I have a super power: going to the doctor for one reason and getting a diagnosis far different.
This morning, I had a 3-month followup at the neuro to check progress on my migraine and trigeminal neuralgia issues. *That* part went well, with only a minor medication change - upping my gabapentin from 3 to 4 times a day.
However, the NP who saw me didn't like my cough. She ordered me to go straight to my PCP, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Unfortunately, said PCP was overrun with appointments and her next available was a week away. So off to urgent care I went.
With white blood count results sky high and terrible chest xray images, I was the lucky recipient of a double pneumonia diagnosis and had 5 lovely prescriptions foisted upon me. Could have been worse; I managed to talk my way out of being sent to the hospital. Tomorrow, however, I retest. If my WBC hasn't dropped or my lungs haven't shown any improvement, she wants me admitted. In the meantime, water and nebulizer and rest.
Huge thank you to TracieandMickey Bramlett who kept the kiddos while 1 doctor appointment morphed into 2, and toChris D Aller for taking the kids off my hands for the next few days.
If you're a GS parent, you'll soon receive a message canceling tomorrow's meeting. If you're a client, look for an email rearranging my editorial calendar for the week. If you're a crosswalk parent, I'll see you in a few days. And if you're a Sonic employee, how do you feel about making deliveries? 😘
Having stocked up on soup and my comfort foods, I'm now headed to pick up my newly finished prescriptions then crawl into bed. This, too, shall pass.
My chronic/autoimmune illnesses are mostly invisible - just like many of you. I've shared this before but it's worth posting again because this is truly the best explanation I've seen to explain constant illness to people who aren't also sick. We might suck it up and put a bright face on it...but we only get so many spoons. The Spoon Theory, by Christine Miserandino
I've been posting updates on my dog to my personal Facebook since last evening (1/7) but realized I was excluding folks in my other networks - my author friends, blog followers, Twitter, G+, etc. - and so wanted to come over here and share my story.
Yesterday afternoon, I left my house at around 2 PM to go to my tri-weekly shoulder physical therapy appointment. At the same time, my husband, who is off on Mondays, laid down with our 4-year-old and 2-year-old for nap time. When I got home, we all immediately left together to run a few quick errands. We believed our dogs were in the backyard, where they have the run of a large open space and a large covered patio. Afternoons are their time to go outside, play, run, and get some air.
What really happened... Our puppy, 9-ish-month-old Samson the gigantinormous yellow lab, ate off the bottoms of several fence slats and then dug out of the yard. Our older dog, 10-year-old Missy, faithfully followed behind. She's big on friendship, low on independent thought.
Having gotten loose, Sammy went looking for trouble, and Missy came along for the "fun." In actuality, Sammy "broke into" a backyard that was home to two pit bulls. They weren't enthused at their uninvited guests. The homeowner called animal control, who came and rounded up our two escapees...but not before Missy got hurt.
In the meantime, we came home and discovered our dogs were gone. Chris drove the neighborhood and I shouted for the dogs. We ate dinner. Then we all piled back in the car and searched again. It's a spread-out area with the houses having much larger yards than is the norm in suburban DFW, and we also have coyotes and all sorts of other delightful wildlife. In addition, we live less than a mile from the intersection of two very busy highways. I feared the absolute worst.
We didn't find the dogs. I searched for animal control information on my phone to see where I could call to find out if the dogs had been taken to a shelter. I discovered that the city shelter puts up a picture of newly found dogs when they are taken in. In short order, I'd found the mugs of both of my dogs. Unfortunately, the shelter was closed for the evening and I could do nothing except wait for morning.
Daughter Cate and Missy
Feb. 2011
This morning, I got up with the kiddos and after breakfast and baths and the like, we headed out to rescue our friends. Since toddlers move slower than a geriatric snail, or approximately inverse to how fast you're trying to get them to move, it was late morning by the time we reached the shelter, 2.5 hours after they'd opened for the day.
We signed in and got taken back right away. I described the dogs to the kind worker and she took me right to them. Sammy was kenneled with the other large dogs, and Missy was in the clinic, bloody and battered. The vet tech said she thought Missy had a broken jaw and advised that I take her to our vet right away to be evaluated and treated. After filling out a ton of paperwork, paying the impound and boarding fees and waiting....waiting....waiting....we were finally able to leave.
After dropping the big dog at home (it was already difficult to manage two kids and two dogs at the same time, with a still-weak post-op shoulder), we got to the vet near our home. By that time, it was afternoon and the kids had eaten the bags of food I'd brought for them, downed their drinks and were napping in the back seat. I left them there and went it, and they took us back right away (I'd called from the shelter) and checked Missy out six ways from Sunday. Not only did the vet note that the dog's jaw was broken, possibly in multiple places, but she also found that Missy's entire back half of her body and rear end were bitten up and inflamed.
I was running laps between the exam room and my car, so I could keep an eye on my poor puppy and my sleeping kids. Thank God it was warm enough today to leave them in the car. A parrot that wouldn't stop squawking nearly drove me out of my mind, and I had to remind myself constantly not to be irritated at how long her exam and intake were lasting. Finally, I signed a release and they took her back to be sedated, shaved for further examination, and x-rayed. I left with the kids and we shared a very late lunch. By the time we were done, my husband was home from work and I headed back to the vet alone.
(The rest of this post is a copy with minor modifications from my last update to the FB thread about Missy's injury. I just don't have it in me to rewrite it. And in any case, most of you who read it here will not have seen it there.)
So here's the overall scoop on Missy. First, she has been an absolute angel for the vet - is being completely docile and cooperative, despite being in a ton of pain. Next, the x-rays of her jaw showed a bit different story than we first thought. She has a break on either side of her jaw, about an inch back from the end of her mouth/jaw. This means the front part is completely unconnected from the rest of her jaw and is literally hanging on by skin alone. Where they thought there was a break farther back is actually just a little bit of dislocation where her jaw hinges, and it's bilateral. Should heal on it's own, apparently. The theory is that the other dog simply took her lower jaw in its mouth and bit down...and we know that pits have a very powerful bite. Her jaw will be wired on both sides while the bones fuse back together. If they don't fuse, she'll need the front of her lower jaw to be amputated. I know. That horrifies me as well.
Now, on to the rest of her body. They had to shave her completely from mid-body on back, both top and bottom. If this wasn't a horrific situation, she'd look like she was mooning the world, especially since her tail is still so fluffy. The shaving revealed that the entire area is inflamed, bruised, and has bite marks all over it. Below her butt is one especially large spot, and she has a torn perineum. The vet theorized that one dog may have mounted her while the other dog broke her jaw. I suppose if she were human, we'd call that rape. After surgery, she'll need to do hydrotherapy every three hours for a few weeks to keep that spot and several others moist as they heal, to avoid infection.
How about some good news? Her upper jaw is intact. Her legs/feet are fine. Her neck is fine. The doc found no evidence of injury to the front part of her body. She's a good weight, has a strong heartbeat, is otherwise 100% healthy, is just 10 years old, is able to come (and cling!) to me, and has retained her sweet disposition. She's in a large kennel at the vet and they let me climb in and sit with her for awhile after the vet met with me this evening to review her results.
Going forward...Missy's jaw surgery will be at 7 AM tomorrow morning, barring anything weird coming back on her bloodwork. Both our vet and the senior vet at the clinic will be involved. She'll be under full anesthesia, have a nerve block, and have a canine version of lidocaine to numb her mouth. They'll wire her jaw back together on both sides and then repurpose some of her gum tissue to cover the holes that are now allowing her jaw bone to stick through. Afterwards, she'll be sedated and on morphine most of the rest of the day. Depending on how she does, she'll be sent home either Thursday night or Friday night. At that point, she'll be on four medications: a pain med (same as I take, ironically - ultram), an anti-inflammatory and two antibiotics. She'll also be on a liquid diet for three weeks (1 part soft food mixed with 3 parts water) and will do hydrotherapy at home for her wounds. At that point, if healing is progressing nicely, we'll be able to start introducing solid foods again and she'll get back to "normal" life.
Finally, a note on pit bulls. Listen, they get a bad rap. 99% of pit bulls are fabulous pets. But, like any population, it's the 1% that ruin it for them all. And my dogs were in the wrong on this, and I know it. Sammy chewed and dug out and the ever-faithful-but-not-intelligent Missy followed along. Sammy then broke into someone else's backyard, and that someone else happened to own two pit bulls. Those dogs were defending their turf. Perhaps violently, but it was their yard. Sammy wasn't hurt...he was probably a lot larger than the pits. But Missy is smaller and weaker and thus became the one attacked. Her injuries, thank God, won't kill her. Yes, she needs a very expensive surgery to try to fix her jaw, and yes she's in pain with the other issues right now. But she's otherwise healthy, fairly young, and has a strong constitution. After she recovers, she'll regain most, if not all, of her quality of life. She's in great hands.
That's all I got for now. It's been an incredibly taxing day emotionally, physically and on my (now-depleted) bank account as well. I need to rearrange my work week since today was a total loss and snag a few more projects to pay for all of this mess. Thank you for all ya'lls thoughts, prayers, texts, and calls today. I'm thankful for them.
Various people have threatened to make me go live in a bubble, at various points of my life. They’re (usually) joking, but with every joke, there’s a kernal of truth.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was down with pneumonia for three weeks. Straight. Went to the doctor five times, got two different shots of steroids, two different shots of antibiotics, was prescribed my own nebulizer for daily breathing treatments, had five prescription inhalers, and also was prescribed two different oral antibiotics, a cough medicine with codeine, an antihistamine, and a separate medication for congestion. I felt like I was singlehandedly keeping the medical industry in business during that time – seriously! Add up the dollars for those visits and those meds plus the nebulizer – we’re talking mega-bucks here, and thank God for having great insurance coverage.
I joked to my boss, about a week after I returned to work, that I felt like I’d paid my dues for the winter season and that surely being so sick for so long would mean that I wouldn’t get sick again all winter.
WRONG!
And how.
I took the family to Boston with me about two weeks ago. I had a business meeting to attend up there, and took an extra day off from work so we could spend some time sightseeing around a very neat city.
While we were there, strolling around Quincy Market before heading back to the airport, baby Catherine got sick as a dog. We’re talking simultaneously ruining her outfit, her sweater, her coat AND leaving a huge mess in her stroller for her dad to deal with while I tried to get her cleaned up and changed. Barely after getting settling onto the plane a couple hours later, she repeated the feat while on her father’s lap.
Ugh.
The day after getting home, I started feeling a little iffy, later at night. Thought I would get it out of my system quickly, like Cate did, and get on with life. But the next morning, everything was still abandoning my body like a tornado siren had sounded. And unlike Cate, I wasn’t able to take in any foods or liquids.
Not good.
So we headed to the E.R., figuring that they’d pump me full of (IV) liquids and send me home.
Nope. About six hours after arriving, I was instead admitted. In the not-quite-medical terms of the ER terms, my blood looked bad. The white blood count was twice the upper end of the normal range, and various other numbers were out of whack. Added to the fact that the IV wasn’t stopping my body’s internal evacuation and I earned myself a one-way ticket upstairs.
I still thought it was no big deal. I actually asked the admitting nurse if I would get to go home the next morning.
She laughed at me! For several minutes!
Nope.
Turns out that my immune system, already being severely strained from the pneumonia, was putting up no fight at all against a pretty nasty infection.
And so there I stayed for five days. Five very long days, where I got to see my daughter for half hour snatches once or twice a day and largely spent the rest of the time alone. Well…as alone as you can get while being visited by various doctors, nurses, aides and techs, who seemed to have made a pact that SOMEONE should come see me at least once an hour.
When I finally got out, a week ago, I was weak as a kitten, still not feeling great, but at least well enough to finish recuperating in my own home instead of in a hospital that was great at providing meds but horrible at providing rest.
And so that’s where I’ve been disappeared to, these last few weeks. Once home, I spent a lot of time sleeping or vegging, avoiding anything more strenuous than kissing baby Catherine or turning the pages of a book. I started back to work, from home, on Tuesday, and followed up with a partial day in the office today.
I am very pleased to report that I am doing much better now and I look forward to getting back on track with quite a number of posts that I have planned for this and my other blogs – stay tuned!
In the meantime, I’m busily shopping online for a new bubble!
I was diagnosed with Grave's Disease in 2001. It was a diagnosis a long-time in the making, as I'd suffered the various symptoms of the thyroid ailment for years prior.
Grave's Disease (and a note here to say that it's actually "Graves Disease" or "Graves' Disease" but somehow, I can't stop myself from typing it the other way) is a disease of relapse and remission. You can have it flair up and be treated for months or years, only to have it remain manageable without medication for months or years. There is a "permanent" solution for the illness as well, but it's not a good fix for me.
In any case, I've had iffy bloodwork, even on medication, for the past two years. A lot of that is related to being pregnant and then breastfeeding - my med levels had to be juggled a bit so as not to affect the baby. But the bloodwork that just came back today looks GREAT, I've gained 5 pounds, and my doctor is really pleased.
So there's this funny thing about Obama. He actually causes me to NEED healthcare...because whenever I hear him speak about it, I become nauseous. A recap of my tweets during his speech tonight:
Because wiggling my nose didn't have the intended effect of getting the Spender in Chief off my TV, I'm going tweet about his "ideas."
If the country for which I was the chief elected official was in as bad a shape as ours, I wouldn't have a big grin on my face like HE does.
OBAMA has pulled the economy back from the brink? He actually got that out with a straight face? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I hope that Obama WILL be the last president to address this issue. Let's tell him firmly NOW that he needs to go away and end it.
Obama is trying to put insurance companies out of business. If he headed a company trying to limit another, it'd be an antitrust issue.
Hey Obama, if our healthcare system is so bad, why do people come here from all over the world, seeking treatments unavailable elsewhere???
Presidents should be required to run a company before running the country. CLEARLY, this man has ZERO business sense. OBAMA=FAIL.
Let me be very clear on something here: I would be just as opposed to these "healthcare reform measures" if it was McCain advocating them.
THAT'S THE PROBLEM - everybody's "part" should be taking care of themselves...not making insurance coverage mandatory.
The government deciding if a business can afford insurance for it's employees is Big Brother at it's scariest.
His guiding principle is choice? Don't make me laugh. If he was about choice, he wouldn't be ramming this proposal down our throats.
Not having pre-existing condition exclusions will put insurance companies out of business. "Giving" to those who can't afford will as well.
How can this joker say in one breath that he isn't trying to put ins. companies out of business while arguing so stridently against them?
What the heck poll is Obama looking at? The polls I've seen say that tax-paying Americans do NOT favor a public option.
I'm sorry; the government regulating costs is completely at odds with the most fundamental ideals of capitalism.
The key to healthcare reform isn't single payer or forced competition or mandated covered. It's tort reform. Stop frivolous lawsuits, done.
Oh, good. Obama will protect Medicare. Which is going broke anyways. Yay.
It's NOT better politics to kill the plan than to improve it. It's better SENSE. Take out politics.
Oh good. Teddy could imagine what it would be like to not have insurance. Too bad he didn't imagine getting Mary Jo out of his sinking car.
Ha! Medicare as a good example of government healthcare? Then why does my mom need a $400/mo supplemental plan to cover just basics?
Sorry, guys. No Manic Monday this week...because it's a very Manic Monday in real life...
Dashing through oodles of work at my desk, trying to balance freelance must-dos, attempting to help my husband write a response to a complaint at his work which will require hours of research and a few beers to calm my temper before taking pen to paper, looking at what hubby and I need to do to get everything filed for our new little LLC, facilitating paying our end of the month bills AND our yearly property taxes (which we got screwed on because the sellers never filed the proper exemptions for their portion, which means our taxes are nearly $1k higher than they should be) AND filing our income tax return since we finally have all of our W-2s, and I'm still sick to-boot.
I actually felt fairly well yesterday...this morning, I'm back to a head that feels like it was smashed with a sledgehammer. Argh. Meds are gone. Doc told me if they didn't work (well, they at least made me feel human again, but I wouldn't say they totally worked since it's like THREE WEEKS LATER and I'm still sick) that it was probably viral and I'd just have to wait it out. And for that, I pay big money?
Yeah, so you probably shouldn't expect too much in the way of blogging from me this week. SORRY! I still love you all. MWAH!
I'm sick. Ugh. Fever - hovering around 100. Can't stop my nose from running and so now it's red raw inside and out. Massive headache. Body aches. Dizzy. Sore throat - can't swallow well and losing my voice.
So yeah, called off work, and going back to bed. Sorry!
Alrighty...whining ahead. This is more for me than for you, dear reader. To avoid the whine, just go on ahead and skip reading this post. If you proceed...well, consider yourself warned! :-) (And bless you for actually reading!)
< whine >
It's been a bad couple of days for joints in my world. And I'm not talking pot here...I'm talking wrists and back and hips and knees...otherwise fondly known as numbness, dull ache, falling off and won't bend.
I'm too young for this shit. I'm firmly convinced of that.
The problem is that I've been saying "that" for more than ten years now. And it's not gotten any better...just worse, slowly but surely.
I'm 27 years old and I live every day of my life in some degree of pain...most days are really just what I'd now consider a dull roar...but some days, like the past few, are just not good. Not good at all.
I try to deal with my various joint pains in the same way that I deal with other issues in my life...I'll bitch occasionally but largely just tuck it inside and "deal".
When I was 15 and 16, my family doctor (at the time) blamed my aches and ouches on "growing pains". I was prescribed Celebrex. It worked fairly well. He stopped promoting that theory when he came to the realization that I really hadn't grown a speck since age 12 and that a closed growth plate would definitely mean that "growing pains" was not the cause.
At 17, the doctor conceded that I had "arthritic tendencies" but was hesitant to diagnose arthritis in someone so young. (To paraphrase Billy Joel, "tell me about it!") I remained on Celebrex. I was alright...for awhile.
Three months before my 18th birthday, I was in a car accident in Ocean City, New Jersey, where my parents owned our summer home. It was pretty bad. I was turning left from a two lane side street across a four lane main drag with a wide center turn lane. I was hit by a Mercedes going in excess of 60 MPH in a 30 MPH zone. He never tried to stop...instead, he had accelerated to get through the light one block prior and never slowed back down to speed. I was driving my mother's two week old car and was hit directly between the front and back seat doors on the driver's side. The impact caused my car to spin for one full block before I managed to regain control and bring it to a stop.
It was a miracle - a true miracle, in my belief - that I spun straight down the road instead of bumping up over the sidewalk and hitting any of the kids who were playing outside on that sunny summer day. The secondary miracle was that the other driver hit my car directly on the frame, instead of directly on my door. Even so, the frame was bent in by almost eighteen inches. The driver's side door was completely bent in and would not open. The passenger door was jammed because of how far everything had shifted internally.
It took several rather large men to pry the driver's door open. I was removed on a back board and transported by ambulance off the island and to Shore Memorial Hospital, on the mainland in Somer's Point. At that point, a bad situation was made worse. The ambulance was one of the last vehicles off the island before bridges to the island were closed and raised for the annual Night in Venice boat parade. My parents, despite the fact that my dad actually witnessed the accident from our front porch (he didn't realize it was me - didn't recognize the car since it was so new) - did not ride in the ambulance with me and did not make it off the island in time. At the hospital, because I was under 18 and determined not to be in critical condition, left me strapped to the back board - completely immobilized - for more than two hours after arrival until my parents got there. I believe that that lead to my continuing issues just as much as the whiplash from the accident.
Afterwards, I wore a neck brace for about two months. My doctor put me on Skelaxin to deal with my increased pain levels. I was also given a muscle relaxer. Despite that, my neck began to freeze: I would be in the middle of normal activities and would suddenly become unable to move my neck in any direction. This was most often accompanied by severe pain. The worst point came when I sat down on the kitchen floor one day, talking to my boyfriend on the phone, and found that I absolutely could not move to stand up - my neck had frozen, but so had the rest of my back, as well. My boyfriend had to come over (no idea where my parents were...can't remember) and literally break in to take me to the hospital. I was in full spasm. It was awful. I've never again experienced that level of severity, but I have had my neck continue to freeze as recently as a few months ago.
I began to see a chiropractor. Running x-rays - something my family doctor had never bothered to do, post accident - he found that I had conflicting vertebrae - two vertebrae in my neck were pushing in the wrong direction and pinching nerves, causing the freezing I had experienced. He began treatment immediately, and I felt some degree of relief immediately. I later complained to him about having lower back and other joint pain as well, and he ran additional x-rays on my lower back. The discovery? Scoliosis that was never caught/diagnosed by any other means. I went back to my family doctor and he validated the diagnosis of scoliosis and seemed fairly embarrassed that he'd never caught it, despite my continued complaints.
Back to the chiropractor, who I was now visiting three times per week just to be able to live in a fairly pain-free state. Piecing together x-rays from my upper, middle and lower back, the chiro came to the conclusion that the state of my vertebrae was such that he firmly believed that degeneration would continue, accelerate and leave me physically incapacitated by age 40. I chose then, and I choose now, to ignore that as hogwash. Mainly because I cannot accept any such dire prediction based on funny looking pictures.
But it still scared me.
I continued to experience other aches and pains throughout college, including a rather nasty and infected stress fracture in my left leg that ended my days as a runner. I was switched to Bextra. I forced myself through as many physical activities as possible, to prove that there was nothing wrong with me. I probably only made things worse. I was finally switched to Vioxx. It's the medicine that worked best for me...ironic that most of the meds I've taken for pain, however, are now off the market.
After moving to Texas, I found a new chiropractor and decided to try to face life without meds and instead find alternative ways to control my pain. The second chiropractor did not agree with the first's dire prediction of incapacitation but did agree that things would probably only worsen over the years. Ugh. Being a smart man, he also realized that the hip pain I continuously complained of was probably cause by a tilt in my hips caused by my unresolved scoliosis. Short of wearing a heel lift with every pair of shoes and every single day, no real way to alleviate that, unfortunately.
Finances won out over pain management and I discontinued seeing the chiro when $60 per week after insurance simply became prohibitive. Besides, at that point, I had other health issues to deal with and needed to tighten my focus. Due to various health issues - a severe back spasm in 2002, breast surgery (lump removal) in 2003, oral surgery in 2004 and several burst ovarian cysts in 2005, I stored up a stockpile of Vicodin. Since then, I've been parceling out a pill to myself here and there to combat really bad days. I used to try Advil, but it would take a mouthful to even make a dent in the pain. I've tried OTC arthritis meds...they work for about an hour before I need another dose...but doses have to be 4-6 hours apart.
I have no more Vicodin left. About six months ago, during a very thorough check-up at my family doc following another health issue, I complained loudly and strenuously about my pain. I even admitted that I took a Vicodin - or two - once or twice a month just to be able to deal with my pain. She was, surprisingly, ok with that admission. She responded by running a rheumatoid panel as a part of my bloodwork. It came back clear. She also suggested that I had arthritic tendencies, but said that she would feel uncomfortable prescribing any medication toward that end without also prescribing birth control, to avoid the possibility of getting pregnant while on medication that could adversely affect that. A follow-up with my endocrinologist (I have Grave's Disease, a form of hyperthyroidism) found the advancement of the theory that the pain could be connected to the Grave's. Far-fetched at best. There's no known link. She suggested going on BC, having radioactive iodine treatment to kill my thyroid and seeing if that helped my joint pain. Weak. I've refused that treatment for years and without any damn good proof of a link between Grave's and joint pain, I won't reconsider. The OB/GYN was in agreement as well...no more pain meds for me.
So here I am. I took my last Vicodin about a week ago. Today, my joints are just freaking screaming. I have pain shooting up and down my left leg when I walk. I have to shift in my seat every few minutes and still my hips kill. Crossing my legs or sitting Indian style? Out of the question. Even typing...getting painful.
So really, all I have left right now is to whine. But something's gotta give. If it feels like this now, at this age, how the hell will I feel in 5 or 10 years? Frustrating. Simply frustrating.
That's all I got. Now, off to take my aching body to bed...and one last check in my medicine drawer to make sure there aren't any more Vicodin left.
😘
