Confusion reigns Updated 5/30/2014

So it was thought I had a high blood level of lead from being in the shooting sports. I do not. Thankfully. But in the routine visit to discuss this my general practitioner has a mild concern.

Concerning? My brain. Some loss of balance, some confusion, some loss of cognitive ability. Initially we thought lead poisoning. Negative. Then low testosterone, which I've had in the past and been treated for. Negative.

Saturday morning at 7am I'm getting an MRI of my brain. And yes you will see pictures!!

Update: First off, I have had like 4 documented concussion in my life. With at least two probable. I'm not sure if that's excessive. Who knows? Certainly not the NFL. And for a while I had really bad positional vertigo. Oh and my grandma died of a brain tumor and my mom has a benign brain tumor, though that sort of thing isn't genetic is still seems weird.

Examples of loss of cognitive ability are things like being asked "can you bring me two boxes off the counter" and me getting irritated and replying "there are four boxes on the counter, how can i bring you two?" and repeating that over and over. Having to get out a pencil or calculator to add things like 27+14. That would take me almost 30 seconds now sometimes if doing it in my head. Not being able to read and tell the difference between micrograms and milligrams.

Examples of confusion are things like getting in trouble at work for doing demonstrations totally wrong. Showing up at the wrong time. Multiple instances of getting "lost" or going the wrong way driving, just seconds after declaring my stated destination.

And my genetic testing from earlier shows me with a 7 times greater than average chance of getting dementia/alzheiemer's. But who get's that at my age??

They did a neuro exam in the office with things like touching my nose and other coordination things. I passed all those. Then ones where you move your face all around, and I passed those too. The balances ones, I failed all of them.

Being a space case, having other people in my life notice I'm a space case and having it be a new onset; that is what has gotten my doctors attention. Now I'm pretty sure this will blow into nothing. No storm of crazy medical drama. But I am just the tiniest bit anxious about the results, given all what I just said. Probably will just be a normal study though and it will be all chalked up to just being dumb.