds. Then he would list off a bunch of words and have me repeat as much as I could back to him. He did this 5 times in a row. The worst part was he never said, "Yes, correct, good job." He just sat stone faced looking at me so I couldn't even get a hint if I was correct or not. Then he had me go back and draw the pictures that I drew an hour ago by memory. WHAT!! I did 3 that I could remember, but I had no idea what the 4th drawing was.
Half way through I saw Kleenex on the desk and almost lost it. I kept asking myself if I was getting these right or if I was completely blowing it? I graduated from high school as well as college and now I cant remember a simple damn list of words. The tears were bubbling up in my eyes and I told him that I had to go use the bathroom. He said that was just fine to take breaks and told me where to go to find the restroom. He told me to take my time and find my way back to his office. I wondered if this was another test to remember where I was so I made note of how to get back without asking for help. I collected myself in the bathroom and got back to his office.
We got right back into it. He told me a few stories and told me to retell them to him using as many of the exact words that he did that I could remember. He kept asking me, "Anything more?" He said he was doing that so he made sure I got everything out that I could, but it was just irritating me because I had to say No. More numbers, letters, drawings, definitions, questions, patterns, what comes next in a sequence. Then he really dropped the bomb. He said, "Now going back to the list that I repeated to you 5 times, tell me as many words as you can remember from that list."
"Are you fu$#ing kidding me." was the though in my head. I did as many as I could. Finally he handed me some blocks that had colors on them and I had to copy the puzzle that was on a card. The first couple were easy, but the last one I couldn't get for the longest time so he just took them from me. With my head pounding he finally said that we were done and I could start working on the MMPI test. I was never so relieved to be done with something in my life. The test was 350 true and false questions and was tedious.
I got in my car closed my eyes and wished to just go home and think about nothing. I could feel the 'Brain Fog" coming on earlier then usual for me. To bad it was Friday and traffic was terrible.
Now its the weekend and I am thankful for that. Dr. Morgan told me that he would score everything and give the results to my neurologist. I told him that my appointment with him wont be until the middle of July. He told me I could call him later next week if I wanted to get the results earlier. I will be doing that and update you.
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