When you have a medical crisis in your life, it can seem overwhelming. You don't feel well a lot, you may become depressed and you could be in significant pain. Sometimes when people have an in-depth medical problem they do not even know where they hurt or how something feels, they just know that they don't feel well and like themselves.
One of the best things you can do for yourself is to keep a diary of your experience. Log everything! Sometimes, like with a brain cyst, you develop new symptoms regularly. As your cyst grows and puts pressure on different areas of the brain, a new symptom can come up regularly. That is what happened in my case. One day I could be dealing with one set of symptoms, and the next day, a new symptom would come up.
I remember when I was just having my head fall asleep while I slept. That was in the beginning of the downward spiral. However, one day it turned and before I knew it, my arms were getting numb while I slept, then my arms and legs and before long, my entire body felt paralyzed after I'd been lying in bed for a few hours. I would wake up ina sheer panic; unable to move any part of my body. To add fuel to the fire, I began hving severe bouts of sleep apnea, waking up gasping for air.
The symptoms, once they started, began changing and multiplying like crazy. I could hardly keep up with them, not to mention that my memory was slipping away. It was becoming harder and harder to remember and retain information. My sister gave me the idea to start writing everything down; dates, what happened, what time of day, what I was doing when it happened and anything that could be useful to the doctors. So I did. It was very helpful, and not just because I could more easily share everything with the doctors, but it was therapeutic. It also helped me to remember symptoms - if I hadn't had the symptom in a while, I could look back to see if I did in fact experience that before, and when.
Take your journal with you everywhere. Leave it out to have easy access for when something pops up unexpectedly; you won't have to go hunting for it and risk forgetting what just happened to you.
Journaling is a great way to track of and record of what you are going through and experiencing. It is a big benefit for you and your doctor, so that he can also see the changes over time with what you have been dealing with, and living with.