Results tagged “doctors” from KatScan

So like I just said on my other blog, my doctor and his PA have left the other practice they were at and moved to a new practice in a different part of town.
I have never ever seen the other doctor at the old practice, and I hate having to start with new doctors, so I will happily go to an all new place to see my old doctor and his PA Mary.
They have always treated me really well, been nice, caring, supportive, and they actually listen to me, so I will go to their new practice on the other side of town just to stay with my doctor and the PA who already know me and my history, instead of staying at the old practice with the doctor there who has never once treated me and would probably have to go through my entire medical history which is wicked long as most of you know, so yeah, a huge pain in the ass.
And as long as my doc and the PA write me scripts for meds that my Medicare part D plan covers like they always have, things will be good.

Yesterday, after taking just one dose of my new blood pressure medicine, my vision went all blurry and I couldn't see anything at all.
It was absolutely horrible, I had my text set on huge and I still couldn't see my way to type anything.
I'm happy to say that after sleeping all night, my vision has cleared up.
I also have not taken the medicine again and I don't think I'm going to.

I know, I shouldn't just decide to stop taking a medicine, but I've only taken one dose of it, not like I've been on it for days or weeks.
I just don't want my vision to get all blurry again.
I did call my doctor and left a message about what happened, I'm waiting on a call back from them,  so until I get a call back, I'm not going to take another one.
I cannot go without my sight, it's just not a good thing especially with all the damn spiders that we've had around the house lately.
I could step on one, or get too close to one, and end up bit by a black or brown widow spider ya know?
Yeah, that would be way worse than not taking the new medicine.

I had my pain doc appointment today, it went as it usually does.
On the pain scale, 1-10, with 1 being no pain, and 10 being OMG kill me now it hurts so bad, where are you right this minute?
I was at a 7 this morning because I had a rough night.
I was super stressed out so I didn't get any sleep, and so I just laid on the couch watching movies all night long, and so my back got super stiff and locked up by morning.
The dose of my pain medicine this morning just didn't cut it after such a crappy night, and on doctor day, you don't double up because they pee test you, and if you have too much in your system, you get yelled at, so I just dealt with the pain until I left.

I did finally tell the PA (my doc's Physician's Assistant,  Mary) about the Elavil and how much I don't like it, so they put me on a new one, Cymbalta.
I have been taking the Elavil since July 17, 2009, and I tolerated it every month, but it's side effects kept gradually getting much worse for me.
For the last few months, I would say, the last 3-4 months, within 20-30 minutes of taking it,  my throat felt like it was closing up, like something was stuck in it, and my hands would start shaking uncontrollably.
Those side effects would last anywhere from an hour to several hours, so I asked to be taken off of it today and she agreed with me that if that's how it's making me feel, then we should definitely switch to something else.
She said that they have been trying Cymbalta with some of their patients who also cannot tolerate the Elavil for a wide variety of reasons, and so far so good she said, so she put me on that.
She gave me two sample bottles and each one contained 7 capsules, so that was enough to get me through 14 days, but Mark and I just got back from Walgreen's and Publix, so I already picked my prescriptions up.
Because there is no generic for the Cymbalta yet, my insurance co-pay is a bit higher than it normally is for my medications, but it's still a really great price at just $6.30 for a 30 day supply.
The regular price with no insurance is $188.79, so yeah, way happy to have insurance.

I am really hopeful that I can tolerate the Cymbalta a lot better than I did the Elavil, because it looks like Cymbalta can actually help me with my chronic pain too.
This is what Drugs.com says about Cymbalta;

Cymbalta is used to treat major depressive disorder and general anxiety disorder. It is also used to treat a chronic pain disorder called fibromyalgia, and to treat pain caused by nerve damage in people with diabetes (diabetic neuropathy).

That makes me so very hopeful that not only will I be able to tolerate it well, but that it will actually do what it says.
That would be so awesome, you have no idea.
If it can actually help with chronic pain and nerve pain, then I would have to take less actual pain medicine which would be freaking awesome!!
Keep your fingers crossed for me that it really works please!!

One of my friends took me to my doc appointment and pharmacy today, and all I had to do as a way to "pay" her for the ride, was to help her take her respironics oxygen concentrator to the medical supply place, and have them fix it.
She can't lift it, and I know, I'm not supposed to lift heavy stuff either, but as soon as the clerk saw me getting it out of the trunk, he came out with a dolly and wheeled it in for us.
Then she went in and told him what was wrong with it, and they fixed what wrong with it which was just a dirty filter, and she admitted that she never cleaned it, she said she didn't know how to open it, so they cleaned it for her and then put it back in the trunk for us so I didn't have to try and lift it again.
Her son was at home (summer vacation) and he's the one who put it in the trunk for her, and she said that he would take it back out again when she got home.
I had offered to go home with her and get it out of the trunk and take it in her house for her and then she could drive me back home, but that's when she told me that he was at home and he was the one who would take care of it, she was just happy that I was with her and so willing to help her.
She said that one of her other friends that she is always giving rides to, never, ever wants to help her with anything, and complains the whole time they are doing anything at all where she needs help.
She almost started crying when she was talking about it, I felt so bad for her, so I told her that anytime at all that she needs help, all she has to do is call me, I'm usually always at home so I can be ready to go and help at pretty much a moment's notice.
That's when she really did start crying and saying thank you about a gazillion times.
I said she didn't have to say so many thank yous, she helped me with a ride to my doctor's office, the pharmacy, and home again, so helping her is the least that I could do.
I am always so appreciative when people help me out with a ride where I need to go, so helping them in return is my way of saying thank you and repaying them for the help. 

Things I'm about to say are really hard for me to say.
I face the possibility of a lot of people having their say about me, judging me, or anger, or pity, or hate, fear, worry.
I face the emotions of all kinds of things because of what I'm going to post here.
And I deserve whatever people have to say.
I do not deserve kindness, and I certainly do not deserve anyone else ever telling me again how strong I am or how strong they think I am.
I am not strong, I haven't been strong in years, I have not been "me" since 2001.
I lost who I was when I had to stop working outside the home, when my life was forever changed because of this body which has imprisoned me.
I am not even a shell of my former self.

I left out something that happened on Sunday, left out several things that happened on Sunday.
I left them out because of fear, guilt, and shame, and I still have all of those emotions speeding through me like a train going at high speed with no conductor at the front.
I don't know if people will understand, if anyone at all will understand, and so I am afraid, afraid of being judged, hated, pitied.
I hate people pitying me because I have enough pity and self loathing running through me to cover me for however long the rest of my life is.

The reason that I have very brief memories of Sunday is because I made a mistake taking my medications that were given to me on Saturday.
I was given the phenergen to stop the pukes and the diars, and I was also given valium to help calm me down and help me rest.
I hadn't slept in days, approximately 7 days at that point, I hadn't eaten either because eating made the pukes and diars worse.
So I was completely exhausted and dehydrated. and still getting sicker and sicker.
The phenergen wasn't working, I was still puking and having the diars every 10 minutes, so I called my doctor, I asked him what to do, he told me to keep taking the phenergen, so I did.
Or what I thought was the phenergen.
Both bottles were identical, same color, cap, labels, and height, the same tiny print, so I kept taking the phenergen, or what I thought was the bottle of phenergen.
In reality, I was taking 2 valium every 4 hours because the phenergen's instructions were to take 2 every 4-6 hours if the symptoms kept up.
I thought in my exhausted and dehydrated state, that I was taking the phenergen, but it was the valium, and a lot of it, so yes, of course my condition worsened.
The diars and pukes didn't stop at all, and I was stumbling and staggering to the bathroom to get sick, and stumbling and staggering back to the couch.
My condition terrified the teens, they had no idea what was happening to me, neither did I, I was taking the wrong medication.
I don't recall the ride to the hospital, I don't recall anything that happened at the hospital except for the doctors talking about my white cells and some sort of infection, I don't recall things said or done by me to people, to doctors and nurses, to Mindy and my sons, to Sebastian.
Apparently, I was very nasty to everyone, yelling, cursing, saying extremely hurtful things, and I recall none of it at all.

Since learning the very next day what I had done, I've been extremely depressed and ashamed of myself, beyond ashamed, guilt is running through me so badly, that when I think about what I possibly said to people, I fall apart and start crying uncontrollably.
I hurt people, I hurt people that I love and care about so much, and I cannot forgive myself even if they forgive me.
I hate my body, I hate all of the pain, I hate all of the pain medications, and medical tests that I endure, and I hate of the doctors, and I hate every damn minute of every damn day of my life.
I hate being alive because I am a prisoner of my body, it holds me captive with it's never ending pain and the medicines hold me prisoner because my body needs them now, is totally addicted to them, I am trapped, stuck in a world of pain, hurt, and medicine that has me so tight in it's grasp that I am suffocating.

Please do not mistake me saying that I hate being alive as me being suicidal, because I am not.
I am far too much of a coward to take my own life, and no, I do not even think about suicide, I just hate this life that I live, I hate it more than the word hate can ever fully describe.
 I am just so full of guilt and shame because I have hurt people that I truly love and care for, and I honestly wouldn't blame them one little bit if they never forgive me for it, I don't expect forgiveness, I don't deserve their forgiveness, I don't want their forgiveness.
I want to feel this guilt and shame, I want it, I have earned it, what I did and said, the hurt that I caused, I earned it, it's mine and no one can take it from me.

As for my OCD, it gets worse and worse every day, my ticks get worse every day, I have caught myself in the middle of my little rituals and even though I've caught myself, I still can't stop doing them, as a matter of fact, it makes me do them again and again.
I've picked up some new ones too, I am now constantly wiping my eyes and wiping away my hair, pulling my pony tail tighter, re-arranging my head band, sweeping and brushing my hair out of my eyes, and then, if I see even a single strand of hair blowing in front of my eyes, if it will not stay in place away from my face, I will pull it right out of my head.
I grab the strand and follow it all of the way up to it's root at my scalp, and I yank it right from there, right at my scalp.
Eventually, I'll be taking some sort of medication for hair loss prevention because I'm pulling so much of it out.
Then, after yanking away even a single strand, I brush my clothes off from a sitting position here at my desk, then I stand and brush them off, and then I wipe off my entire desk, moving my mouse, the coaster I have for my cans of Diet Coke, my pencil box, my notepad, I move every single thing and wipe my desk with my right hand.
Then I wipe the monitor, and then I get up and wipe off my computer tower, and then the table on which it sits, and before you know it, I've wiped down everything within a 4 foot circle of my desk area.
It's getting worse, the ticks are getting worse, things set them off, and what sets them off the most are extreme feelings, nervousness, guilt, shame, fear, and so this week, I've put one hell of a polish on my whole computer area and probably yanked out a good couple hundred hairs.

This week has been hell for me.
I made a huge mistake taking my medications and I hurt people that I love, my sons, my friend Mindy.
I hurt them, and my guilt and shame is eating me alive and setting off my ticks almost hourly.
I catch myself crying, I catch myself barely breathing, I catch myself staring at nothing, pulling hairs out, wiping my desk, my mouse, wiping everything, and wiping in very particular patterns, always wiping everything down in an exact order, and in an exact pattern.
 
I fear that I'm going crazy, like really, truly, going crazy, like my brain is starting to shrivel up and dry out, like I am not going to be ok, like eventually, I'll be locked away or I'll be one of those crazy cat ladies who talks to her cats because they can't talk back, because even if you say hurtful things to them, they have no idea what you are saying and then I won't have to feel so guilty.
I hurt people that I love and care for, I made a huge mistake with my medications, I never do that, I never ever have taken the wrong medication, and because I did, I ended up hurting people that I love, and I am so so sorry, but I am not wanting forgiveness, I am not worthy of forgiveness, I am falling to pieces because of this damn body that imprisons me.
It's grasp is tight, it's prison walls are growing smaller, and I am in a place that I hate, a body that hurts me more and more each day, and I am full of guilt, shame, self pity, self loathing, and I am not forgivable, I do not want it even if it's there.

Please forgive my blogging absence since like last Tuesday I think?
Yeah, Tuesday.
Anyway, I've been battling an illness again, and this past weekend was pure hell for me and the teens.
I had a ton of stuff going on, I caught some sort of stomach thing that Mark had caught but in me, it mutated into the stomach thing spawned from the very bowels of hell, and it was also the "end of the month" pain medicine wise, so I was short a few days just like every month which resulted in my stomach being even sicker than the stomach thing that I was dealing with.
But I got the pain medicine taken care of by my doctor, but the stomach thing stayed and got worse, and worse, and worse as each day passed.
I was so sick that I was completely unable to eat or even drink anything at all for about 3 days, and if I tried to take even super small sips of water to wash down my pain meds and now some seriously strong antibiotics and phenergan that the ER gave me on Saturday to try and stop me from vomiting,  I ended up even more violently ill than I was within just minutes of taking them.
All the vomiting and diars I was dealing with is not exactly the best weight loss supplement, but I did drop 9 pounds from Wednesday through to today.
Hey, weight loss is weight loss for this fat chick, it all counts to me no matter how I lose it. 
But I was so ill that the teens got really scared for me and made me go to the hospital again on Sunday, and that was the absolute worst day of my weekend.

I only have brief recollections of actually getting to the hospital on Sunday, I know that my friend Mindy took me, that Sebastian called her, and I recall being put in a wheelchair, and then the next thing I remember is waking up on a hospital bed in the ER with an IV in my right arm and 2 doctors standing over me and talking about my high white cell count and a massive infection that they couldn't locate just yet.
While I was out, they drew blood and ran tests, ran a cath line and took urine samples, and they were talking about the possibility of cancer.
Again.
I have an unnaturally high white cell count, it's always been high, but it's been extremely high since my first spine fusion in 2006, but apparently it was really super high this time, and so they threw around words like cancer, again.
I've already been down this road, I've already had tons of cancer tests, but here they were, talking about it and I admit to getting, and still being, really, really scared.
I was in the ER on Sunday from about 3pm until almost 10pm, they pumped in bags and bags of fluids because I was so dehydrated, they gave me about 6 doses of Zofran because it was obvious that the phenergan hadn't helped me at all, and about 6 doses of dilaudid for all of the stomach cramping and pain that I was in, but I continued to be violently ill, so violently ill that they had to bring in a portable toilet for my room.
I know, TMI, and it was embarrassing and humiliating, and I hated every damn second of it, but being hooked up to an IV and getting sick so rapidly, I wouldn't have been able to make it to a bathroom if I tried.
Puking and the diars at the same time, ugh, and the nurses kept coming in to check on me and clean me up, and there was some sort of brownish liquid in my vomit that concerned the nurses, so they went and got the doctors again, and they kept calling the lab to make them hurry up with the blood test results so they could try to figure out what I had so that they could treat me properly.
By the time they released me, they still didn't have the lab results back yet, so they said they would fax them to my doctors ASAP, and then they sent me home with some more antibiotics and a script for Reglan which is another anti-nausea medication and it also "speeds up the the rate at which the stomach empties into the intestines."
They gave me that in the hopes that whatever this thing, infection, whatever the hell it is that is in my gastrointestinal tract, will get the heck out.

Yup, I once again spent an afternoon in the ER because I was so sick.
I was so dehydrated by the time that I got there, that they had to push in 3 bags of fluids.
They took my blood pressure and heart rate, and I had to stay attached to one of those oximeter things the whole time because my pulse and blood pressure kept going up and down almost the entire time that I was there.
I must have thrown up a few dozen times before I actually went to the ER, and I only went because Mark kept telling me to go, I was just laying on the couch attempting to just deal with it, but after the 100th time running to the bathroom, Mark had had enough.

While I was there, about 30 or so more people came in for the same thing.
Tons of people here in Sarasota are sick with some sort of stomach thing, the pukes and poops, and no matter how much you try to keep yourself hydrated, you just can't.
It all comes back out within minutes of ingesting it.
There were seniors, adults, and parents and their kids, all in beds in the ER wicked sick.
It was so busy in there this afternoon, they had people laying in beds in the hallways.
There's nothing like listening to about 35 people of all different ages puking in harmony.

I went to my docs today, it was a regular appointment, but we dealt with my out of control hives today.
Because we don't know what's causing them, he's getting me a referral to an allergist, he's going to look for one who takes medicare so I don't have to pay the crazy cost of going to one, and he gave me a script for Clarinex which says it can be used to treat "hives of an unknown cause", so let's hope when I go pick it up later, that once I take it, it actually works.

Whether it does or doesn't work, I'll write up my own review of it.
I should write reviews of all the drugs that I've taken over the years, I mean, I've been on so many, I could like get paid to write consumer reviews of all the different meds.
I can't write a lipozene review, but I can definitely write reviews for all the different pain meds like Hydrocodone and Oxycodone, muscle relaxers like Soma and Skelaxin, steroids like Prednisone, and stuff like that, I've taken tons of stuff like that, so writing about those would be a piece of cake.

I'm very lucky that I have medical insurance, Medicare, and a drug plan through Humana, because if I had to try and get a health insurance quote right now, I'd be laughed out of the offices.
I have a few friends who have no health insurance at all and they have medical issues that they have to pay for out of pocket, hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go see their doctors and get their medications.
Every month when they have to go to their doctor, they have to make sure they have enough money to pay him, hundreds of dollars, and then enough money to pick up their prescriptions that the doctor writes, hundreds of dollars, and they struggle and struggle to be able to pay it every month.

I'm lucky, in a way, to be disabled.
I have medicare, my doctor co-pays are very low, my prescription co-pays are very low, I remind myself just how lucky I am every single time a friend tells me about their horror story of trying to make sure they can pay for their doctors.
But at the same time, I hate my life the way that it is, it's just one thing after another with me, and I'm exhausted from it all.
I didn't sleep again last night, so I tried to get some sleep this morning around 8:30am.
I only slept until 10am, and when I woke up, I had started to break out in hives again.
On my face only this time.
My right eyelid was all puffy and itchy, my lips all puffy and itchy, and then various little hives on my face.
It really sucks to have it be one thing after another all of the time.
I never catch a break.
If it's not back and/or hip pain, it's arthritis pain in every joint, if it's not that, it's a cold, if it's not that, it's a stomach issue, if not that, it's my body breaking out in hives.
Every month I can count on being down with something.

This is what I looked like this morning.
 













Don't I just look so pretty?

I'm learning all about blood clots, one type known as DVT, what medications are out there to treat it, what can be done so as to not have a pulmonary embolism, stuff like that.

I have learned that it is dangerous to fly if you already have DVT

Someone told me that, I didn't know, so I decided to Google it.

I Googled "DVT + airplane".

This is what I found, same answer, thousands of websites.

What is deep vein thrombosis (DVT)?

People who have a history of cardiovascular disease, stroke or thrombotic episodes (blood clots) are at risk of getting blood clots in their legs during airplane flights of 10 hours or more.  But these aren't the only people who can have this problem.  This condition, known as deep vein thrombosis (DVT), also can affect healthy people, even athletes.

What is economy-class syndrome?

Developing DVT after long plane rides is often called "economy-class syndrome" or "coach-class syndrome," because seating and leg room are particularly cramped for passengers in economy class.   However, first-class and business-class passengers also get DVT, so this problem isn't solely due to sitting still in tight quarters for many hours.  Other factors -- such as low cabin pressure, low humidity and dehydration -- all may contribute.   These factors are constant throughout the plane.

_________________________________
 
Can someone please point out the exit signs?
I'm so ready to get off of this ride that I'm on.
 
It's far too scary for me.

I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, (among all of the other things that are wrong with me)  but RA is an autoimmune disease that primarily affects the joints.
An autoimmune disease is defined as a disease that can not distinguish healthy bodily tissues from harmful foreign substances.
Rheumatoid Arthritis is an inflammatory disease that is capable of producing systemic problems (when the disease affects organs of the body).
Your immune system, a little science/medical info for you, is your body's way of protecting itself, of fighting off illnesses and other things which are foreign to your body, so that you can get back to being healthy.
Your immune system is supposed to help you, not hurt you.
With RA, the immune system is attacking healthy tissues and joints throughout the entire body.
When your immune system is already fighting and battling off the healthy tissues that your body thinks are foreign enemies, there's not much left over to take care of any real things that get into your body and make you sick. 

My joints ache all of the time, they get worse when the weather changes, rain or cold, and then it's just a daily battle to try and keep the pain away long enough to do all of the things that you need to do.
I take vitamins and supplements every single day to try and help my immune system fight off everything that it needs to fight off, so that I can try to be somewhat healthy and not in miserable illness all of the time.
I take a cal/mag/zinc supplement, a multivitamin, and an antioxidant every single day, but I wonder if taking a much stronger vitamin, like prenatal vitamins, would be even more beneficial to someone like me.
Prenatal vitamins have like all of the best stuff in them, they have the best of everything in them, and more of it.
I'm not pregnant nor do I want to ever have another baby, and even though it's been a long time since I was pregnant, I do recall that I felt the healthiest when I was pregnant and taking prenatal vitamins every day.
My hair was awesome, my skin was looking great, not a single blemish, my nails were long and strong, and I just felt terrific, so maybe taking a prenatal now would help me.

It's just a thought, something I thought about tonight while I sit here feeling miserable once again. 

I'm now a regular at the Doctors Hospital ER, I should get like a badge or something.
ha ha
I had broken out in hives again on Thursday, they were all over my body, really bad all over my body.
Both of my eyes were nearly swollen shut, and the hives were spreading everywhere, even on the top of my head.
When my left hand started tingling, I made the decision to go to the ER Thursday night around 6:30pm.
I have high blood pressure, so I was concerned about that, like maybe I was having a heart attack or something.
It wasn't busy, thank goodness, I got right in, and when the doctor came to see me, she said I had the worst case of hives she had ever seen.
Both of my eyes were almost completely swollen shut at that point, my face, neck, torso, head, shoulders, every inch of me was covered in raised red welts.
The hand tingling thing was a hive growing larger and right on top of a nerve in my hand, and that's why it was tingling so bad, the nerve was being squished by a giant hive on the back of my hand. 
She asked me if they were "literally" everywhere on my body.
I said yes, they are every single place that there's skin.
She said "Aww, that really sucks, but we're going to take care of it right now, hang in there just a few more minutes."

She had the nurse start an IV line, and then they pumped in 8 different medications to get rid of the hives, stop the itching, something  for the pain, and one med to ease my stomach because the other drugs are known to cause stomach issues.
She warned me what the side effects of the drugs were, and she asked me if I had a ride home or was I driving.
I told her a friend was going to come back and pick me up.
She said good because 1 of the drugs can make people fall asleep within minutes of getting it. She also told me that a couple of the drugs were like taking an appetite suppressant, that I would not feel like eating anything at all during the whole week that she's got me taking the meds.
She was right about that, I haven't wanted to eat hardly anything at all, I just don't have any appetite, none whatsoever.
Which sucks because we got the Girl Scout cookies that I ordered, on Thursday night when Mindy brought me home from the ER.
Many thanks as always to Mindy and her family for helping me out when I need to go to the hospital and stuff.
She's truly a great friend to have, I am very lucky to have her in my life.

I went in at 6:45 pm, and was not let go until almost 11:30pm, that's not too bad considering that all of that time was actually spent on a bed in the ER with an IV line and getting the itches and welts taken care of.
I've spent an enormous amount of time in bed this weekend, she wasn't kidding about the drugs making me tired, I was out like a light man.
I definitely enjoyed the sleep because I have insomnia really bad a lot of the time, so I totally didn't mind falling asleep and staying asleep for a full 6 hours at a time.
I took them all weekend long, and yup, they make you dead freaking tired.
I've probably had the best sleep of my life this weekend and got it because I was broken out in hives.
I need to get the name of that medicine, I hope that it's a sleeping pill and not like a drug to cure things.
They could totally market and sell it as a sleeping aide.  

You know what the best diet supplement is?
Being sick that's what!
I was sick as hell all weekend, sick on Monday and Tuesday, and I thought it was going away, but nope, it's still here.
I think I've puked about 80 gazillion times since last Friday and I'm so not happy about it at all.
All I want to do is sleep but I can't sleep, my stomach keeps turning and I feel like I'm dying.
If this keeps up, I'll call the doc or go to the ER, I can't take too much more of this crap.

We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man.
We can make him better than he was before.
Better, stronger, faster.

Someday doctors will be able to do stuff like in The Six Million Dollar Man, they will be able to make not like super bionic people, but do spine fusions with better materials, stuff that won't break down over time, stuff that will help us heal faster, stuff that will help take away the pains that we suffer.
Maybe they will use car parts, like maybe from super fast sports cars like some Ferrari parts thrown in so that our bodies won't be so stiff and sore, but better able to move, be better able to get around without stiffness and soreness all of the time.

I know that once we do get that kind of technology, it will be far too late for me, but it would be really cool for other people.
I have hope that someday when doctors perform major life altering surgeries like spine fusions, that they will have the technology to make it better than it is now.
Help people heal better and faster, help people move better, live better lives, have a far better quality of life.

I have days where I feel ok and other days where I just want it all to be over with.
It really sucks that doing something fun and as small as sitting in a theater seat for 2 hours, can cause so much pain and stiffness the next day and for a few days after.
Someday they will find a way to make it all so much better.
I just know they will.

I'm really having a heck of a time lately.
A few things have gotten totally screwed up in the last 24 hours, 1 being that my doc called in another new med, (getting sick of the constant switching of meds) I can't go get it, really irritated about that but not much I can do, and then this morning, all of the lights went out in Sebastian's bedroom, and none of the outlets will work either.
So I went outside to the fuse box to flip the switch, and nothing happened, so I opened up the fuse panel to try and see if something was wrong with it, and that's when I saw that the fuse holders for that room were all loose, so I tried to wiggle them back in place, it seemed to go back in, so I closed the panel and flipped the switch again.
Nothing.
So I flipped it again.
Nothing.
So I came back in the house and checked the lights and outlets again, nope, no juice, so I called the landlord to ask him if he could come by and check it out, replace the burnt out fuse or the fuse holders, whichever is the cause, and he said he would try to get here today but he's really rather busy with work, so it may be tomorrow before he can get here.
Luckily, the washer and dryer, which are in that room, are on a different fuse, so at least I can do the laundry.
I'll be doing it in the dark, but at least it will be done.

Dr. Dorociak is the dentist who gave me a new front tooth for Christmas, and I cannot thank him enough.
For the first time in 14 years, I have a full front tooth.
Before, my right front tooth was broken off completely in half, it looked absolutely horrible.
In just 1 hour today, Dr. Mike and his nurse Janie, were able to give me a new front tooth.
They made it so well that you can't even tell that it's a new tooth, it looks exactly like my other teeth, there's no rough edges, there's no outline on my tooth, (my old cap only went halfway up, you could see that there was a cap on it) they matched the color perfectly, it looks so awesome!
I am so happy right now!
I can finally laugh and smile without having to cover my mouth, without feeling embarrassed, I have a full tooth again, I look normal again, it's really amazing.
I cannot thank Dr. Mike enough for his generosity in doing this for me absolutely free of charge.
On Saturday, Dr. Mike was taking part in Sarasota Smile, he was only going to be doing it from 8am to 1pm, but a few of his colleagues offered to come to his offices and help out so that they could help as many people as they could.
They were open from 8am until 5pm, hundreds of people showed up, they had 6 dentists working in 6 different rooms, with Dr. Mike working in 2 rooms on 2 patients at a time, with all of the nurses and dental assistants helping out and doing as many things for people as they could, they were able to help 159 people.
159 people!!
159 people who otherwise could not afford to get their teeth taken care of, got their teeth fixed absolutely free for Christmas by Dr. Mike and his colleagues.
That is just amazing. Wonderful. Awesome.
I love my new tooth, it looks great and feels great, I can rub my tongue over my teeth and not feel a jagged edge and gaping hole, I can smile and not have people stare at my broken front tooth.
This is really just so amazing, I started crying when they handed me a mirror so that I could see it.
It was so beautiful, I don't have to be embarrassed any more, and that is really just so awesome, no one will stare at it anymore, no one will wonder what happened, I won't have to ever tell the football game story ever again.

You can click for bigger.
Go ahead!
It looks awesome!!






















I can smile again!!

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, my entire family used to go to all of my big brother Mike's football games both at home and away, on the weekends, as sort of like cheap family entertainment.
There were a lot of us kids, Mike, Jo, me, Frankie, Benji, and all of the other many foster kids that came and went over the years.
We'd all pile into Dad's station wagon with the way-back seat, which was where Jo and I used to sit, that was ours, we claimed it on every single road trip because it didn't face forward, it faced back, directly into the face of whatever car and driver were directly behind us.
We loved that seat because we could make faces at those drivers, stick our tongue's out, pretend to pick our noses and fling 'em, stuff like that, we were kids, it was our entertainment on those many and very long road trips to go to games, camping trips, and the holiday visits to see family in Pennsylvania.
Anyway, we would all have to go to the football games, Mom would pack a couple coolers with food and kool-aid, most of us kids wouldn't watch the game, we'd play on the playgrounds that most of the football fields had because the games were usually held at high schools.
There was this one game where there was no playground so we had to make our own fun.
There were these metal poles on like these circular cement things, they used them to hold up ropes to mark off the parking lot and spaces.

So Jo and I were playing on those things and we were sorta swinging back and forth, the cement parts were kind of round so they wobbled, it was sorta fun, and there was nothing else to play on, so yeah, we swung around on those things.
Jo had the fun idea to get it rocking back and forth and then jump off, see who could jump the farthest after getting dizzy.
We were both on the same one, we had it rocking and spinning around, and then she yelled jump and let go, I let go a second later, but I didn't get far enough away from it, my jump sucked basically.
The bad part of it though was that the cement block and metal pole had swung in my direction when I jumped, then it swung straight back the other way, I stood up and it came swinging back and the pole hit me right in the mouth.

The metal pole hit me in the mouth with incredible force, it split my lips open and smashed my right front tooth.
Mom and Dad were pissed of course, it meant a trip to the very expensive for our family dentist, and having to get my broken tooth fixed, save the nerves, and cap the chipped front tooth.
It wasn't the type of chipped tooth you could just ignore, a huge piece had broken off, so a cap to make me have a tooth that looked like the other front tooth, was pretty expensive.
That first cap lasted a very long time, until I was like 15 or 16 at least, and then it just fell off, back then caps weren't meant to last a lifetime, so Mom and dad had to buy me another one.
That one lasted until after I was married and had the kids, it fell off, I mean broke off, when I bit into an apple around age 25.
I was now on my own, totally, I was divorced and raising the boys on my own and I didn't have any dental insurance, so I didn't replace the cap.

In all of these years since, I have never been able to replace the cap on my broken front tooth.
It's been 14 years that I have gone around with a broken front tooth.
I don't ever smile in pictures, I rarely ever open mouth smile when out in public either, I am a closed mouth smiler because I am so self conscious of the broken front tooth, it looks terrible, and it's incredibly obvious.
 People try to tell me that they can't even notice it, but they say that to be nice, I know this because I took a picture of myself with an open mouth smile, and that huge chip is just *BAM!* smiling with my mouth open, showing my teeth in a big toothy smile, there is a big hole showing because of that chipped tooth.

This coming Saturday, local area dentists are doing what they call "Sarasota Smile" for about 4 hours starting at 8am.
A lot of local area dentists will see people on a first come first serve basis, doors open at 8am, close at noon, they will fix just one tooth per person, so if someone needs a tooth pulled, they will pull it.
If someone needs a drill and fill, they will drill and fill.
If someone needs a cap, they will cap it.
The problem is that it's first come first serve, and the dentist said that last year, people started lining up at 3am, by the time the doors opened at 8am, there were over 400 people standing in line starting at the door and snaking down the sidewalk and through the parking lot.
He said they are expecting even more people this year with the economy the way it is.

The dentist doing it is my sister's dentist, she called him to ask about the Sarasota Smile on Saturday, to ask what time I would need to get there to be in the first 10 people in line, he said that I would need to be there really early, like probably no later than 2am, and he asked her why she was asking, he was going to see her on Wednesday the 16th at 1pm, who was she asking for.
Jo told him that it was me, her sister, and he asked what the situation was, so she explained that I am disabled and can't afford to have my front tooth capped, that it's been broken for the last 14 years, that I have kids and just could never afford to get it fixed after having kids.
Jo told him  if it was fixed that I would probably feel better about myself, finally feel comfortable smiling normally like everybody else, be able to laugh out loud without covering my mouth with my hand so no one sees the giant chipped front tooth.
She told him that I was more than willing to go down there Saturday morning at whatever time, I would just bring a folding lawn chair with me so I didn't have to stand up or sit on the hard concrete for all of those hours, but that I would definitely wait as many hours as it took to be among the first in line so I could get my front tooth fixed up.
 
The dentist told Jo to pick me up and bring me with her on Wednesday to her appointment at 1pm.
She asked why, she told him that I couldn't afford to get it capped, that she can't afford to get it capped for me either, it's too expensive, and as it is, Jo is struggling to pay for the work that he's been doing to her for the last few weeks and this Wednesday is the final appointment, but she'll be paying off her dental bill for the next  8 months to a year once the bill is finally tallied for the root canal, 3 drill and fills, and 5 filling replacements to get rid of the old mercury fillings that she has for new and safer fillings.  (When we were kids, fillings were silver and made of mercury).
He told Jo not to worry about it, that neither she or I would have to pay for the cap, that his office will cover it.
She asked him to repeat it, she wasn't sure she heard him right, and so he said it again.
"Bring your sister Kat with you on Wednesday at 1pm. His office will do the cap on my front tooth at no charge to her or me, it will be a Christmas present from him to me."
He made my sister promise to bring me on Wednesday, she said she would, they hung up, and she called me straight away to tell me what was going on.
Here I was going to wake up and go sit down there at 2-3am and wait in line to be in the first in line to be seen and get 1 tooth worked on for free, and the dentist said that I don't have to do that, that I can go on Wednesday at 1pm with my sister, and he and his office will do it for free.
Can you believe that?? How freaking awesome is that dentist?!
I can't believe it, he and his office are going to fix my front tooth for me, wow, it's really amazing.
My front tooth has had this big huge chip for the last 14 years, I haven't smiled in a picture for 14 years, if I'm out with friends and having a good time, i will cover my mouth with my hands while I laugh so no one sees the big chipped up mes.
For the first time in 14 years, I'm going to have a full smile with fully shaped teeth.
After I got off of the phone with my sister, Mark asked me what was going on so I told him, and as I was telling him I started to cry.
14 years, 14 years I have hated the way my teeth look because of a stupid mistake that I made when I was 8 or 9 years old and bored at my older brother's football game.

The dentist said that he couldn't believe that I've gone for 14 years with a broken front tooth, job interviews, work, shopping, everything that people do every single day with a big chipped tooth, hating the way my smile looks so I just haven't truly and freely smiled in 14 years.
He said by the time I leave his office on Wednesday afternoon, I will be smiling big and free for the first time in 14 years, and it will be a beautiful.

I am so freaking excited!!

I had my appointment with my pain doctor today and was able to get a medicine that works and my insurance, Humana, will pay for it.
Yay!
Because of the whole Purdue lawsuit, the pain med that I was taking, the oxycodone 40mg, is no longer available in the generic, and Human absolutely will not pay for the name brand, my doc had to switch me to a new med.
We tried a couple of different ones, none of them worked, and the last one, the methadone, caused me to be sick and also itch like freaking crazy, so he had to switch me again.
He personally called Humana to ask them if they would cover certain medications, and after talking to them for over an hour he said, he was finally able to find a pain med that will work and that Humana will cover.
He put me on Roxicodone 30mg, which is a short acting pain reliever, not an extended release like the Oxycodone 40mg, but it will kick in faster and work just as well for my pain as the 40s used to do.
Now I am on Soma 350, Hydrocodone 10/325, and the Roxicodone 30mg.
I only take the Soma at night to try and sleep, I take 2 of the Hydrocodone every 6 hours, and 1 of the Roxicodone every 4 hours.
This should work to help keep the majority of the pain away, and he said that if I end up having breakthrough pain that is intolerable, like when it rains and the titanium starts to hurt, that I can take either 2 more Hydrocodone or another Roxicodone every 4 hours until the pain goes away.

The doctor had a few more patients to see and my script for the Roxicodone had to be typed up and signed, so they told me to go home and come back to pick up the script after 2pm, so I left and went to hang out with my friends who gave me a ride at their house until it was ready because I live across town and they live close to the doctor's office.
We would have wasted a ton of gas bringing me home, them going home, coming back to pick me up, back to the office, and then to the pharmacy, and back home again.
So after 2pm, we went to the office and then to the pharmacy to get all of the scripts filled, and they were having issues with their computers and stuff so they were unable to accept credit cards, so I had to go to the gas station and use the ATM to get money to pay for my scripts which sucked because the ATM at the gas station charges a $3.00 fee to use it.
I hate that, but by the time we got back to the pharmacy, they had all of my scripts filled and ready to go, so I paid and we left to come back home.
We all hung out here for a bit and then they had to go, but they're coming back later tonight to watch movies and eat pizza and hang out for awhile.
I'm totally ok with that, so I'm going to get up off of here and go do some general cleaning around the house until they come back.
I hate having people come over when my house is dirty.
The litter boxes most definitely have to be cleaned.
Egads those damn cats sure do pee and poop a lot!
Later days!

It may not be an industrial computer, but I finally (been thinking about buying 1 since school started up back in August) ordered the netbook that I've been wanting to get for Sebastian, and I have been talking about it on my other blog, and debating with myself for months and months and months.
YAY!!!
I Twittered about getting the really awesome deal that I got thanks to Verizon, I mean, really, it's a totally sweet deal, how could I not publicly thank them?

The netbook is actually a really great one for the price.
HP Mini 110 series

• • Black Swirl
• • Genuine Windows XP Home with Service Pack 3
• • Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor N270 (1.60GHz, 512KB L2, 533Mhz FSB)
• • 1GB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm)
• • 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• • Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with a 5-in-1 Digital Media slot
• • 10.1" diagonal WSVGA LED Anti-glare Widescreen Display (1024 x 600)
• • HP Mini Webcam with HP Imprint Finish (Swirl)
• • Wireless-G Card
• • HP Color Matching Keyboard
• • 3 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• • Microsoft(R) Works 9.0

When I got Fios installed back in July, Verizon told me that in 3 months, if I paid the bill on time and in full for those first 3 months, I would receive a gift certificate for $299.00 to buy anything that I wanted from a certain website, so my gift certificate came about a month ago, and I finally used it tonight.
The netbook's price was exactly $299.00, and then I bought a mouse and a carrying case for it.
The mouse was $12.79, the case was, $11.99, they had 20% off of them individually, not 20% off if I bought both together, but 20% off of them by themselves, and then I had to pay for shipping for all 3 items.
The subtotal was $324.77, shipping was $19.00, Florida tax was 24.07, making the grand total $367.84.
The $299.00 gift certificate was applied and so I only had to pay $67.85 in total.
I LOVE an awesome bargain like this!
W00t!! W00t!!


Today like around 9am or so, I am going to go to the pharmacy and pick up the scripts that are waiting for me, then go do the grocery shopping, and then tomorrow, I get to go see my other doctor and tell him about the issues that I am having with my feet and hope that it isn't diabetic neuropathy, because if it is, I know that he's going to put me on insulin and I don't want to be on insulin.
I don't have a problem with needles, no problem with needles at all.
It's that having to take insulin will further restrict me and what little freedom I have left.
Because of all of the health issues that I have right now, I am truly a prisoner in my own home because of my own freaking messed-up body.
Having to take insulin will just make me even more of a prisoner.
I know that calling myself a prisoner isn't good, but it's how I feel, my life is so restricted, I can hardly do anything because of the constant pain that I am in, being forced to watch myself, test my blood sugars constantly, will just make that feeling even stronger.
It sucks.

I have just been feeling like total crap the last few days, so crappy that I have not gone anywhere further than my own couch, haven't been outside much at all, maybe got the mail like twice.
You wanna know what the absolute best fat burner is?
In my opinion, the best fast burner is being sick.
When I get sick, I cannot eat.
I don't mean just being sick like a cold or flu, I mean even just feeling kind of blah, blue, tired, achy sore.
If I'm not feeling good, I cannot eat.
The sight and smell of food just makes me feel even worse.
I can't wait to see my doc Wednesday morning so I can talk to him about my feet swelling up.
They've been swelling up off and on all weekend, and it's horribly painful.
I hate it when it happens, it makes it hard to walk, sit, sleep, everything when they get all swelled up and painful.
Mindy was here on Friday and she saw how bad my feet were, my left foot was seriously huge, they were both red and swollen all of the way up to mid-calf.
I really just can't wait to see my doc and talk to him aout how bad I have been feeling all weekend long and my feet issues.
I just wish it was Wednesday already.

I can't be entirely sure just yet if the cause is the new medication, or if I caught the flu.
If it's the med, I have stopped taking it and that should cause the sickness to stop.
If it's the flu, the puking will continue.
Either way, I don't think I have to worry about gaining any new belly fat for awhile.
What med did he put me on?
Methadone.
Yes, Methadone is what they give to people addicted to heroin or other narcotics, but it's also given to people dealing with long term pain because it's like morphine.
He is giving it to me for this month until he gets clearance from the insurance, Humana, to give me an immediate release generic oxycontin pain medication.
Humana does not like to allow that particular med, and they make sure that any patient getting it is closely monitored, both in dosage and weight.
The immediate release oxycontin 30mg is dosed based upon weight, my weight has been fluctuating pretty significantly for the last 6 months.
The patients weight determines how many of the 30mg pills to give the patient every day.
The heavier you are, the more they have to give you.
The skinnier you are, the less they have to give you.
My weight has been fluctuating between 10-15lbs up or down for 6 months, I gain it and lose it, rapidly, and not really sure why.
I am concerned that the Methadone is what caused me to puke non-stop last night because it is so similar to morphine which I am highly allergic to.
It is only 1 chemical molecule off from morphine, which means it's very, very similar to morphine.
I told my doctor when he asked if I was allergic to morphine, that I was, he asked what happens when I take it and I told him.
 I itch so badly on every inch of my body, that I have pulled out huge clumps of hair while sleeping, that I have scratched so hard  on my legs, stomach and arms, that I have actually caused huge gashes in my skin that have gotten infected, and I have gotten very sick to the point that eating anything at all came straight back out within minutes of eating it.
Even trying to take tiny sips of water or Diet Pepsi last night caused me to be very ill.
Deep scratches scab over, scabs itch, so I have scratched at the itchy scabs until they became infected and ended up having to be treated by doctors and antibiotics.
He still prescribed the methadone.
I don't understand that, if he knows how similar it is, is he just hoping that it won't affect me the same as morphine?
I did not take my dose last night or this morning, I am only supposed to take it twice a day, and I am now not taking it, screw that.
If it is the methadone causing the pukes, I am not going to take it.
If I stop taking it and remain sick for days or a week, I'll know it was the flu.
But I don't feel like I have the flu, I have no flu symptoms other than puking, no fever, no lethargy, nada, just puking, so I am almost like 99% positive that it's the methadone and how similar it is to morphine that is causing the sickness.
I should know for definite by tomorrow after not taking it for about 24-48 hours.
I'll tell you what though, I am really not happy about being a guinea pig with the testing of drugs.
I had a drug that worked for my pain, it's unavailable, there is another in the exact same family, just immediate release instead of extended release, that will work, and they are not allowing me to have it.
Instead, I've been given a drug that is more than likely causing me to be extremely sick.
I puked out nothing but stomach bile for 3 hours last night after all the food had been thrown out.
Bile burns man, it burns and hurts, and I am not happy about any of this.
It sucks.
I at least have the regular hydrocodone 10/325 for the pain.
It doesn't work as well as the oxycodone ER 40mg, but it will have to do for now while my doctor figures things out with Humana.

I had been battling a couple issues the last 2 days, a migraine that wouldn't quit, and a swollen foot.
The swollen foot thing is always bothersome, it (left foot) swells up so much that it hurts to try and walk, it turns red, it feels like it's going to break, or the skin is going to pop open.
So I spent all of last night laying on the couch with my foot elevated and trying to get rid of the migraine.

I also spent some time being very concerned for a friend who really needs some really good but super low cost health insurance because of a health issue she is now faced with, and her doctors are only able to do so much for her with the Medicaid that she was forced to go on after her husband got laid off from work.
She really needs to get in and see a specialist, and fast, but Medicaid does things when they want to, and if they want to.
The only advice that I could give her was to be pushy with them and the doctors.
This is her health, her life, and if you wait on them to call you back, you could end up waiting weeks or months, so you really have to start being a total nag and start demanding that your health issue be treated and now, not next month, but now.

I wish there was more that I could do for her, but she's caught in the system now, and really, the only way to get help is to start demanding it, be pushy, call them every single day, start asking for the phone numbers for the specialists yourself instead of waiting for your doctor to call you back with appointment dates, call and set the appointment yourself.
It sucks that she has to do that, but if she wants to be seen and treated, then she needs to be proactive and pushy.

I swear, the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry must be cahoots with each other.
They do everything that they can to get the most amount of money from people for the least amount of work or money being spent on their end of the transaction.

One of my medications is not being made any longer, well, let me rephrase that.
The generic of it is no longer being made, and my insurance company will not pay for the real name brand one unless my doctor calls them and gets prior authorization, tells them that it is medically necessary to have it because the generic is no longer being manufactured.
The real name brand one costs a lot of money, a wicked lot of money.
The generic version of it would cost me $789.95  for a quantity of 90 pills, if I didn't have insurance.
The real name brand one would cost me $1,325.00 out of pocket if I didn't have insurance, for the exact same amount, 90 pills.
My doctor does not want to switch me to another pain medicine unless he absolutely has to because this one works very well for me, he doesn't want to have to make me take something else that may not work as well, and then go through possibly months of trying on new medications until we find one that works.
Getting this particular one took about 5 months of trying a new one every single month until finding this one worked the best.

So basically, I went to my doc appointment today and got all of my prescriptions, 4 of them, but was only able to get 3 of them filled until Humana either decides to cover the name brand one, or forces my doctor to write a new script and start the drug try-ons until we find one that works as well as this one does.
I have been on and tried so many different pain relievers, I could write reviews of them as easily as I have written diet pill reviews on my blogs.
I really do not want to have to try a new drug, or several new drugs.
It sucks trying out new ones, they all react differently with my body, and the one pain med that I absolutely do not want to ever have to take again, not even for a week or so, is Ultram/Tramadol. (the generic is Tramadol)
That one makes me feel like total crap.
It makes me feel agitated and angry, like if anything is even normally mildly upsetting, that little thing makes me explode violently and I start screaming and yelling at anyone within earshot.
It also makes me feel dirty and gross, like slimy and disgusting, and no amount of showers makes that feeling go away, it makes me feel strung out, like jacked-up, cracked-out.
It's how I imagine smoking crack would make me feel.
It also upsets my stomach.
Most narcotic pain relievers cause you to be constipated, I deal with that by taking a stool softener every 3 days or so.
On Tramadol, (the generic) it's the exact opposite, it causes diarrhea, so the whole time I am taking it, I need to stay close to home, close to the bathroom, and I can not eat much at all because it just comes right back out, explosively.
So the doc's office is calling Humana and faxing them, a medically necessary-please approve the name brand medication form, and the doc's office will call me tomorrow to either let me know that I can go to the pharmacy and pick it up, or go back to the doc's office and get a script for a brand new pain reliever.
I am hoping that they will approve it, I really hate trying out new ones, it sucks a wicked lot. 
 
Tramadol is what Mark's doctor has him on, and poor Mark, he is suffering the exact same side effects that I get while taking them, and they really aren't helping his pain much either unless he takes 3 of them at once, but then taking that many causes him to be really agitated and have the stomach upset 3 times worse.
He went and had his MRI last week, and we're supposed to go in tomorrow for the results and a refill of his meds, but I don't have any transportation, and I am not going to spend $40 for a cab ride, so I had to call and cancel his appointment.
I am going to call and talk to a few friends, and ask them if they could give us a ride, they can pick the day that works the best for them, and I'll just tell his doc to either fit us in on that day, or they'll have to wait until I can find another ride from someone else.
Getting his test results are a huge priority for me, I need to know exactly what Mark has and how bad it is.
These results will determine whether or not Mark can go ahead and apply at the police academy and take the law classes in college. (you need to apply at the police academy and then go take the classes)
If his back is really bad, if he has a lot of spine deformities and nerve damage, it will negatively impact his life-long career choice.
If his bad is super bad, if he can't be a cop like he's always wanted to, I will have 10 times more guilt over this than I already do.
I feel absolutely horrible that my genetics, that my DNA, may have destroyed his ability to be a police officer.
The day that I heard that he has spondylosis, I came home and cried my eyes out. 
I so didn't want him to have anything medically wrong with his back, I was so hoping that his doctor would just tell him to lose weight, that because he's overweight, that's why he has lower back pain, that's what I wanted to hear, not that my DNA has been handed down to him.
I have to find us a ride,  someone that will take us there and either wait possibly for an hour or 2, or drop us off and come back to pick us up when the appointment is over.
I need to find out what's wrong and how we're going to treat it, if it can be treated by bracing or physical therapy, or if it's bad enough to need surgery.
Once I get the results from his doctor, I am going to try and fight with medicaid to get a second opinion, and that second opinion will be from my surgeon, Doc M.
Doc M. is the most qualified spine specialist in this state, Mark's doctor even said that if he thinks Mark's spine needs surgery, that he would send him to Virginia to be treated by a specialist there, he already knows that he's not qualified to do the surgery himself.
I am almost scared to get the results, I don't want it to be any worse than what it is right now, just the spondy and arthritis, I am so afraid that he's got other spine deformities, maybe scoliosis, or severe nerve damage like I have.
I do not want him to have to go through any of the years of pain and hell that I've been through, I won't be able to handle that, I don't want my son to suffer like I have. 

Monday was just one of those days, the kind of day that makes you just want to rip your hair out and start shooting people.
I hadn't gotten any sleep since like a few hours on Friday, my period started, I pulled a muscle in my right side lower back, and things were happening that just made the whole day even more miserable.
Things started to go wrong on Sunday about mid-day, and just progressively got worse from there on out.
I had to spend the whole day dealing with those things that had started to go south on Sunday, and then I had to deal with other people complaining about that and other things, all of the day on Monday.
It's a job and I do my job, but man, some people seem to forget that I have a life outside of that job, and that nowhere in my job description does it say that I am allowed to be verbally abused and treated like garbage.
My job is to answer questions that I can, that I have the answers to, and to help with the work that we do if I can.
I answered the same questions repeatedly, for the same person, for 3 hours on Monday afternoon.
I just kept repeating the same answers because the same questions were being asked repeatedly, just in different ways.
 
The person was really aggravated with some things, and it is my opinion, that I took the brunt of this person's anger and frustration simply because I was there, because it's my job to help and answer questions, because it's what I am supposed to do, but taking anger and frustration out on me is not ok, that's not part of my job description at all.
But I took it, I dealt with it, I simply kept repeating the answers that I knew in the most polite way that I could.
And I was polite, I was cordial, I just kept trying to help the person with their issues, tried to help them understand why things are a certain way, and they just kept getting angrier, my answers were not good enough, but even when I explained how they could get the answers they wanted from the only people that could give them those answers, they just continued to get angry because they wanted those answers now, from me, and I am not capable of giving those answers.
I really felt like I was being stepped on because I was there, available, someone to dump on.
I even said a few times that I needed to log out, that I needed to go make dinner for my kids, they just kept going.

When I was finally able to log out, I had to rush to get dinner going, and I was washing a spatula in the sink, didn't see the big carving knife, and I cut my left index finger.
It kept bleeding and bleeding, 3 bandaids couldn't stop it, and I didn't feel like going to the ER for stitches, so I superglued it.

People need to realize that I was asked to do it because I paid attention from day 1, and I have an excellent memory for pieces of information, I'd be great on Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit.
I can recall an exact bit of information or a message and approximately when it came out, and people are able to find that message in the system during the time frame and title that I gave them.
Keeping me tied up for 3 hours to have someone to yell at, is really, truly, not fucking ok.
I'm not a punching bag, I'm not the one you can yell at, but come on, we all know that when given the opportunity to yell at the people that are the intended targets of this hostility and anger, instead of yelling, it all ass kissing and brown nosing.
There's a ton of "You're so awesome Txxx!" and "This company rocks!" and "I love you guys!"
No one ever actually tells them the thingscomplaints that get said to me in the way that they are said to me, because the people who complain with their left hand, and ass kiss with their right hand, don't want to get fired from this job.
I see it every single day on the forums.
Complain, bitch, moan, repeat until the owner shows up, and then suddenly it's all thank yous, and I love yous, and all kinds of assorted ass kissing.
They leave, and it's right back to complaining again.

Some of them have one face that they show to the boss and everyone else on the forums, and one that they only show in private messages to me.
The one on the forums is all nice and sweet, polite, kind, trying to be helpful, and the other that they show to me in private messages when they feel like complaining, is a really mean, nasty, angry and frustrated face with anger lines instead of laugh lines.

I'll tell you what though, I'm really tired of being dumped on like that.
My job is to answer the questions that I have the answers to, and to help with things people need help with, that's it.
I am not the one that anyone is allowed to just pour out all of their anger and frustrations on.
I am not the doormat or the punching bag, I am the one who takes time out of my days and nights, out of my life, to help other people and answer questions.

I do have a life ya know.
Yeah, it may not be a glamorous one, it may not even be one where I am going out with friends all of the time living it up, but I do have a very busy and hectic, very stressful life.
I have a ton of pretty major health issues, and now I have a son who I have given some of those health issues to as a genetic gift.
I have my own doctor appointments every month, and now I have to schedule his in-between mine. 
I had to cancel his MRI on Monday at the last minute because our ride had an issue with his car,  we were outside waiting for him to show, and he called my cell to tell me the car was dead, dead battery or something, wouldn't turn over, so I had to come in and cancel it.  a
And now I have to reschedule it when I can find another ride or come up with the $15 each way to take a cab.

I'll probably end up doing that on payday this week once I see how much pay I'm going to have.
I lost a lot of work this past week due to my son's medical appointments, and my own ear infection last week, and because I spent a great deal of time helping people, doing my job.
I was busy helping people, the system flipped over to the next time period or whatever it is that it does, and all of the work I had, completely vanished.

I spend so much time, like I did on Sunday and Monday, on the work forums helping other people and answering questions, that I have to scramble and race to get my own work done on time.
I highly doubt that anyone even thinks of that, as a matter of fact, I'm like 99.9% positive that nobody thinks that I have my own work to do, so it's not a big deal to them to keep me there asking question after question, or like today, keeping me there to have someone to yell at for 3 freaking hours.
There's only 3 people who know that I have my own work to do and that I end up racing to get it done almost every single payroll period.

I mean would you just look at the freaking time that I made this post?!
I spent almost all day Sunday on the work forums, I spent almost all day on Monday on the work forums, minus the time mid-morning on Monday that I took a shower, made Mark take a shower, and then waited for our ride that eventually couldn't make it, all of the while going through medical documents to make sure that I have everything, filled everything out, crossed every 't', dotted every 'i', and signed by him because he's now 18 and considered an adult, legally old enough to deal with his own medical procedures, yet he doesn't have the slightest clue what any of those papers say, so I have to go through everything with him and get him to understand it all and then sign his name, and all of the while I'm doing all of that and waiting for our ride, I still kept hopping on the work forums to help people.
And because of how things went on Sunday and Monday dealing with an issue that everyone was having, and then dealing with that 1 person for 3 hours on Monday, I never got to post to either of my blogs until now, almost 5am on Tuesday.
It's extremely frustrating.
 
Please don't anyone mistake this as me hating my job and maybe I shouldn't do it anymore, don't even think that, not even for 1 stinking second!
I LOVE my job, I LOVE what I do, I LOVE helping other people, it is soooo gratifying, it gives me a sense of purpose, it makes me feel like I'm doing something good for others.
But when people take what I do for granted, or treat me bad, or speak to me so dis-respectively, it really hurts.
I give of my time, my life, to help other people every single day for hours and hours and hours, so to have someone spend a lot of time, my time, talking to me negatively because they are upset about something else, or at someone else, or yelling at me for things which I have absolutely no control over or any power to do anything about, really, really sucks.
And it hurts, it hurts a lot.

I think people just assume that because I am a disabled stay at home mom who does this job, that I must have no life and nothing to do, so they totally take advantage of me, they take advantage of my time like it's not a big deal, they rarely ever say please when asking for help, and they like never say thank you when the help has been provided. 
Not too many others say thank you for the help either, it's like manners don't exist anymore.
If someone helps you, say thank you, if you need help, say please when asking, and try not to be a total jerk-face to the person who's trying to help you.

If you're mad about something or mad at someone, try really super duper hard to NOT take it out of the person who has been helping you as much as they possibly can.
Try to remember that they are not the reason that you are so angry and frustrated.
Try to remember that they have a life too, but they are helping you because it's a good thing to do, because helping your fellow man is the right thing to do.
It feels good to help someone who needs help, it feels really good, but when you don't get a please before or at the start, and a thank you after, or if the during the time you are helping them, they are being a snarky freaking jerk to you, it can totally drain all of the good feelings that you had and instantly make you feel hurt, sometimes sad, sometimes angry, betrayed, upset, and stressed out.
But mostly, you just feel bad inside, and taken advantage of, used as someone's emotional punching bag, and that feeling sucks the big time.

I felt that way on Monday night, I felt that way while it was happening, I felt that way when it finally ended, and I have felt that way all night Monday and now here it is Tuesday morning at 5:30am,  (I started posting this at about 4am Tuesday) and I still feel totally beaten down and drained from that whole thing, I feel like an emotional punching bag that totally got the stuffing just kicked and punched right out of it.
In other words, I still feel terrible.

That whole thing made me cry to be totally honest about it.
I did my best, I gave up 3 hours of my time and life, I looked for answers, sorted through my emails, through threads and posts, I did everything that I could to help that person, and they still kept coming at me with some hard left hooks and some painful right uppercuts.
It really is so not ok to take out your anger and frustration that you have for someone else on the person helping you.
It's just not.

*Raises can of cold Diet Coke*
Here's to hoping that Tuesday is a much better day.

All of that stuff that was going on with me and my family a few months back now, is still on our families stage.
Instead of being front and center like it was, it's now just hanging out somewhere stage left.

Mark and I had a long talk on Thursday afternoon, that's why I haven't been around much during the daytime hours recently, not posting to my blogs during the day, only hopping on and off of Twitter every few hours and stuff.
Mark and I, had a long talk about his upcoming MRI on Monday afternoon.
He's really starting to get worried.
Not about the MRI itself, but the results.
He said that if the results say that it's bad and that he will definitely be needing surgery when he's older, he asked if he can tell the doctor to just do the surgery now, while he's young.
I said that of course he can tell the doctor he wants to do it now, but that doesn't mean that the doctor will, but he has every right to make his own medical decisions now, he's legally an adult.

He said that after watching me go through the spine fusion surgeries in my mid 30's, and watching George have spine fusion in his late 50's, after watching the 2 of us suffer through the surgeries, the recoveries, and watching us still be in pain (even years later in my case, George had his surgery just 9 months ago) that he does not, under any circumstance, want to have his surgery in middle age, when the body takes longer to heal, when the body is actually starting to decline in health, he does not want that kind of life for himself, and he does not want his children to have to go through what he and Sebastian have had to go through.
He said that it wasn't my fault, he doesn't blame me for anything, but it really sucks being a kid and having to deal with all of this stuff for the last 10 years of their lives.
 
He also said that after he has his spine fused, after he's recovered as much as his body will recover, that he wants to go to drug rehab and get off of all of the pain medicines while he's young.
He said that he does not want to be like George and I, having to take pain pills every single day for the rest of his life like we have to.
He said that he believes that the reason we are in so much pain, the reason that our surgeries didn't go so well, the reason that we are still suffering, is because the surgeons waited too long to do it, that if it had been done while we were younger, our lives would be so much different.

I really can't argue with him there.
I have often tried to imagine what my life would be like if the doctors had taken better care of me when I was young and first diagnosed with scoliosis.
I know that back in the early 80's when I was diagnosed, that they were using Harrington rods, and I know that those rods failed after about 10-15 years, but dammit, I would have had 10-15 years of being straight before the rods gave out and needed to be replaced, and when they did, the new titanium rods that I have now, would have been developed and doctors would have begun using them by then.
I would have been ok.
I wouldn't have started suffering from the excruciating backaches and burning pain that has  plagued me every single day since I was 19 years old.

Do you have any idea what it has been like to be in pain every single day for 20 years?
There has not been a single day since I was 19, that I've not had pain.
I honestly don't know what it feels like to not have pain, I can't remember what no pain feels like.
 
Maybe if those damn doctors had done their job and fixed me when I was younger, when I was a teenager, fixed me like another girl in my high school class was,  that I wouldn't have become disabled at the age of 31.
At age 31, I was told by 3 orthopedic surgeons and 2 neurosurgeons, that my body couldn't handle the stress anymore, that if I continued to work, continued to put any kind of physical stress on my body any harder than walking at a slow pace, that I would be in a wheelchair within 5 years, and instead of doing spine fusion surgery, they would have been amputating my left leg at the pelvis due to the extensive and non-repairable nerve and blood vessel damage that was running from my lower back all of the way down into my left leg and all of the way to my toes.

All 5 of those surgeons wrote letters to SSDI and told them that I could never work again, and I made and kept copies of all of the letters that every single one of the 21 surgeons and specialists that I saw beginning in July 1998, all the way up until I met my surgeon in November 2005.
I have all of my own medical records, I had to pay to get copies of some of them, but after going from surgeon to surgeon so many times, I just started making my own medical records to bring with me to meet the new surgeons so that time wouldn't be wasted waiting  for my records to be sent over to another new surgeon time after time.

It took from April 2001 to December 2005, to get approved for SSDI.
They denied me twice even with an attorney, and that's when I asked each of the 21 surgeons who treated me to write a letter to SSDI explaining how bad my condition was, and they all agreed to do it, they all wrote letters and sent them to my attorney, and almost all of them included their original notes from during the time they treated me and then had to send me to another doctor who "might" have been able to help me.
I really think it was those letters that finally got me approved.

I went off there eh?
Sorry, didn't mean to, it's just that period of time in my life was not only physically challenging, but emotionally challenging.
I wanted to give up fighting every single day, but then I'd look at my boys, and just keep on fighting.

Mark is a fighter, he will fight to get whatever needs to be done, done, but done his way, when he says so, not when a doctor says so.
He does not want to be middle-aged and fighting a battle everyday to just walk from the bed to the couch.
He doesn't want to put his kids through this either.
I asked him if he was really planning on having kids and he said that he was, at least 2 he said.
Then he told me that I need to make my body as strong as I can because the "Gram" is always the kids favorite babysitter.
Ha ha
I said I would do my best, but for now, let's just get through doc appointments and hurricane season, we can talk about me being a grandmother later.
Muuuucch later. 

I went and saw my pain doc today and actually got to see him, not his physician's assistant like I have been seeing the last 3 visits.
This is something that I had talked about before, that I wanted to see him, because he's the only one who can change my medications, fix the dosage and amounts, or remove one that isn't working and try something else.
The PA just gives you the prescriptions that he has prescribed you, already signed by him in the morning.
That's how they can see so many patients, there's him, another pain doc, and then 3 PA's.
Every morning before they open, the 2 doctor's go through the files of every patient that will be seen that day, they write out the scripts, sign them, and then when the patient comes, the scripts are ready to go, and you have your appointment with him or the PA, whoever you are scheduled to see.
At last month's appointment, I told his PA that I wanted to see him at my next appointment because the meds I am on just aren't working as well anymore, that I'm having a rough time of things like they are, so they scheduled me to see him today.

I told him how things were going, how the meds they gave me had caused me to end up in the ER, he had the notes from the ER and had spoken to the doc who treated me that night by phone, and he apologized to me for that happening, and had made a note in my file to make sure that I am never given those particular meds again.
Basically they got added to the list of meds that I am allergic to so that from now on, no one ever gives me those again, and he said at my next appointment, he will have a typed up and signed allergy card for me to carry in my wallet in case there is ever any emergency and I am unable to speak.
He said that the allergy card needs to be in my wallet right with my ID card so that if I'm ever in an accident, the EMTs or police, whoever, when they get my ID out to identify me, they will also find the allergy card so that any medical people who treat me will know what I cannot be given.
I thanked him for that because trying to remember 4 meds accurately by name and spelling  is hard enough in good condition, so trying to remember them by name and spelling  accurately in a bad situation, would be very difficult.

I also talked to him about my weight, that I am going through losing weight/gaining weight phases which I am not happy about, and the muscle spasms I get in my middle and lower back, pain from doing pretty much anything like walking, doing dishes, and going grocery shopping,  which causes me to take more pain medication, and my never ending battle with insomnia.
He asked if I wanted a sleeping pill and I told him no because they don't work for me, I know this from experience.
I had been prescribed sleeping pills by my primary care doc, we tried 3 different ones, and they all wired me up instead of putting me to sleep.
So I asked him if he ever heard of a product called Stemulite, and if he had, what did he think of me trying something like that.
Stemulite, according to it's makers and from user testimonials, is supposed to be good for several things.
Things like improved sleep, increase strength and reduce pain from working out or exercising, increase muscle tone and endurance, and increase weight loss, wellness and energy.
He said that he hadn't heard of it, at least he didn't think he had, so he had me spell it and he wrote it down, said he would look it up and at my next appointment, he'd let me know what he thought of it.
He said he generally doesn't like prescribing any type of weight loss medication unless the patient is severely obese, which I am not, but he is concerned about the fact that doing things that are easy for most people, things like grocery shopping for example, cause me to be in a lot of pain and have bad muscle spasms in my lower back for many hours afterward, and my constant insomnia.
He said it was really odd and definitely not the norm that I can't sleep when the pain medications that I take normally cause most people who take them to be very tired, they all cause severe drowsiness, but not for me, instead of even being slightly tired, I'm wired up and ready to go.
So he said he would definitely look into it and let me know what he thinks because there has got to be something that will work for me, something to help me with the multiple issues that I have, insomnia, increased pain from doing even simple things, muscle spasms, and my weight always fluctuating.
At my appointment last month, I had lost 7lbs, the appointment before that, I had gained 10lbs, and at today's appointment, I had lost 9lbs, up and down like a yo-yo.
He said he would be ok with me trying something like Stemulite after he looks into it, because so far, nothing seems to be working for me, my muscles are just not healed up well and they should be, they should have far more strength than they do, so maybe next month, he'll give me the ok to try it.
That would be awesome if he did ok it, I've been looking into it for quite awhile now, I posted about it when I found out about it back in April, so yeah, if he ok's this, it really just might be what could help me with all of the things that I am having trouble with.
My latest battle with insomnia lasted for 6 days.
During those 6 days, I only got a total of 3 hours of sleep.
It was an absolute hell, I was like going crazy from the lack of sleep, I tried and tried, I did all of the things I could think of to try and relax myself to sleep, things like gentle stretching and then relaxing of each part of my body starting at my toes and working my way up.
I tried taking a warm shower, I tried listening to very quiet classical music, and even some lullaby music I have, I tried drinking some sleepy time tea, and I even bought some over the counter sleeping pills which was a HUGE mistake because I KNEW they wouldn't work from my own experiences with prescription sleeping pills, but I was desperate for sleep, so I was trying anything I could and nothing worked at all.
It really sucks when you can't sleep, it makes you crazy.

So anyway , today's appointment went very well, we talked about a lot of things, he increased the doses of the meds that I take, and promised to look into Stemulite for me, to see if it will have any side effects or if it will interact badly with the meds that I currently take, and I also got a copy of my pain management contract.
He said he will also make sure that I get copies of the drug tests that he does on me every month, and the 2 random tests that he's done so far, and those will be ready for me to pick up at next month's appointment or if I want them earlier than that, to just give them a 72 hour phone call/notice, and he said they will be available to pick up after that.
But he said that I have passed every single drug test so far, and from the records he got from my previous pain doc, that I also passed every drug test that they did on me.
He did ask me why I wanted these things, so I told him what was going on.
That was really hard for me to tell him, I almost busted up bawling my eyes out but was able to hold it together for the most part, only cried a little bit.
He told me that if I had ever failed even just 1 of the drug tests that his office does, that he would have stopped being my doctor and would have added my name to the blacklist database, and he told me not to worry about it, to just let it go, let people think whatever they want to think because they don't make my health care and pain management decisions, he does, and if I had failed any of the tests, he would have personally told me that I did.

He also told me that I'm not the first and certainly will not be the last patient being treated for chronic pain, that people accuse of being addicts, he said that he hears it from almost every single one of his patients, that their families just don't understand, and probably never will.
He said that if any of those people ever had to deal with even just 1 day of the kind of pain we are in, they would change their tune in a heartbeat, and he doesn't wish that kind of pain on anyone, but he said that it would be the only way that anyone would understand, they would have to spend a day in our shoes to "get it", so I need to let it go, ignore what the people say, and just keep on doing what I'm doing, keep making my appointments, keep taking the monthly and random drug tests, and just try to live my life the best that I can, that those people don't live my life, and they should consider themselves lucky that they don't.
He's a pretty cool doc, I wish I could see him every month instead of his PA who talks wicked fast and into a tape recorder the whole appointment, but it's up to the scheduler who I get put with, and next month, I get to be with him again because of the things he said he's going to do, but then after that, I'll probably get with the PA again.
Oh well, at least I get to see him again next month and find out if I can take the Stemulite.

I might dust off my scanner and just scan the pain management contract, which I noticed is a new version, this one has been condensed to 3 pages down from the previous 8 page one.
I asked the office staff why it was smaller, and they said that they realized it was just far too wordy, that the new one says what it needs to say without all the extra and often confused wording. They told me that once I read through it, it is totally clear, that there can be absolutely no confusion over any of their rules at all.
Just glancing at it for a minute while waiting for the scheduler, I was like uh yeah, definitely plain as day what you can and cannot do as one of his patients.
But yeah, I might just scan it and have it available to email to anyone who wants to read it and understand that I absolutely cannot fail a single drug test, miss more than 3 appointments, or lose/have stolen any of my medications.
There is NO room for mistakes as one of his patients.
He is a very good and kind pain management doctor, but he's definitely not the kind of guy that you can try to roll one over on. He's heard all of the excuses people have, and he knows every single way that someone can try and pull one over on him, and it isn't going to happen with him, he's very strict with his rules, he has to be.

Anyway, that's my update for now.
I have a ton of emails to catch up on, a contest winner to draw which was supposed to be done yesterday, (UGH!) and then some dishes to do.

My friend Christine sent me this link to an advice column posting, and it made me feel so much better to know that there are people out there who understand what I'm dealing with.
I'm going to copy and paste it here, but anyone is free to go read the posting at the link above.

Dear Annie: This is for "His Wife," who worried that her husband might be addicted to painkillers.

I am a family practitioner and sometimes prescribe OxyContin for chronic, refractory noncancerous pain. Addiction is the physical and/or psychological craving for a substance despite documented damage to one's health and well-being. A person will beg, borrow or steal to get that substance. Her husband is not addicted. He appears to have chronic pain for which there is no surgical cure. He is under treatment for a bona fide medical condition.

I wear glasses. Am I addicted to them? No. Am I dependent on them? Yes. I am also a diabetic. The medication on which I am dependent has a specific purpose to control a medical condition.

The same goes for the OxyContin. If it is prescribed by a physician and his condition is monitored regularly for the purpose of improving function and maximizing his potential, it is legal and beneficial. If I cannot cure my patient, my next goal is to alleviate suffering. For too many years, patients have suffered in pain because we doctors were afraid of "causing" addiction. - A Doctor in California

Dear Doctor: Thanks for the lunch-bucket lingo explanation. Our readers will appreciate it.

See, it doesn't matter what your disease is, if you have a cancer like mesothelioma, you take medicine for it, if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, have to wear glasses because you can't see well, a heart condition, whatever, your doctor treats you the best way that they can, and for those of us with chronic pain, have had surgeries that were supposed to fix us but didn't, whatever our reason is for being in pain, our doctors treat us with the medications that are available to treat us with the best way that they can.
I know that the people who have said things about me, or believe the lies told about me, have medical conditions that they take medicines for.
Arthritis, heart problems, diabetes, and skin cancer, and even some feminine problems like having to take hormones for "the change".
Are they addicts because they take the medicines prescribed by their doctors for their conditions every single day of their lives?
No, they are being monitored and treated for their health issues with medications.
I don't judge them or call them addicts, I know that they have legitimate medical conditions and they are being treated for them.
I've been through surgical hell, painful surgeries, heck, the pictures are at the top of this blog with the stuff that is forever inside of me, and I am currently stuck with my head down until medical science can find a way to fix me.
It is extremely painful to live like this, so my doctors treat me for this pain with medications to help make living like this easier.

So am I am addict?
Not me, not me the person, but my body is, my body needs them, and I am under constant medical care, and I am watched and monitored closely by my doctors.
I have an 8-page contract that I signed with my doctor, I take monthly and on-call urine drug tests to prove to my doctor that I am not taking any other drugs that he has not prescribed me.
If I do take anything other than what he has prescribed me, any illegal substances, I will be kicked out and unable to return to his office or any other pain doctor's office.
I will be blacklisted in the state of Florida, all doctors will be notified, and so will pharmacies.
At this month's appointment on the 14th, I am going to get a copy of my contract and copies of every single drug test that he has made me take, and I will send them to anyone who asks to see them to show people, to show anyone who thinks that I am doing anything illegal, that I am not.
Do I want to have to do this?
Should I have to do this?
No, hell no, but I will do it to put an end to the stories and the lies told about me.

Well I certainly didn't need any Phenphedrine these past few days, my medications took care of that for me.
As I posted on my other blog, I now have 2 more medications on my allergy list.
I now have to write in whenever I'm asked for medication allergies, morphine, albuterol, phenegren, and clonidine.
The phenegren and clonidine nearly killed me in just 2 short days of taking them.
I started taking them on Monday, became horribly sick and confused, slept for hours and hours, and when I wasn't sleeping, I was horribly ill.
It got so bad that I ended up in the ER last night, they almost pumped my stomach, but instead hooked me to IV fluids and gave me several shots of stuff I can't even recall the name of, to try and get the bad stuff out of me.
It worked because I am totally coherent now, I can read, write, sit up, walk, and talk, all things that I was completely unable to do from 5:30pm on Monday night until last night at the ER when they started pumping me full of fluids and meds.
It was some scary stuff I tell ya.
I don't think I've ever felt worse in my entire life than I did for the last few days.

I thought that I would/should start documenting how it's going with the new antidepressant.
I want to keep a record of how it's going so that if any bad or weird side effects happen, I will know what day they happened, and so that I can tell my doctor how I am doing.
I don't want to have to ask my sons or my friends to keep an eye on me like the drug information page says for them to do.
Keeping a record of how I am doing and the side effects, will also help me determine if I am losing or gaining weight, one of the side effects of Elavil is weight gain, so I want to keep an eye on myself.

I am at 170lbs as of tonight, so if I start gaining weight, if I balloon up to 200lbs, for example, I can then ask my doctor to help me lose the weight or change the antidepressant.
If I gain too much weight too soon, I could ask my doctor to change it and also to give me something to help me lose weight, maybe something like some ephedra diet pills that will suppress my appetite as well as give me a boost of energy so that I can lose weight quicker from moving my body more and moving it faster.

Of course, moving my body more and moving it faster,will cause my body to be hurting pretty bad the next day, and it will take a day or 2 of laying down on the couch and taking it easy until I can get the pain back under control again.
It seems like a lot of things in my life lately are of the damned if you do, damned if you don't type of things.
I really am just so lost and confused on what to do about so many things right now.
*sigh*

But anyway, I took the Elavil on Saturday night at 10pm, and just like the previous 4 nights, instead of making me sleepy like it's supposed to do, it wakes me up, gives me a ton of energy, so I went and did the dishes and then cleaned the bathroom.

I don't feel much different yet, no change in emotions or thoughts yet, and I hope that it doesn't take 4 weeks like the drug information page said it might take.
I really hope that it will only take a week, and that I don't have any bad side effects.
But so far, nothing has changed emotionally.

I will keep documenting how things are going as I go.

Well, it looks like I'll be back on the hunt for the best weight loss pill again very soon.
One of the side effects of the antidepressant that the doc put me on is weight gain.
Just doing a Google search for various side effects like I do for every new medication I get put on, I came across a lot of search results for weight gain when I was searching for weight loss.
My doc put me on Elavil for my depression.

Anytime I get put on a new medication, I look it up.
I check multiple sites too, I want to make sure that they all say the same thing as far as what it does, side effects, long term effects on the body etc.
Just reading up on Elavil now, and look!
Now people can really freak out!

You may have thoughts about suicide when you first start taking an antidepressant, especially if you are younger than 24 years old. Your doctor will need to check you at regular visits for at least the first 12 weeks of treatment.

I wasn't suicidal before, but I might just get that way now that I'm taking a medicine that is supposed to help me get happy. Ha! Ha! Ha!
Oh, this is really just great, I wanted to stop these things from happening, but this drug might make these things happen, and might make them worse.
Awesome!

Call your doctor at once if you have any new or worsening symptoms such as: mood or behavior changes, anxiety, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, or if you feel impulsive, irritable, agitated, hostile, aggressive, restless, hyperactive (mentally or physically), more depressed, or have thoughts about suicide or hurting yourself.

I swear, the side effects of the drug are just as bad as the reason I'm taking the drug.
Elavil can cause you to be suicidal.
That's really fantastic.
I wasn't suicidal before, but I might just get that way now, that's really great
I will have to be monitored for up to 12 weeks from the date I first start taking it, which was on the 14th, because it can cause me to become more depressed and feel suicidal during that first 3 months.
That really stinks.
I am taking this so I can get better, stop being depressed, and it can actually cause me to get even more depressed in the first 3 months of using it.
I'm supposed to warn my family and friends to be alert to the changes in my mood and behavior so that they can tell me to tell my doctor.
My sons have been through enough, they don't need to be watching over me to see if I get worse.
Why the heck do the side effects of these drugs that are supposed to make us better, have to be just as bad or worse than the reason we take them?!
And my doc's PA was wrong, it can take up to 4 weeks to start working, but it could possibly be a rough time during the first 3 months due to he possibility of feeling even more depressed.
Just read through all of the side effects and possible side effects of Elavil, it's really kinda nuts.
I want to know why it says to tell your doctor if you regularly take other medications that make you sleepy, like pain meds or muscle relaxers.
It doesn't say why you should tell your doctor, it just says that you should, and I do, I take pain meds and a muscle relaxer every single day.
Elavil is supposed to make you sleepy, but so far after taking it at night for the last 4 nights now, it is not making me sleepy, it's having the opposite effect, I am wide awake for hours after taking it.
So wide awake in fact, that I have a ton of energy and could start cleaning the house at like midnight.

I don't know, I just don't know.
All I do know is that I don't want to feel worse, I do not want to get more depressed, I do not want to start thinking about suicide, it has already been a horrible 3 months for me, watching myself get more and more depressed, knowing that I was getting worse but still holding it together, I cannot get any worse, I just can't.
It would not be a good thing people, it really wouldn't.

Even though we've decided to not do the surgery right now, my surgeon still wants me to have a bunch of tests done.
I need to call and schedule an MRI, I still have the referral paper he gave me last week, good thing I didn't throw it out after deciding to not have the surgery huh?
After he gets the results of the MRI, he may, but will more than likely he said, have me go do a Myelogram.
I hate that test.
Hate it.
That page and every other page that describes the test, makes it seem like a piece of cake, but it's not.
You lie face down on this table, they strap you in so you absolutely cannot move, and they inject a contrast dye directly into your spinal cord.
Then the table rotates, up, down, side to side, and upside down, holding each final position for about a minute and a half while they watch the dye move through your nerves and blood vessels.
It's very unnerving being upside down for a minute and a half, all the blood rushes to your head, and the table is not soft, it's a hard xray table because they are doing xrays or CT scans to see where and how far the dye goes.
Then after the test, you have to lay in a bed with your head slightly elevated for 6 straight hours, you cannot move, you can't lay on your sides, you can't get up and use the bathroom, you have to lay there for 6 straight hours while the hole they made in your spinal cord closes up naturally on it's own.
They can't stitch it up for some reason, all they can do is put a small band-aid on it, but if you get up, even to just use the bathroom, your spinal fluid can drain out and that is apparently really bad.
I have a major issue with this part, well the whole test, but having to lay there in bed for 6 hours and not be able to use the bathroom.
I cannot pee in a female urinal.
I just can't.
There's something about it that my brain simply refuses to let me pee in the damn thing, so by the time they finally let me get out of the bed, the very 1st thing I do is run straight to the bathroom and let the flood gates open. ha ha
And hospital beds in the recovery rooms are awful, they are very hard, so it's painful for me to lay there perfectly flat for 6 hours. It's not like hospital beds are comfy anyway, it's a hospital, not the Riviera hotel.

They do this test to look for nerve damage, and my surgeon thinks that I have some nerve damage somewhere, but he's not really sure where exactly.
The nerves in the skin on my back have not fully regrown from the 1st surgery in 2006, I still cannot feel it when someone touches my back, I can't feel anything on my back at all, and he said that is very rare that after 3+ years, that I still do not have any feeling in my back.
He's also concerned about the random tingling in my hands and feet.
Both right and left hands, and right and left feet, randomly go numb and tingle, that fall asleep feeling, but it just happens whenever, nothing physical is causing it like it does when you fall asleep on your arm the wrong way, it just happens.
He wants to see why this is happening, and where the damaged nerves are.
So, even though I'm not having the surgery, I'm still going to have to go through all of the pre-surgical tests, that really sucks, I hate that damn Myelogram.
I always end up with a wicked bad headache after, probably because of the whole spinal fluid thing, but the headache takes hours and hours to go away.
I hope that he sees what he needs to see in the MRI and we don't have to do the Myelogram, I just really hate it and never wat to have to do that test again.
 

The surgery, not right now anyway.
My surgeon is someone I trust so much, you have no idea how much I trust that man.
He has never lied to me about any of the risks, how I would be after the surgery, any difficulties I would face when I came home, anything.
He always looks me dead in the eye and tells me the honest truth about everything, so when he looked me in the eyes on Wednesday and told me all of the risks, no matter how small, and then asked me to consider not doing and his feelings on why, I knew, I know, that I have to trust him.

Even though he would be operating above me and his surgeon partner below me, and the same entire surgical team that has been in there with my previous surgeries, measuring and adjusting, and doing everything that they can to try and make my head be straight, something is telling him, worrying him, that it would over correct and I would end up facing upward.
I could see it in his eyes, I have had so many talks with this man over the years, I know how to read him, and I know that look in his eyes was genuine worry that it would have over corrected and come out facing up.
I am going to call him tomorrow and tell him to cancel the operating room, for now, and for him to keep looking for a way to fix me with less risks, to keep talking to other surgeons in this field, maybe one of them will know how to do it better some day, maybe one of them will know how to do it without all of the risks.
Medical science is constantly changing, they are always finding new ways of doing things, so maybe they will find a new way to do this in a year or 2, or 5, who knows, I just have to hang in there and wait.
And he said he will always help me, if I end up having too much pain, he will help me, he'll do whatever he can to help me until the day comes that we find a way to fix this without so many risks to my body and life. 
Facing up would be a thousand times worse than facing down, I would not be able to live that way, there's no way, I wouldn't.
Facing down has been a nightmare that I can't wake up from, facing up would push me over the psychological edge and that would be the end of me, I would never mentally recover from that.

So now I can stop searching so hard for the best term life insurance quotes , I have time to find a good plan at reasonable rates that I can afford so that when they do find a way to fix me, if something goes wrong, there will be money to pay for my cremation.

Over the last 10 months now, I've been losing weight through a variety a ways.
One way has been because I was afraid to eat during the day when the teens weren't home because if I got sick, I was choking on my own vomit and almost dying, so I lost weight by not eating.
Another way has been because of the medicines I take, they just decrease my appetite, and some of them make food and drink taste absolutely terrible, so I don't even bother trying to eat when everything tastes like crap.
And since February, I've been cooking with the NuWave Oven Pro which drains off excess fats and oils, and I've lost 15 lbs.
After this next and hopefully last spine fusion surgery, I really want to get serious about my weight and lose even more weight to get down to my ideal weight which is about 140-145, so I've been reading a lot of diet pill reviews, and one that I've been reading has a lot of potential.
I read some Decaslim reviews, and it sounds very promising to help me get to my goal weight.
I look really good at 140-145, not too thin, no bones showing, but not fatty either, my face looks really good at that weight, my frame looks good, I can fit into nice clothes at that weight, and I feel good at that weight.
So, after this next and hopefully last surgery, I am going to get super serious about my weight and take off as much as I can through diet and exercise, and if I need any help, I will check out any supplement help that my doctors recommend and give it a go to get down to 140-145 and finally be at my ideal weight again.
I'm not getting any younger, I've got to get down to a good weight and stay there. 

I had my appointment with the cardiac doctor on Tuesday morning at 11am, and surprisingly, it went very well.
I was surprised it went well because I had not slept on Monday night at all, I was wake straight through from waking up Sunday, and I didn't much sleep that night either.
I only got a few hours on Sunday morning from 10:30am to 12:30pm, so yeah, I was going on very little sleep.

My friend Dustin took me, and Mark came along.
He was released early from school because he donated blood this morning.
All seniors age 17+, were allowed to donate blood, and if they did, they were allowed to be dismissed early.
He was quite pale when he came home at 10:15am, so I took him with me so we could grab something to eat on our way home that was loaded with salt, calories, and would fill him up quickly.

The cardiac doc ran all of the usual tests, BP, pulse ox, heart rate, and he listened to both my heart and lungs, and said I looked good to go.
I said what does that mean? I'm good to go for the stress test?
He said, "No, you're good to go for the surgery. You don't need another stress test, they are good for a year, and even though you had some problems during your last surgery with your heart, that had nothing to do with your heart really. After reading the surgical notations, it appears that your heart stopped because the tube used for intubation nicked your right lung on it's second run down your throat, which caused it to fill with blood, your lung collapsed, and you lost some blood. There was nothing at all wrong with your heart. Tell Dr. Moreno, that he'll have the letter for surgical clearance within 1 week. When is the surgery?"

I told him that I postponed it until June, because I wanted to be there to see my oldest son graduate high school, not be in the hospital, or if I was already out, not be wearing a halo brace to the graduation.
He said to give Mark his congratulations, and told me he would be thinking of me and get in touch after the next surgery to see how I was doing, and if we needed to do any more heart testing, or refill my BP meds again.

Yay!
I have surgical clearance from the heart surgeon!
Now I just have to get clearance from my primary care physician, pass a full physical, and I'll be good to go for surgery in June.
The nurse Cindy did call me yesterday, she has to get with Doc Moreno about the schedule for June, and she'll call me back, but it looks like possibly June 10th according to what she can see, but she needs him to tell her if I'll be an all day surgery, or a half day, and that will determine the day because of other surgeries he has scheduled for the month of June.
She said that Doc Moreno totally understood how important it is to me to be there for Mark's graduation, and to tell him congratulations.

So it looks like May will be a relaxing month, I only have that one last clearance to get, and then the week before surgery is where it gets hectic doing all of the pre-surgery blood tests, xrays, and final MRIs and CTscans, but at least the beginning of the month will be peaceful and relaxing.

I waited and called all day again, and kept being told that it was being worked on, but I never got the call to go get the MRI.

My sister reminded me that I still had my boot from when I fractured the same ankle 6-7 years ago, so I had Sebastian help me get it out of the closet, and I've been wearing that since yesterday evening after we came home from shopping.

Tomorrow, we have Sebastian's appointment with his neuro to go over how his migraine meds have been working for the last month, in the afternoon.
So if they call me about the MRI, they need to do it in the morning or else wait till Thursday, so I'm wearing my boot and the ace bandage until they send me in for the test.
It is still as painful as it was the first night.
Gah.

I spent the entire day, since 8am, waiting for a call back from my doctor's office telling me what time to head over for an MRI of my ankle.
I called back 3 times, and each time I was told that the doctor was busy with patients, and as soon as she had a chance, she would fax over a referral for the MRI, and then they'd call me to tell me what time to go.
My last call was at 3pm, both the doc and the MRI place, were set to close at 5, so I needed to know what was going on.
Again, no one called back.

So in the morning, I'm going to start calling again, and again, and again, until someone tells me what time to go get a freaking MRI on this damn ankle!
It would be great if when a doctor says they are going to call you back in 1 hour, that they actually call back in 1 hour.
Doctors need to learn how to tell and keep track of time, maybe get a better watch, 1 that actually works well like a Panerai Luminor or something, because I'm getting tired of waiting around for call-backs all of the time.
The teens and I didn't leave to go shopping for their shorts until it hit 5pm, and I always take my cell with me, so they could have reached me if they really wanted to, which I don't think anyone even tried to call me back.

Beyond the cut is my hobbit-looking foot.
It's all misshapen and stuff, it's sore as hell, if this isn't an occult fracture, it's a wicked bad sprain and they need to do something about it because I still can't put any weight on it, can't scratch an itch near the ankle bone, can't go from having it elevated to down without all of the blood rushing to it, feeling it fill and swell, it's like a sudden burst of stabbing pain, and I'm feeling like I want to cry when I do pretty much anything with it.

Last night sometime between 8-9pm, I went into the kitchen to throw something away, then I turned around and felt something in my left ankle snap, kind of like cracking a knuckle.
It didn't really hurt at first, so I thought it was just my ankle bone popping, no big deal.
Then an hour later, the pain started, the swelling and redness started, it was unreal pain.
I took one of my Oxycontin 40MGs, thinking that would totally kick the pain out.
It didn't.
I waited about another hour, took another pain pill, but my ankle continued to swell and change colors, continued to feel like I had been hit with a sledgehammer like in Misery.
I couldn't take it anymore at all, Mark was awake, he looked at it, and then I decided to go to the ER, it was just so so painful, I was crying, I couldn't put any weight on it at all, I couldn't even touch the skin with my fingers, my cat Kali barely swished her tail against the skin on my ankle bone, and it sent me into fits and screams.
I called an ambulance around 1:40am, and made it to the ER by 2:15am.

When we got there, the paramedics were told that they close the main ER at 1:30am during the week, we'd have to go to triage, and wait it out.
When the main ER closes, that means they have exactly 10 exam rooms open, period.
So the paramedics wheeled me to triage where I was horrified to see at such a late hour, over 50 people sitting in the waiting room.
1 medic told the nurses about me, while the other 1 helped me go from the cart to a wheelchair to wait my turn.
The medic told the nurse they didn't think it was broken, that I didn't fall, which is true, they felt it was a sprain, a non-emergency.
This meant that all those 50 people who were there before me and me, would all be seen on a who's the worst off first served basis.
Crap.

So I sat and waited, and waited, and waited.
Finally around 3:20am, I was taken back to a room where I waited some more.
At 4:30am, a doctor came in at the same time the portable xray machine came in, and he looked at my xrays while they were being done.
Then he says to me,
"This may be an occult fracture, you have all of the signs and symptoms of one, but the xrays aren't showing that, which is totally normal for an occult fracture. There is a fracture line there, but from reading your records, you were here about 6-7 years ago for a fracture in the same place. That may be the line we are seeing, an old fracture line, maybe not. We are going to treat this right now as a sprain, but I want you to call your primary care in the morning, and if it still is this painful come Monday morning, call an ortho, have you ever seen one of those? And have the ortho do more xrays and testing."

Then he tells me that a nurse will be coming by to give me 2 shots, 1 for pain, and 1 for nausea, because they are going to have to wrap my foot up tightly, that it's going to hurt really bad, and then I can go home.

An hour later, now 5:30am, a nurse came in, gave me a shot of something for pain in my right shoulder, it hit me pretty fast, but it did not stop the pain at all, it just hit my head fast, that immediate morphine swoosh of heat to your face, warmth in the arm they put it in, then the warmth traveling down the arm, across the chest, and down my legs.
I had the warmth, but none of the pain relief.
The nurse tells me I need to roll onto my left side so she can give me the nausea shot in my ass.
I could barely roll over, I tried telling her it takes me longer than most people beca..
"Oh, I know, you're in pain, it takes time to move when in pain."
No, it takes me longer to roll over because I have been fused from C1 to S1, can't move my head or neck, have to have another spine fusion that is so far scheduled for April 10th, but if this is broken, it will have to be postponed.
"Oh", she says, "Wow, car accident?"
No, scoliosis, then my vertebrae caved in on my spinal cord, now C7 needs to be taken out in order for me to be able to have my head raised up.
"Wow."

So she gave me the shot in my ass, I rolled over, and she positioned my leg up on some blankets so she could wrap my ankle.
OMG, it hurt so freaking bad!
Mark had stuffed my little tiger in my purse when the medics were first at my house, he calls it my hospital tiger, it's for me to hold onto when I'm in pain and I need to have somebody who loves me with me and they can't be.
Too freaking sweet. *tears*

When she was almost done wrapping my ankle, she said, "Ok, this is really going to hurt", and then she put her hand on the bottom of my foot and pushed it straight up to be flat, like if I was standing on the floor normally, and then she finished wrapping it up really tightly.
That hurt so bad I let out a little scream, clutched onto my tiger harder, and begged her to hurry.
She finished, gave me my release papers, and got the wheelchair for me to ride out to the main lobby so I could call a cab and come home.

I took an ambulance there, and had to cab it back, because A) it was so freaking late at night, and B) I had no one to come and give me a ride.
I would have never called anyone at that hour of night to come and get me, wait with me at the ER, and then bring me back home.
No way.

I came home, Mark was now gone to bed and Sebastian was up.
I then sent him back to bed, told him neither of them were going to school today because of what happened, Mark had been up with me all the night before I left, and while I was gone, and then they swapped places when I called at 6:10am to say I was coming home.
I waited until 7:30am to call the school and explain why the teens wouldn't be there today, and they said ok, just send my paperwork from the hospital in with Sebastian on Monday as proof of medical emergency, Mark doesn't need a note because he's done with school.
Oh, and he wasn't in any trouble for missing today, Friday, one of the days he has to be at school for his graduation test results.
They said it was ok, so cool.

I waited until 8:30am to call my primary care, and I told the nurse what happened, she said they had already gotten the fax from the ER, the doc had seen it, I was to treat it as a sprain, but if on Monday morning it still hurts as bad, still hurts to the touch, can't put any weight on it at all, to call her back and she'll send me in for an MRI to check for the fracture.

Then, after having been awake since Tuesday morning with only a 2.5 hour nap in my chair that I got on Thursday morning, I hobbled over to the couch with my cane, laid down, and didn't wake up until 1:40pm.

Oh, they didn't give me anything else for pain management because I am already taking such high doses of pain medicine.
That's fine with me, I can't imagine what they would have even tried to put me on, I'm on some heavy stuff already.
I just wish it would work for this, but it's not.
I've taken an extra one with each regular dose today to try and kill or at least numb the pain in my ankle, and it's not working.
I really believe it is fractured, it shouldn't hurt this bad, I mean come on!
I am taking 40MG OXYCONTIN for crying out loud!
I am totally stoned out of my mind right now, have ZERO back pain because of the extra dosing, but my ankle is fucking throbbing and is hurting so much I want to hack it off.

I went to my surgeon appointment this afternoon, I didn't see my surgeon, he was in surgery, so I saw one of the other surgical team members.
She went over my CT Scan results, text and the films, and we talked about everything, what the plan is, what they will do, what they can do, and what may happen.

The plan is to completely remove the vertebrae at C7, you can see where that is on this chart, and then after removing that vertebrae, they would pull C6 down to meet up with T1, or pull T1 up to meet up with C6, whatever.
In order to do this, all of the rods that are currently installed from C1 to T3, would need to be taken out, they would leave all of the screws in place because they will need those later to attach new rods again.
By removing that vertebrae, it would straighten my neck and head out.
My head isn't totally collapsed down on it's own, it's actually the fault of C7, that my head is facing down.
Right at C7, my spine starts curving forward, and so my head looks tilted down, but it's actually my whole neck they said.
Yes, C1 and C2, are congenitally fused from birth, there is no disc between them at all, and they did bend forward a bit, but it is C7 that is causing the forward bending and downward tilt.

Once they remove C7, pull up T1 to meet up with C6, they will decide if they need to fuse me all of the way up to the base of my skull, the occipital bone,  which would prevent any movement at all, forever.
I would never turn my head left or right, or up and down, ever again.
That is something I have come to terms with, and I am ok with it because right now, looking down all of the time, is very depressing, and it actually causes dizzy spells, I lose my balance a lot too.
It is not a definite that they will have to do that, so until it actually happens, I am not going to worry about it.

Because of the new CT films, they have a much better look at what's going on, they know better now what they are facing, and what will more than likely happen.
Because of the new films and what they can see, the risk percentages have come way, way down, and the trach tube, which I have been in an almost panic over, dwelling on it constantly, if they have to do it at all, it would NOT be in for 3-4 months at all.
It would only be in for about 2 weeks total, and it would only be put in if during surgery, my neck muscles started tightening up on the breathing tube (intubation tube used during surgery to keep you breathing)  causing the tube to get squished which would prevent me from breathing, so a trach would have to be put in below my vocal cords so I would be able to talk by covering the hole on the trach tube.
But again, it would only be in for about 2 weeks, just long enough for my neck muscles to heal up and then they would remove it, stitch me all back up, and I'd be all good to go breathing through mouth and nose again.

As for the feeding tube, it also depends on what happens with the intubation tube during surgery, so that's another wait and see, but if it does happen, and depending on what they had to do, either a feeding tube would be placed down through my nose for a short period of time.
If it ends up being needed for a longer period of time, they would do a stomach feeding tube.

We don't have a specific date yet, we are looking at a couple of dates, but my surgeon will decide on the final date.
So far, the possible dates are April 10th, or April 24th, or wait until sometime in May.
He may want to wait until May, give me just a little bit more time to heal up a bit more, but they said that so far, my bones are fusing really, really good.
That's probably due to the insane amount of calcium I take every single day.
Normal people take 1 calcium tablet per day, I take a Calcium/Magnesium/Zinc tablet 4 times per day to help with new bone growth and fusion.
I don't recommend this amount, nor even half of it, unless you enjoy being really gassy.
Ha ha
Seriously though, all of that calcium has a gassy side effect, so you're either constantly burping, or constantly farting.

I will definitely be in a halo brace for 3-4 months, and they have told me this will probably be the most frustrating part of my recovery.
It is screwed into your skull, 2 in front, 2 in back, and as you can see from those images, a big contraption attached to me 24/7 for the entire length of time he decides I need to wear it.
Sleeping, eating, everything, will be extremely difficult, and feel like living in a prison, so a lot of patients get very depressed within a few weeks of living with it, but they have medications that can help with the anxiety and panic attacks that come from feeling all closed in and trapped.
It's screwed into your skull, attached to your shoulders and chest, there's zero chance for any type of movement at all, so it becomes a lot for people to mentally handle.
I really don't know how well I'll deal with it.
I hated wearing the turtle shell brace on my body after my first A/P spine fusion in 2006, and I hated the neck brace from this past surgery in September 2008, so this big thing attached to my skull with no way of ever taking it off myself to give myself a break from it for even an hour, may drive me slightly insane.
I just won't know until it's on me and I'm at home away from the morphine drip machines that numb out any feelings and thoughts, having to take oral medications, or however they will have to do it if I end up with a feeding tube.

Tomorrow, I have to call my heart doctor, get an appointment to have him clear me for surgery, so another cardiac stress test, and then my primary care physician to have her clear me as well.
I'm setting these appointments up ASAP so that my primary care doc can't try to cancel my surgery at the last minute like she did in September.
 
So anyway, that's where I'm at, we have a plan but no definite date yet.
I have stuff to take care of to get the surgery ball rolling, and take care of everything around my home, for my sons, all of the same stuff I always do for every surgery.

Below is an interesting CT Scan image.
This is me, it was taken on 3-19-2009, and it's a front view of me from the chest all the way up to the top of my skull.
I know it looks like it's from behind because the rods and screws appear to be in the front, but it's not, it is a face front view, but the rods and screws stand out like crazy.
This shows you just how high up the fusion goes.
C1 is basically at nose level, and all of that metal goes all of the way down to my tailbone.
Kinda freaky looking eh?
Click it for biggie size to really see how freaky it is.

I was so sick yesterday and last night, most of this morning, and I'm just finally starting to feel better.
I don't know what it was, but man, my stomach was just wrecked, I was throwing up, cramping up, in tons of pain, and my feet that were swollen and had gone down, had started to swell again.
I managed to pull myself together to go to my new pain doctor appointment, and went for my 3:15.

It's a very strict office I'll tell ya.
They make you pay your co-pay or self pay before they see you, and there was this one guy who was $10 short of his $350.00 fee, and they turned him away, told him he had to reschedule it, they don't mess around man.
I had enough to pay my co-pay and for my scripts, but I was 2 days too early for my insurance to fill them, so I have to go back to the pharmacy tomorrow morning and pick them up before I go to my surgeon appointment at 2pm.

But anyway, the new doc is very strict but also very nice.
He took a look at my records, my CT scans from the 19th, and my blood test results, and we started there.
He said, "So you had spine fusion in 2006 from T3 to S1, wow, that's really big."
I said, "Yeah, but I just had another one, I'm now fused from C1 to S1, the whole spine."
He said, "Wow, you are the biggest spine fusion I have ever personally seen. Did you say that you're having another surgery?"
I said, "Yeah, I see my surgeon on Wednesday, and hopefully he'll have a date and a plan for what and when we're going to do. C1 and C2 collapsed after the surgery in September, my head is stuck down, I don't have much movement at all in my neck, muscle spasms in my back and legs, sometimes the spasms are so severe that if I'm sitting at my desk with my feet up and my keyboard on my lap, the spasms actually throw my keyboard clear off my lap and knock over my foot stool. But C1 and C2 were congenitally fused from birth, there's no disc space there at all, so I have no idea how he's going to fix me."
He said, "Yeah, I'm looking at your CT scan and I honestly don't know how he's going to do it, I'm not a surgeon, so I really don't know, but I can now understand why Doc R. sent you to me. You are much more complicated than the patients he usually deals with. He's a rehab pain manager, he helps people get better and get off medication, and honestly, I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I don't see you coming off of medication for another 5-8 years, maybe the rest of your life based on what I'm reading in your records. You not only have had major spine fusion and another one going to happen soon, but you have arthritis, stenosis, nerve impingement, and a lot of disc damage. It could be years before anyone even thinks of taking you off of medication, or never at all. I'm sorry."
I said, "That's ok, I already knew I was bad off."

So he wrote out my scripts, added a muscle relaxer, which I hate taking because they make me sleep for anywhere from 6-8 hours, so taking those 4 times per day, I'd be sleeping all of the time, and he added Lyrica , which is for neuropathic pain.
I didn't get to pick that one up because it needed like pre-authorization or something, and I may not pick it up at all because as of right now, the Walgreen's website says it's $82.46 for just 30 pills.
That's crazy!
I refuse to pay that much for a medication that I have no idea if it will even work for me yet.
Maybe it hasn't been processed through my Humana insurance yet, but if it has and that's how much it costs, I may not pick it up at all, or I may wait until I get my tax refund back on Thursday.
I don't know yet, have to wait and see, but as of right now, it's still not ready for me to pick up anyway.
Apparently, they still don't have the authorization for it.

So tomorrow morning, I'll go pick up my pain meds, come home, and then get ready for the long ride to Safety Harbor to see the surgeon with my sister.
I'm giving Mindy the day off...LoL
Mindy does so much for me already, and she's been working hard at her cleaning business, taking care of her family, and other things, she's exhausted, so Wednesday is her only scheduled day off, so now it's really a day off for her.
I personally think she needs a nice long vacation somewhere really nice, like maybe go out to California all by herself, stay at a nice San Diego hotel, go see a few sites, and get some much needed rest.
She works way too hard and needs a good, long break.

I've made some really decent new friends over the last few weeks.
It happened sorta by accident, I met Dustin and his girlfriend Stacey through another friend, and they have just been really awesome.
They are like totally blown away by the amount of titanium I have, Dustin calls it the 'chainsaw back' because when you look at a front view of the xrays, it looks like a chainsaw blade.
But anyway, they are both just really sweet, Dustin helped me get to my doc appointment yesterday and to the pharmacy, and today, they both just stopped by to see how I was doing.
Stacey said that after my next surgery, she'll come by anytime I need help, help clean the house, help me take showers, shave my legs, brush my hair, stuff like that, because with the halo brace on, it's going to be very difficult to do things by myself.
I had been telling Dustin yesterday while sitting in the waiting room at the docs, about how awesome my teens are and have been after my surgeries, they helped me in and out of bed, in and out of the bathroom, they have even shaved my legs, brushed my hair, they do all of the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and so he told Stacey, and she was like well hell, this single mama needs help sometimes so let's help her.
I thought that was really sweet of them to even offer, and who knows, I may take them up on it sometimes if I'm having a wicked rough time after surgery.

Oh, Sebastian just went out and got the mail, and in today's mail was my settlement check from the Airborne class action lawsuit.
I got a check for $34.95.
Nice!

I woke up feeling like absolute crap this morning, I'm just having a rough time of things the last few days.
My feet have been swollen, I've been dead tired for days, and this morning I woke up with my stomach doing back flips.
I have my new pain doc appointment this afternoon, so I am hoping I can keep it together until after I go see him.
I don't want to get sick again, so I have not eaten anything at all, not even my usual yogurt.
No more puke please. hahaha

I had some blood work done today for the new pain doc to have on Monday.
I am well prepared for him to freak out over the high white cell count, they all do.
I've had almost every test known to man to try and figure out what's wrong, and there is no infection anywhere, and no, I do not have any form of cancer either.
It's just really high and no one has an explanation, and no, I will not be going through any more painful tests to try and figure it out.

When I got home, I realized that my feet were incredibly swollen.



















So swollen, that I still have marks from my sandals in my skin.
So I've taken my blood pressure meds (water pills), and have my feet propped up on my office furniture stool, in the hopes that the swelling will go down.
It's actually been a bit painful trying to walk with them as puffy as they are.

I'm tired too.
That's a first in about 8 days now.
I think I might actually try and go to bed.

The new med, the 40MG Oxycontin, is much stronger than the 30's, much stronger.
I had a very rough night with it, I was physically sick from it, puked like 4 times, couldn't eat, was wicked dizzy.
I spent almost the whole night just laying on the couch.
I think the problem with it is because I hadn't gotten any sleep in days, I was exhausted, I hadn't eaten much at all, so it hit me super, super hard.
I am adjusting much better to it today that's for sure.
I slept all night, didn't wake up till almost noon, ate a big breakfast, and so I am handling it much better today than I did last night.

I told you on Thursday about how things went with my pain doc appointment, and that he gave me a new med, and that Walgreen's said my insurance didn't cover it, so I was only able to pick up one of the meds.
Walgreen's had a new girl working behind the counter with the pharmacist, the new girl is the one who told me that my insurance, Humana, didn't cover it.
The cost out of pocket was going to be $295.00, that's basically the price of a night's stay of some luxury hotel rooms.
Way too much.
A friend of mine called me on Friday around noon to see how I was doing, I explained how things had gone, and he said, "Kat, you cannot be without that med, you'll go through the hydros faster, you'll be in pain, I'll come pick you up after work and we'll go pick it up, you can pay me back later."
So I called all of the pharmacies that I have gone to to get price quotes, some of them sell the meds for a little less, we found that Publix pharmacy had them for $283.95, about $11.00 cheaper than Walgreen's, so we went there.
He had given me the money, I sat and waited, the lady called my name, and said that will be $240.
I was like oh wow, cool, that's less than the price quoted on the phone.
So I counted out $240.00, and handed it to her, she said "No, $2.40, 2 dollars and 40cents."
I was confused and asked, and she asked me if I was Kat Cooper at my address and phone number, did I have Humana, I said yes, she told me that my insurance covered it.
I asked her to double check it because I had been told that my insurance didn't cover it.
She checked again, it did, I paid the $2.40, and we left.
I gave my friend all of his money back, and we came home.

I called Walgreen's and complained.
I told the lady who answered the phone what had happened Thursday around noon, told her to look it up, she did, I asked why I was told my insurance didn't cover it when it did.
I had to borrow money, go all the way across town to a different pharmacy where I was prepared to pay a whole lot of money for it and it ended up being that my insurance did cover it, that it wasn't right to make me go all the way across town to do that, I'm disabled, I choose that Walgreen's because it's close enough to my home to walk home if I need to.
I asked her what went wrong, did the girl enter my name wrong, did she enter the medication wrong, enter my insurance number wrong, what happened, because it was covered.
She said she didn't know, but while we were on the phone, she entered all my info and the drug, and yup, it was covered, she apologized several times, said she didn't want to lose my business, she would make sure to pass the information on to the pharmacy manager so that the new girl can be trained better or whatever they have to do because that wasn't right at all.
$295.00 is a big mistake, my insurance costs me $20.00 per month, my co-pays for meds range between $2.40-$5.80 depending on the medication, and this one was only $2.40.
That was a big mistake, it almost cost me owing somebody a lot of money, it made me have to go all the way across town, all because somebody made a big mistake.

In today's mail, I got a packet from the new pain doc I'll be seeing on the 23rd.
Yup, he's very, very strict with his patients.
I read through it briefly, he does random drug testing of his patients for any substances that are illegal, any of the prescribed medicines are showing up in the urine in higher quantities, and it does say something about drug safes or other secure locations for the medicines.
There are 6 forms in the packet that must be signed, all of them are contracts with him and his patients.
That's fine with me.
I don't take anything I'm not supposed to, but I do take some vitamins and supplements, and I will write those down for him so he knows what I take when he does the urine tests.
Heck, I may even just bag everything up that I take, and take it in so he can see everything I take.
I don't want to upset this guy, because if you screw up with him, you are kicked out of his office, he reports you to every other pain doc in town, as well as put your name on the pharmacy watch lists as a drug abuser.
So yeah, I'll take everything I do take in, let him see it all, and follow his rules to the letter.
What all do I take?
Ok, here's everything I take every single day:
Hydrocodone 10/325 x 6 per day
Oxycontin 40MG x 4 per day
Toprol XL 25MG x 1/2 per day (heart/blood pressure med)
Cal/Mag/Zinc x 4 per day (for bone growth)
BioQuench antioxidant x 1 per day (cuz my immune system sucks)
Publix brand multivitamin w/iron x 1 per day (cuz my immune system sucks)
Publix brand Tylenol for headaches as needed (cuz pan meds don't work on headaches, surprisingly)
Publix brand stool softener as needed (opiate pan relievers block you up)
Walgreen's Wal-som sleep-aid x 1 (as needed to try and sleep)

This may be long, sorry.

I went to my pain doc appointment this morning, and let me tell you, it was just a messy day.
My pain doc does sports pain, rehab kind of stuff, general pain management, helps people wean off of pain drugs.
That was my original intent when I started seeing him in 2007, to get off of the drugs.
I had my 1st surgery, expected it to be my only surgery, so our goal was to start weaning me off of them, and we were.
I had gone from taking over 300 Hydrocodone 10/325's per month, down to just 60, and we were well on our way to being off of them completely.
Since then, I've had another surgery, (September '08) and will be having another.
The pain medications I am on are very strong, I am not going to lie to anyone about what I take.
I take Hydrocodone 10/325 8 times per day.
I take Oxycontin 30mg 6 times per day.
That was until today.
See, the pharmaceutical companies that make the Oxycontin 30's, there were 3 of them, 2 of them were told to stop making them for some reason, so that leaves 1 manufacturer to create enough supply for the entire country.
They cannot keep up with the demand.
So the Oxycontin 30's are out of the question, they cannot be gotten by any of the local pharmacies, so my pain doc prescribed me a new dose, 40mg Oxycontin, timed release, for 4 times per day.
When I went to the pharmacy to get them and the Hydrocodone 10/325's quantity 180 per month,  I was told my insurance does not cover them, they cost $295.00 out of pocket, I simply don't have the money, so I only picked up the Hydrocodone 10/325s.

Also, my pain doc does sports injuries, rehab, he works mainly on smaller injuries and helping people get better so they can stop taking medication.
Because of my surgical history, because I'll be having another surgery, he decided that he cannot continue seeing me, and he referred me to another pain doc who works with people like me, surgical patients with a history and a future history of needing more pain management than he is capable of providing.
I came home and called the new doc, made an appointment, I see him on Monday the 23rd at 3:15pm, and hopefully he can help me.

There's another reason my pain doc has decided to transfer me to another doctor.
Last month here in Sarasota, a 17 year old boy broke into a house and stole the pain medication of a man dying of cancer.
He stole several bottles of heavy duty narcotics including Oxycontn 30's.
He went home and overdosed on the pills he stole.
Please remember that part, he broke into a home, stole the medication, and overdosed on it.

His parents found his body and the pill bottles.
In their grief and anger, they decided that somebody must pay for this, so they have hired a lawyer who must have found some loophole, and they are suing the doctor who prescribed the medication.

Did you get that?!
The parents are suing a doctor who prescribed medication to his patient, the patient had his home broken into by the 17 year old, the 17 year old overdosed, and so the parents are suing the doctor for negligent homicide.

I don't understand how the parents, even the lawyer, can think this is the right thing to do.
The doctor didn't prescribe them to the 17 year old and then the kid died, the doctor prescribed them to his pateint who was dying of cancer, the 17 year old BROKE IN, STOLE the medicine, and died, and so how is it even remotely negligent homicide on the doctor's part?!?!
I don't understand why the judge hasn't throw out this lawsuit either, it's not right.
How is the doctor even remotely responsible for this kid dying?
The kid broke into a home, stole the medicine, took a lot of it and died.
It's not the doctor's fault at all, it's the kid's fault.
He was a dumb ass kid who stole medicine and took too much and died.
How the parents can blame the doctor is beyond me.
They need to bury their son and shut the fuck up in my opinion.
Their son was a thief and a drug addict, the doctor had nothing at all to do with what their kid did, and for them to sue the doc is just stupid.
Their kid was stupid and so are the parents.

But thanks to them, doctors are scared to prescribe the medication, they are afraid that if someone breaks in and steals it, that they will get sued as well.
So I'm being sent to a new pain doc with more legal stuff than he has, more doctor/patient contracts than he has, he may even use medicine safes that can only be opened on a timer by the patient, and if opened at the wrong time, and alarm sounds at his (the doctors) office, and the doctor calls the patient to check on why they are opening it at the wrong time.
I don't know for sure, but that may be what I am in for at this new doctor.
In the mean time, I only have one of my medications because my insurance doesn't cover the other one, I can't afford to pick it up, my tax refund still isn't in, so I may end up having to wait until I get that money to pick it up, or wait until the 23rd when I see this new doctor, and he will have to prescribe me something that my insurance does cover.
I haven't been feeling all that well between the fall and just generally sick, so my pay that I just got a few minutes ago by paypal, isn't even close to being enough to pick it up either.
Nothing I can do but wait it out, hope the one med will be enough to get me through until I either get the money or get a new script.

If any of my doctors asked me to sign a contract to not post any reviews about them anywhere online, I don't know if I'd want to sign it.

There are new radical changes in the doctor patient relationship.

While more and more people use the internet to find a doctor, they are also reading patient reviews of that doctor.

There are now dozens of websites with comments on more than 200,000 physicians across the country.

But some doctors are sick of this, saying the sources are often anonymous - and they are unreliable.

Some are going so far as to insist their patients sign a contract that they will not post any reviews online.

I love my doctors, I think they are great, I finally have a pain management doctor who understands my situation, isn't making me take crazy medicines like weekly testosterone injections like the last guy did, he doesn't freak out over the high white cell count or the high blood pressure like the last one did either, and he is the doctor who found the thing wrong with my neck, the vertebrae closing in on my spinal cord killing me, he saved my life.
And my surgeon, he continues to be one of the most caring and compassionate doctors I've ever been a patient of, and I've seen literally over 2 dozen different doctors and surgeons in the last 10 years before finding him.

If they asked me to sign a contract to not talk about them online, I'd have to ask why because I have nothing but glowing praise for them.
I understand that others may not and that's why some doctors are now wanting these contracts, but wouldn't a doctor want a patient like me who has nothing but good to say about them on a possible forum where others may be badmouthing them?
I'd sign it if I had to choose between signing it and being allowed to see them anymore, but I don't think it's right that doctors may be forcing patients do sign these kinds of contracts.

It started getting cold here again, while other people up north are getting snow, we're getting the cold that usually accompanies it.
I could barely move, heck, I can still barely move.
I really hate the cold weather, this is Florida dammit, it's not supposed to be or get cold here.
I had to go out a few times to get some stuff, and I only have sandals that I can wear, I still have a ton of trouble putting on any shoes, sneakers, my combat boots, so all I can wear are my sandals.
It was so cold, I was wishing I had a pair of those fluff or is it wool(?) lined UGG boots.
They aren't that pretty looking, but my feet were freezing, and I was so wishing I had a pair of winter boots that I could wear.
Those Uggs just slide on from what I hear, so they wouldn't be as hard for me to put on.
My feet are still are freezing and I have the space heater on.
No socks, I can't put those on either, so I have ths space heater aimed right at my feet and they are still so cold.

I was so miserable the last few days, my joints and muscles are all stiff and sore, and I've been in so so much pain, that I dug around in my drawer and looked in my little lock-box where I found a bottle of Somas that the pain doc prescribed to me months ago, but I hate taking them because they make me sleep and feel all yucky, but I was hurting so bad and couldn't move, so I took one and promptly passed out for 4 hours today.
When I woke up, I couldn't even think straight for like 4 hours after, I felt completely out of it, I felt strung out, and I absolutely hate that. 

I also found out today that the medicine that my pain doc prescribes me every month is no longer available.
I have my Walgreen's account set up to notify me of changes with any of the medicines that I take, price increases, when generics become available, and discontinuations.
Today, I received an alert that the pain medicine Roxicodone 30mg, is going to become far more difficult to fill by any pharmacies in the entire US.
There were only 3 manufacturers in the US, and 2 of them got shut down about 2 months ago, and the third is having extreme difficulties keeping up with the demand from doctors and pharmacies, because the compounds to make them are becoming scarce.
No explanation was given for the 2 manufacturers having to shut down, but what this means is, that the pain doc and I are going to have to find me a medication that works exactly like those did.
After getting the notice, I called my Walgreen's that I usually pick them up at, and CVS, Bee Ridge Pharmacy, and about 20 of the Publix pharmacies between North Bradenton and Venice, and just for the hell of it, asked them all if they had any leftovers in stock or if they'd be getting any more shipments of them by the 12th.
Every single pharmacy said no, they were out, not getting any more shipments, and quite a few of them explained about the manufacturers shutting down and the only one left having trouble keeping up with demand.
A few of the pharmacies even told me to tell my doc to stop writing scripts for them because there is no way any pharmacy in the whole state is going to have any left in stock at all, and if they have some right now, they probably won't by the end of the week.

That really sucks, it's the only pain med out of about 30 that we tried, that actually worked really well and didn't mess with my head at all.
I hate the pain meds that screw up my head and my thinking, I hate that strung out feeling a wicked lot, hate it with a passion, and now we're going to have to try and find another med that works really well.
Maybe he can just prescribe me the lower doses, the 15mg or the 20mg, those are still being made, and he can just have me take more of them to equal the dose that I was taking, the 30mg.
If he prescribes me the 15's, I can just take 2 of those at a time and get the same effect.
I hope that we can do that instead of having to try an all new medicine, I think I've tried almost all of them, and almost all of them just screwed with my head so bad I couldn't function, I felt paranoid, my skin crawled, no one could touch me, I couldn't put my legs together while sleeping because it made my skin feel all itchy and crawly.
I really, really hope that that's what we can do.  

I hope that when I go back to see my surgeon on the 25th of March, that he's picked a date for the revision surgery, and that it's as soon as possible.

I know I've been complaining a lot lately, posting about all of the things that are going on with me, my health, the pain I'm always in, the stress of all of my health problems, and the things that people have said about me.
I know it's all too much, I'm sure that people are sick of reading about it all, I'm sick of posting about it all, I'm sick of thinking about it all, sick of dealing with all.
That's my biggest problem, having to think and deal with it all.

I can't do it anymore, I'm about ready to explode.
I just want to scream, I want to rage and lash out at everyone, I'm so so sick of all of it.
I've lost my faith and trust in people, even people I've known for a long time.
I'm feeling anxious and stressed out, almost becoming paranoid, I don't know who to trust anymore.
I feel like I'm just steps away from a complete mental breakdown.
I'm not sleeping, I'm barely eating, and when I do eat, it's just small bits of junk food, sugary things, I'm comfort eating and I hate doing that because it's so bad for me and my health, but I don't really know how to cope with all of it anymore.

I have so much going on, so many things to think about, worry about, make decisions that will affect my son's lives again in a big way, and I don't think I can do that to them again.
I don't want to put them through it again, but I can't live like this anymore.
I'm not ok, I'm just not ok.
And I feel like I can't talk to the usual "friends" I would normally talk to because I don't feel like I can trust them anymore.
I'm falling apart and have no one I can talk to, I don't trust anyone anymore and I hate that!
I just want to go away, just get away, all by myself, or just take a wicked long break, but I can't.
I can't afford to take a break, I have to stay and keep working, and working, and dealing with all of it all of the time.
I have bills to pay, doctors to pay for, tests and medicine.
I work just to pay for doctors and medicine, just so I can get by, so I can try and get better, but every minute of every day that I'm sitting here working and having to deal with everything and everyone, I hate it more and more, and I am starting to feel hatred welling up inside of me.
Hate for everything and everyone.
I'm falling apart and I can't stop it from happening.
I've tried, I'm still trying, but 1 minute I'm sitting here getting angry, and the next minute I'm bawling my eyes out over it all, because I can't trust anyone, can't talk to anyone, and I can't stop it, I have to just keep going, just keep doing what I have to do to take care of my sons and work so I can pay bills and doctors.
I'm so tired of everything and everyone, and I can't stop, I can't take a break, I can't not keep going no matter how badly I want to, and the anger, hate, fear, worry, stress and tears, just keep piling up inside of me and there's nothing I can do.
Nothing I can do about any of it but hope that this all passes, hope that somehow I get through it all.
I hate you, I really truly hate you, and I hate that I hate you, and I hate feeling like this.
It's so ugly, it's ugly and nasty, and I don't like myself for feeling like this at all.

I was so busy being stressed out about things, that I forgot to update how it went at the pain docs yesterday Friday. (lost track of time too, obviously)

First, his dog, Holly, is ok.
One of her back legs is badly broken, she had to have an operation, has pins and screws in her leg, a couple of broken ribs, and something else, but she's fine.

The nurse took me in the room, asked me to tell her what was up, so I told her everything that happened during surgery and after, and she wrote it all down, told me the doc would be in in a few minutes.
The doc came in, started reading, and then asked me again what happened, so i explained it all to him.
I told him that I had to have another surgery, and showed him that my head doesn't move, about the possible surgery options that my surgeon has, and everything else.

We talked about it all for a bit, he said that if I do end up with a trach tube, that we will work out a way for me to be in contact with his office without having to speak cuz I won't be able to.
He said he'd probably give me his cell number or one of the nurse's cell numbers, and that way I could just text them when I need to make appointments, or if I'm having any severe pain or other troubles.
He wrote out the scripts for the meds I take and actually gave me more than my surgeon was giving me, so that we don't run into any more running out issues.
My surgeon was only giving me my meds by the week, that's all he's allowed to do by law, but the pain doc can do them monthly and even 3 months at a time if need be, but he's got me scheduled to come back in 1 month several days before I am due to run out.

So yeah, all better now, things with my doc are going to work out, he's going to help me as much as he can, he'll help me with the trach tube and not being able to speak, the feeding tube if I need help with it because my surgeon is far away, and my pain doc is local and could get to my house in like 5 minutes if anything bad should happen.

Things are going to be ok.

I went for my daily walk just a bit ago, all the way up to the corner store and back, I needed to get a loaf of bread anyway, and I was craving chocolate, so I grabbed a snickers too.
Yum.

When I got back, I checked the mail box, which amazingly, has not been hit by a car again in a good long while, (knock on wood) and in today's mail, I got our new Netflix movies, Hancock and Repo! The Genetic Opera.
The teens want to see Hancock, and I want to see Repo!
It looks sorta interesting and it's got good reviews on Netflix.
I also got my dvd that I ordered with my Buy.com gift certificate from a shopping mix-up, the Poltergeist (25th Anniversary Edition).
I have always loved that movie, it's been digitally remastered, and it's just a classic, plus, I had to spend the rest of the gc, it was only $6.00, so I said why not.

Then I saw it.
A jury duty summons.
I can't serve jury duty.
A) I can't get all the way to Venice every day, no car, no driver's license, and B) medically, I'm just in no shape to do it.
I take heavy duty pain meds 24/7, I have doctor's appointments up the wazoo all of the time, and I cannot sit in the same spot for hours on end every day.
I am constantly having to get up, walk around, lay down etc, so yeah, I cannot serve jury duty.
I'm all about doing my civic duty and all of that, but I can't do jury duty, not right now, it's physically impossible for me to get there and sit there all of the hours that would be needed.

I went for my first walk this morning without my neck brace.
It was really difficult because I can't lift my head up, but interesting because when I was wearing the neck brace, it was like wearing a huge flashing piece of digital signage that told car drivers to give me some walking room, slow down, don't expect me to jump in the ditch to avoid being hit by a car.

We don't have sidewalks on my street, so yeah, it can be dangerous going for a walk, and this morning I regretted not wearing the neck brace and came back as quickly as possible.
Drivers did not give me any walking room, I could barely see where i was going, barely see oncoming traffic, so trying to get out of the way of jerky drivers was kind of scary.

I came back as quick as I could get here, and have decided that even though my surgeon told me I could stop wearing the neck brace all of the time, that when i go for walks, I'll wear it.
It kept drivers from trying to run me down.

Who needs diet pills that work when you have pain pills that do work, but also shred your stomach so bad, that no matter what you eat, it's guaranteed to come back out within 20 minutes?

My surgeon prescribed me some really strong percosets, and they do work for the pain, but oh man, they just shred my stomach something fierce.
I end up with wicked bad cramping, nausea, vomiting, and the poops.
My stomach simply cannot handle those meds any more.
After 10+ years of taking really strong pain killers with acetaminophen added in high doses, my stomach is just trashed.
I've spent the entire week without back pain, but with horrible stomach issues.
I know that my pain doc will give me the other strong meds that don't contain any acetaminophen at all, so I won't have this sickness that I've been dealing with all week long now.
2:45pm tomorrow cannot get here fast enough.

I finally got through to my doc.
Their number is correct, but Comcast cable *accidentally* disconnected them over the weekend, and it took until 1pm today for Comcast to fix the error.
He can't see me right away, but I will be seeing him on the 10th.

My surgeon called in 1 new med yesterday, and it's starting to help, not great, but it's starting to, so that's a good thing.
They also mailed me 1 that is stronger.
Certain pain meds cannot be called in because they are strong narcotics, so the scripts have to be mailed, they mailed it out on Monday, so it should be in tomorrow's mail.

We are in a cold spell and another 1 is on the way. There's another freeze warning for tonight, which sucks, but I'll just throw another blanket on top of my comforter and use the space heater if it gets too cold. 

I tried to call my pain doc this morning, I'm released back to him, I called his office, his phone number is disconnected.
WTF?!
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
I called information, they gave me the same number that is coming up as disconnected, they can't tell me anything else.

Holy crap!
What am I supposed to do now?!?

I met with my surgeon again this afternoon, it was a hellish adventure even getting there.
I missed the exit by 2 exits, called people for directions, and ended up going all over fucking Tampa, Hillsborough, Land O' Lakes, Ocala, and several other places before finally arriving there over an hour late.
Lucky for me my doc is a super understanding guy, and that Mindy has the patience of a saint, because I was thisclose to murdering the next person who gave us fucked up directions.


The good news is that he can fix my neck issues, but no date yet.
He wants to wait 2 more months, talk with some other specialist surgeons in this field, he's sending me for another MRI, another CT scan, and back to my pain manager doc until we pick a date for the surgery.

The bad news is that fixing my neck comes with a great deal of risks.
I have to decide if I'm willing to take those risks, and it's a great deal to think about, actually, it's overwhelming.

He has only 2 possible ways of fixing me, and they both come with the exact same risks.
There is a 10% chance of total paralysis, about a 10% chance of not being able to breathe on my own for about 3 months, I would end up having a trach tube installed, that hole thing they put in people's necks.
Other patients who have had this type of revision surgery have had the breathing issue, but after a few months, they are able to breathe on their own again.
And I WILL be in a full halo brace for a minimum of 3 months.

If things go wrong, I would end up being cared for by others for either just a few months, or for the rest of my life.
This is a lot to deal with, it's a great deal to take in, absorb, so I'm really hoping that after he talks with other specialists, that they will have a better idea of how to proceed, maybe another idea with a little less risks.
He did multiple xrays, he also took some still photos and a short video with his cell phone camera, so he can show the other surgeons my range of motion issues that I'm having, just how far my head is stuck down etc.

So anyway, forgive me if I'm not super miss happy go fucking jolly for a few days, I need some time to take this all in and adjust to what I learned today, and be hopeful that he can come up with a better plan, a better way to fix me with less risks.

I've been dealing with back pain, chilly weather, cold spines, swollen ankles, hurting ankles etc, and today I go see my surgeon, so I'm hoping I'll have good news when I get back.

I've taken my shower, just need to put on my clean clothes and attempt to do something with my hair.
Just having a slightly freaked out day, pain, stress, argggh,

I cannot wait to go back to my pain doctor's office when I get the clearance from my surgeon.
Before I left for my surgery, he was telling me about how after the new year, he was going to be finished setting up an all new section at his office.
The new section is all about weight loss, dieting, diet supplements, exercise programs and routines, and that he was even working on a deal with the local YMCA to have his patients use the pool for both water therapy and as part of his new weight loss programs.

There's many reasons that people are in pain, and when you're in pain, you don't want to cause yourself more pain, so a very large majority of people with chronic pain stop exercising because it hurts, and they end up putting on a lot of weight.
That excess weight puts more stress and strain on your body, which causes you to be in even more pain.
So he's going to help his patients lose weight so they can reduce some of the pain they are in.

I'm really hoping that he's got some good stuff worked out, especially for patients like me who have skull to tailbone fusions.
Because we are fused so big, we can't exercise like normal people, our bodies don't move easily anymore, we can't bend to touch our toes, we can't bend to do sit-ups or crunches, side bends, none of that, so losing weight is extremely difficult.
I love my elliptical and can't wait to get back to using it, because it doesn't require me to bend or any of that, it's like walking, gentle stair climbing, so it's easier on my back and body.
I'm still on restriction from my surgery, but once I'm let go while waiting for the new surgery, or after the new surgery that's coming, I plan on getting right back on my elliptical.
I love that thing, I so want to work out on it now but I can't, and I know if I did, I'd end up hurting myself really bad.
Oh well, not much longer now I hope.

I've decided that I'm going to attempt to make a turkey for Christmas dinner.
I know I said we were going to take the easy way out, do hot and bbq wings, easy foods, but it honestly doesn't feel very holiday like doing that.
So tomorrow I'm going to go to Publix and buy a small turkey and cook it up on Thursday.
I can do this, and if I end up hurting no big deal, I'll live.
I end up hurting just doing the damn dishes, so whatever.
I know I'm not supposed to lift more than 5lbs, but screw it, it's Christmas.

I ended up getting a huge medical bill in the mail today, so I have to pay that one, it sucks, but eh, whatcha gonna do right?
So I got the money together and called in my payment.
It's a doctor that I see regularly, so I can't postpone paying it.
And then tomorrow, I have to pay for my DSL, and while I'm at the store, I'm going to pick the teens up a few more small stocking stuffers and stuff.
Mostly just snack type foods, some beef jerky for Mark, some candies for Sebastian, and whatever else I find that I think they might like. 

I've been awake since the alarm went off for the teens at 5:45, after finally going to my room and attempting to sleep at 2am.
I just wasn't tired at all.
I finally fell asleep at 4am, so yeah, a little under 2 hours of sleep last night.
Today is going to be a very, very long day.
I have not gotten more than 2 hours of sleep at any point on any day, since last Thursday.
What's going to suck is that I have a very long car ride ahead of me this morning to the docs, and the combination of the warm sun and the motion of the car, will have me dozing off every few minutes, but I can't nap on the way there.
I'm the co-pilot, I have the directions, it's my job to not get us lost.
I usually do have trouble getting us there anyway, even though I've been o his office over 2 dozen times since 2006.
Poor Mindy, I hope that she sorta remembers how to get us there, I really do suck at it, and I even have the directions on my cell phone.
I'll get us there, I always do, but my brain gets foggy about all the various roads and turns we have to take, and seeing as how she never goes up that way except to take me, she doesn't know the area well either.

I need to get in the shower, she'll be here at 9am so we can head out, and my clothes are in the dryer de-wrinkling, and also getting the cat hair off of them.
I specifically washed and dried them, folded them up nicely, and laid them on top of the dryer, and over night, Shahiro stupid kitty decided she was going to rearrange them and sleep on them, leaving new wrinkles and cat hair behind.
Damn cat.

I was watching the Today Show, and they were talking about ways people can make money during these tough times.
Today they talked about doing paid surveys online and product reviews, paid telephone surveys etc.
I've been doing this for years, not just on my blog either.
I have worked for several major survey companies since 1999, and have made some decent money from them over the years, as well as paid product reviews for all kinds of stuff.
I've just always found being a consumer reviewer a lot of fun, and I've also been involved with tv show broadcasting companies about the shows we watch.
Yup, I'm the reason certain shows get canceled on the big 3 broadcast networks. Ha! (ABC,NBC,CBS)

Okey dokey, I've got to get my but in gear and hop in that shower.
Later days!

My surgeon's office called me this morning, asked me if I wanted to come in earlier than my scheduled 2pm appointment.
I said I would call them right back, I needed to ask Mindy, who is taking me there.
I called her, she said yes, so I called them right back and told them we'd be there at 11am.
Yay for early appointments!
He had offered me an 8am appointment as well, but I'm like dude, we live way down in Sarasota, cannot get there at 8am, no way, no how.

But I'm excited to be going in early, speak to him and his other surgical staff, about the problems I'm having and to hopefully schedule the revision surgery.
I hope they can do it like in January or February.
I just want to get it over with.

Most people know I have pretty intense OCD about things sometimes, the teens know this especially, so when I went to make out my list for shopping tomorrow, and reached in my box of pens to find my best weighted pen was gone, I sorta flipped.
I made the teens find it because they were the ones who used it, and sure enough, it was in their room on their computer desk.

Anyway, I am trying to make out my list, trying to figure out what we need, but honestly, I don't even want to do Thanksgiving dinner.
I can't cook it at all, i can't lift it, I feel completely useless this year.
I know I'm battling some depression over this, and I will talk to the doctor when I see him on the 10th, but for now there's not much I can do so I'm just going through the motions every day.
It just doesn't feel like a holiday anyway, so bleh.

Most of my readers know that I had my neck fusion surgery on September 8th 2008, and have been healing as well as can be expected.
I will also be having a revision surgery in just a few months, because my head placement is all wrong.
My head is tilted and stuck downward, instead of straight ahead.
The surgery was supposed to prevent me from turning side to side, not up and down.
I can turn my head side to side no problem, but up and down is a no go.

But anyway, both of my teen sons have been battling a really nasty cold/virus since last week, and tonight I started getting it.
I'm coughing, sneezing, sniffly and runny nosing it since about 6pm today.
The sniffling, sneezing, and runny nose are not a huge issue, but coughing?
Holy hell it's painful.
Every cough makes my chest muscles, upper back and neck muscles, and head, move and twitch and spasm.
This is not fun at all, it's actually quite painful.
You know what else is really painful as well as super scary?
Throwing up.
Because of the way my head is tilted downward, my jaw cannot open as wide as it did before, and the neck opening is almost compressed like, so throwing up is a very painful and scary ordeal.
Sorry to be graphic, but this is a health blog right?

The rest is behind the cut, it is kind of graphic and sorta gross, so you have been warned.

I got back just a little bit ago from seeing the heart doctor so he could check on my blood pressure and my meds.
I'm in normal range now he said, and he's not sure if that's from the meds or from the surgery, but at least it's not really high anymore.

Then I headed up the street to have a couple xrays, and those are going to be sent to my surgeon.
Then I came back home.

Thrilling day so far eh?

I feel like crap still.
The last few days have just been miserable for me.
On top of my neck surgical issues, I have a cold that is making me just absolutely miserable.
I have just been laying on the couch curled up in my blanket, sipping on some juice, eating yogurts and jello, just trying to stay hydrated, and trying to keep some food in me to help me get over this.

I really can't wait to start feeling better so I can go and do the things I need to do.
I really would like to be able to go grocery shopping so I can get more food in the house that the teens can cook easily.
I also need to go get a pedicure in a bad way.
My toes are in dire need of rescue.
I also would like to go and get started on the DNA testing that I need to have done which will help the doctors be able to better help me.
If I can get an accurate diagnosis for either Townes-Brock syndrome or Riley Day syndrome, my doctors would be able to get me on the correct medications to help me feel better at least.
If they know for sure what is wrong with me, they will be able to help me.
I'm so tired of being sick.
I've spent years and years being in pain, getting sick constantly, having blood pressure issues, swallowing issues sometimes even with just liquids, the way my toes are formed, the issues with my back, my arthritis etc etc etc.

I just want to finally start feeling better, feeling normal.
Spending all of this time being sick or in pain or whatever, has just sucked.
At times I get severely depressed over it all.
Like this morning, I was just laying in my bed just bawling my eyes out over all of this.
I hate my life right now.
I hate all of this crap, I feel like a complete loser because I can't do anything anymore.
I can't cook much, I can't clean much, I can't do hardly anything, and I'm so freaking over it all.
I'm supposed to tell my doctors when and if I start getting depressed so they can help me.
I don't want to take an anti-depressant, I know that's what they would do.
They would put me on another med to alter my moods and I don't want that.
What i want is my life back.
Hell, I just want a life that sorta resembles what I had 8+ years ago.
I want to be happy, to go out with friends, to be able to play and have fun, live.
I just want to be ok.

I just got back from my post-op appointment with my surgeon, I'm tired, in serious need of a nap, but wanted to let everyone know how it all went.

I had a series of xrays to see how the new fusion is holding, and it's looking good.
None of the titanium has moved, it's all in place where it's supposed to be, and he says it's doing good.
There will be a revision surgery, probably in about 6 months.
My head is still 20degrees off from being at the right place, meaning, my line of sight is 20degrees down instead of looking straight ahead.
So I'll be having another surgery, where he'll remove a vertebrae, and then install some more hardware which will place my head dead center, and no more movement will ever be possible again.
I have very limited movement right now, no left or right, some down, no up.
After the revision surgery, I will have no movement at all.
That's totally ok with me.
This neck surgery saved my life.
My vertebrae were pinching off my spinal cord, compressing it, I would have died.
Not being able to ever move my head in any direction ever again, is ok with me.
I've accepted all of this, I'm ok with it, so another surgery to set my head placement correctly so that I can look at people's faces and not their chests, is so totally ok with me.
We need to wait the 6 months so that this fusion can heal up a bit, too much trauma all at once is a very bad thing, so we'll wait and do the correction when I've healed up enough.

He's given me permission to sit a little bit longer, I can sit 1 hour, lay down 1 hour, for the next week, and then after that, he told me to do what feels best for me, to not over do anything.
If I feel tired, go lay down and rest, if I have energy, go ahead and sit for awhile.
This is good news for me.
I can now take on some more work, not as much as I was doing before surgery, but I can take on a bit more and that's awesome.

So now it's time to gross you out with some pictures of the stitches coming out.
As I posted this morning, the boys both stayed home sick from school, and Sebastian went with me.
He played the role of the documentary photographer, and got some pretty decent shots of my stitches coming out.
Ready?
These are all clickable for bigger if that's your thing.

Here's the beginning of my stitches coming out.
You can see part of my scar from my spine fusion that I had in February 2006.






















It kind of looks like a zipper.





















That screwed up haircut, is NOT what my sister did, that's the shaving and the cutting that the surgeons did before doing this fusion surgery.
Lovely isn't it?
Super short on one side, long on the other.
They need to keep their day jobs as surgeons.
Hair stylists they are not.
And yes, the stitches do go up into my hairline.
There are 3 more stitches up in my hair that you cannot see.
The stitches in my neck and hair line, hurt like crazy coming out.
I don't know why, but they stung a bit, and 4 times he had to stop while I caught my breath from having them tug at my skin so much.





















All in all, I'm doing ok.
I have some pain which is normal, I have some depression which is also normal.
Both of those things will go away in time, losing mobility isn't an easy thing at all, especially a single mom who's used to doing everything by themselves, for themselves.
Losing the ability to move, to look at things, to have some major down time, is not at all easy to accept, but you start getting used to it, you start accepting it, slowly.
And that's where I'm at.
I'm accepting all of this slowly, I'm dealing with it as best I can.
I know that this surgery saved my life, but at the same time I'm very sad for what I've lost.

But even though the road ahead is still going to be a bumpy one, I have another surgery to face in my future, I'm ok.
I can work for now, I can start being a little more productive, start doing more at home without over doing it, and start getting some of my life back.
I know that in 6 months or so, I'll be right back here recovering from another surgery, but that's ok, it really is.
I'm alive, I'm still here to watch my sons grow up, to laugh and play with them, to be here, and that's what is the most important.

My stitches are itching like crazy, it's driving me absolutely freaking crazy!
I'm not scratching them though, I'm gently massaging them about every 10-15 minutes, gently rubbing the skin around them, trying to make the itchies go away but it's not really helping.
It would be awesome if I could use some anti-itch creme or something on them to take the edge off.
It's insane how badly they itch.

My surgical follow up appointment is on October 7th, that's when they are going to take them out.
That's a wicked long time to have stitches in.
The standard length of time is 14 days or you run the risk of skin growing over the threads and making it very difficult to take them out.
Difficult as in wicked bad awful painful.
Not looking forward to that because mine have now been in since the 8th, that's 21 days.
It will be 29 days when they finally come out, that's way too long.
The nurses who are coming here every other day now to take vitals and change the bandages, keep telling me that I need to get these stitches out, and I keep telling them when my appointment is, but they keep saying that's too long, it's going to be hard to get them all out.

What am I supposed to do about that?!
I've called my doc, I have an appointment, I have told them about the nurses opinions on the stitches, there's not much else I can do.

It's been 21 days since the surgery, and I'm still bruised up.
My arms are a disgusting shade of green and yellow mixed with some blue and purple.
I still have needle marks and surgical tape stuff on my arms too.

*Edited at 1:30am to add a new picture.*
Sebastian helped me a bit ago with the itch problem, he took off the bandage and was going to just gently rub along the sides of the scar/stitch line and wipe it down with a baby wipe to get it a little clean for me because the whole length of it itches wicked way bad, and that's when we figured out why it is itching so much.
It's all healed up, there are no open areas at all, but where the stitches are, there are some small scabs.
No, he did not pick them off, he simply wiped them off with a baby wipe and a skin prep wipe one of the nurses left here.
A few of the nurses have left the basic wound care supplies in the little hospital tub/bin that all patients take home.
It usually has the standard stuff like toothpaste, a toothbrush, baby powder, lotion, and the hospital body wash stuff.
I'm sure those of you who have ever been in the hospital for a stay, or had a family member in for a stay, know what little tub/bin thing I'm talking about.
They are usually pink no matter what hospital you go to, pink tub/bins full of body care supplies to make your stay in the hospital easier.

Anyway, all of those scabs are the reason it itches.
They are all healed and dried up, but just sitting on my skin, so he took a baby wipe and just wiped them all off.
It felt sooooo good, OMG, it felt awesome.
Then he took one of the skin prep wipes and wiped the whole suture line and the sides of the line, all over, and then put the bandage back on and taped it down really good.
It's looking really good, no open areas, no infection spots, all healed up.
I can't see my own back, so I had him take a picture of it for me.
You can click it for bigger if you want, unless of course stuff like this grosses you out, but I promise there's no blood, no puss, nothing disgusting at all.

I'm sooo glad I had Sebastian* do that, it doesn't itch anymore at all.
Yay!




















Sebastian was not awake until 1:30am. He went to bed at a little before midnight because he was helping me clean off the itchies.
I'd say right after I originally made this post is when I asked him to do it for me.
The original plan was to just wipe my back down with a baby wipe, to just get it a little clean, (can't get my back wet till the stitches come out) and that's when he saw all the little scabs and when he started wiping, they just started falling off.

So I'm having an issue with my head, how it's angled, it could all be in my head, it could just be really tight and stiff muscles that will loosen up after a few weeks of healing, but it's a concern, so I'm heading in to see my surgeon today to have some xrays done, get my neck brace adjusted if that's what needs to be done etc.

The first week or so at home is always the hardest, the most painful, the most emotional, so yesterday was really just sucky for me.
I spent almost all day crying yesterday, just feeling really down on myself, sad, just an emotional basket case you could say.

Anyway, I'll be back around off and on later, let you know how it goes and stuff, and I will start telling how the whole surgery was from my view, it's much different than what everyone else experienced.
Later days.

Hey all, I am finally back home, it was a long, completely fucked up hospital experience.
I will get to blogging about it all but not just yet.
Sitting here to read emails, to type, is not an easy task just yet, my head is being held by a neck brace in an awkward position, so thank goodness for spell check..LoLz

This whole thing was very physically hard on me, terrifying for my sons, and frustrating to be told I could go home tomorrow over and over, yet it never happened every single day, until today that is.
I finally had a massive blow out, started screaming, yelling, cursing and being a bitch about the care I was receiving and sit, and well, they don't really like it when atheists start swearing  in a catholic hospital. hahahaha

Anyway, I'll explain the whole trip, all the things that went wrong and everything else over a few days at a time.
I really can't handle sitting for long periods just yet.
But it's so so so good to be home, thank you all for the well wishes and good thoughts, they are all so very much appreciated.
Be back again tomorrow morning maybe.
Later days!

After a torturous last 48 hours, my surgery on Monday, is going on as planned.
I went to the stress test today, the cardiac specialist put me through the ringer, he slapped me on the treadmill, injected some sort of something into me to make my heart go faster, then he made the treadmill go faster.
And when it all finally stopped, he said my heart is 100% ok to have surgery, and as a matter of fact, it's in incredible shape for someone who has been smoking for the last 19 years.
I know I need to quit and I will, I try, I do ok for a bit, and then I fail again.
It happens, it's my biggest fault, that I have to battle my addiction to nicotine, and I will win it eventually.

But I passed that test with flying fucking colors, and then came home where I figured I'd chill and wait to hear more.
I wasn't even home 20 minutes before Cindy (surgeon's nurse) called me and said "Hey Kat, you've been through a lot, you've been a real trooper, but we need you to do two more things, and if you do, we can do surgery on Monday as planned."
So I went back to SMH, (Sarasota Memorial Hospital) had 1 final chest xray so they have the newest view of my neck and spine, and then 1 final blood draw.
While waiting to get the xray, I got a call from the neck brace people.
They asked my height and weight, and said when I wake up on Monday from the surgery, they will be there with the neck brace.
Then I had to run around and find the lab, the hospital moved it to an all new building, there was a slight mishap with the lab script being faxed to the wrong location, but we got that handled in minutes, I gave the 4 vials, and I came home again.

I'm emotionally drained, I'm exhausted.
What my primary doc did to me on Wednesday afternoon threw a wrench in everything, sent me spiraling and it battered me down hard.
But Cindy, she fucking rocks, she busted her ass and got me back in.
And Doc Altierri, he rocks for giving me express cardiac treatment and clearance to go forward.

I'm spending Saturday and Sunday with my sons, hanging out watching movies, just hanging together playing some rounds of guitar hero or rock band, heck, I may even play a round or two of Gears of War, and then Monday morning, Mindy will drive me to St. Joseph's really freaking early in the morning, and I'll start my surgery around 8am.
I'll be back in just a few days, I will be coming home, things will be ok.
I do have to start a new med, to try and help lower my blood pressure, if it even can be, there's no medical reason that it's high that can be found, no blood clots, no closing or blocked arteries, my heart pumps on just fine, but we're going to try so, whatever right?

I have some work to try and knock out, so bear with me, it has to be done, I sorta need that paycheck when I get back home hahaha.
So anyway, thanks for all the supportive comments and emails, sorry I just don't have the time to respond to them all, it's been kinda crazy around here and I only have 2 days left to get my work done and spend time with my boys, but really, thanks for being here for me, I appreciate it more than I can say.

I went in yesterday for my pre-surgery physical, and she didn't clear me.
She said that my blood pressure was too high, she couldn't give me clearance because she thinks I'll have a heart attack on the table.
Even though every single heart test I've had in the last 4 months, has come out clear.
So she called my surgeon and canceled my surgery.

She then started talking about the high white cell count, all docs freak out over this, they tell me I have the white cell count of someone who is dying of leukemia.
This happened last year, October 2007 to be exact, and I went through a hematology consult and an Imdium scan.
The results of both tests concurred.
Negative white cell study.
That means I'm not sick.

Then she tells me that when I went to the ER 3-4 months ago for that wicked shoulder pain I was dealing with, and the ER doc thought, because my blood pressure was so high, that I was either having a heart attack or had an arterial blood clot, but the tests all came back clean.
No heart problems at all.
But.
During the CT angiogram, the radiologist noted a spot on my liver.
That was on June 6, 2008.
That night, the ER doc never had me sign out of the ER, he gave me no paperwork telling me to have an ultrasound of my liver, but yesterday, my primary doc is telling me about that report, about the spot, she thinks that may be the reason for the high white cells, she doesn't know.

But what we do know is that I went to a cardiac specialist this morning who finds nothing wrong, but to be safe, I have to go back in tomorrow and have a cardiac nuclear stress test.
He said if that comes out fine, that he'll clear me for the surgery, but it's too late now for the Monday date, the OR was canceled, I missed the pre-surgery appointment at the hospital today to go see this cardiac specialist, my surgeon canceled it, it's done, too late.
It will have to be totall rescheduled, I'll have to go through all the pre-surgery tests all over again because they all have to be done within 1 week of the surgery.
 Then this Tuesday coming, I have to go in for an echo cardiogram, ya know, seeing as my surgery is canceled.

To say I'm mad is an understatement, I'm fucking pissed, I'm stressed, an I can't eat anything at all for 24 hours before this stress test tomorrow morning at 11am, so when I got home this morning from his office at like 10ish, I ate a bowl of cereal because I was nauseous.
I'm not allowed to eat anything else at all, and I cannot drink much either, I can have enough water to wash down my pain pills, but that's it.
I'll be completely weak, nauseous, and dehydrated tomorrow morning, which will be causing me stress and anxiety, which will make my blood pressure high and probably cause me to fail the fucking test.

Everything is just a big huge fucking mess.
They fucked with my life for a high blood pressure that is caused by the neck issue, they canceled my surgery that will save my fucking life.
That ER doc in June didn't tell me about the spot on my liver, but now I have to go get that taken care of too, get an ultrasound on it, and I'll probably have to go through another nuclear hematology consult as well to rule out the leukemia they fucking think I'm dying of.
Don't you fucking think that with all the fucking MRIs, CT scans, xrays, blood tests, urine tests, ultrasounds, and every fucking other test I've been through, that if I had fucking leukemia, it would have been found by now?
Don't you think I'd know!?!
Wouldn't I be sick, have some sort of pain, something?!
Do I match some of those symptoms like bone and joint pain?
Yes, but uh, I have 26 fucking inches of titanium running the length of my spine!!!!!!!
I have no other symptoms of it other than the bone and joint pain, and the high white cell count, that's it, and I've had that high white cell count for 2.5 years now, since my spine fusion.
Wouldn't someone know?
Wouldn't someone have figured that out by now with everything I've been through medically?

I'm not ok!
I'm angry, sad, stressed, pissed, hurt, and it's causing my kids to be scared to death.
Surgery, no surgery, heart disease, leukemia, what the fuck else are these assholes going to put me and my kids through?!
This is all too fucking much, it's just too much, I can't cope with everything that's happening right now, and I want to apologize to my employers who are waiting on me to get work done.
I will get it done, but I need to get a grip, I need to rest, I need to try and get this sorted out, get people to listen to me, read the test results, figure out that all of the shit is because of my spine being all fucked up.

And ya know what sucks?
All of the doctors want a medical history I can't give them, I'm adopted, I have nothing to show them, nothing to tell them, they stare at me, tell me this all looks genetic, that my birth parents gave me all of this, but they need to know and I can't give them any answers.
I hear from them about all of these things that are inside my body, these fluid filled sacks that are attached to my spine, that they don't know what they are, but there are a lot of them, my vertebrae closing like this, it's genetic, this is all genetic, it's all part of a medical history I know nothing about, and the more tests they do, the more they find, and the more they say big bad scary words about death and dying, and for fucks sake people, pick the one that is gonna kill me first and fix it, then we'll work on the next one and so on.

This is all just too much and I feel like I'm going crazy, like I just want to quit, just stop, I can't do this anymore.
My mom and dad called me last night, my sister had called them, told them what was going on, they told me to just keep going, to keep trying, to type out whatever I have to to get through all of this, that it's ok.
But it's not ok, it really isn't.
I'm being told I'm slowly dying, that I have diseases and shit which are killing me, and I'm supposed to be ok?
How the hell am I supposed to be ok after all of the hell I've already been through, and be told that there's even more?
How would anyone be ok with all of this?!
And please, please, please, do not tell me that god only gives us what we can handle, that he gives us tests to help us be better people, that this is all being done because he has a purpose for me.
That's absolute bullshit, I've been through more than enough fucking medical shit in my lifetime.
I was born a medical fuck up, that's why my birth parents left me in the hospital where I spent the first 6 weeks of my life, they were told I was going to die or be retarded, so they left, they just left me there.
I've suffered with some sort of medical fucking bullshit my whole life now, enough.
Enough!

My primary care doc has me taking Maxzide for my high blood pressure.

So, insomnia again last night, went to "bed" at like 8:30am, woke up at 1:30pm.
Got a phone call from the hospital I'm having surgery at saying I missed an appointment today.
What?!?!
They will be calling me back.

Teens came home from school, brought in 2 packages.
I got another book, it's a duplicate, so I'll probably be giving it away to the first come/first get.
2nd package was from Amazon.
I didn't order anything? *confused*
I open the package, and there's the movie I just posted about on Tuesday that I said I was going to buy myself for Halloween.
Christine had left me a comment with the cryptic, "Oh, and watch your mail.  'nuff said!"
That was just on Wednesday, 1 day ago.
I figured ok, next week, maybe Saturday.
Nope, she ordered it, and I got the movie I absolutely adore today!
Instant cheer up from the pissed off feeling of being told I missed a surgical testing appointment that I didn't even know I had.
I would never just miss an appointment!
I have every single appointment written on the paper calendar, digitally entered on my Google calendar, I wouldn't forget, I wouldn't just not show, this is important stuff!
Is it going to screw up my surgery date?
I only have 1 full week left to get everything done!
OMG! *panic*
How could I miss an appointment I never knew I had?
I've really been so so good about writing them all down, arranging the transportation for each one with my sister doing some and Mindy doing almost all of the others.
I wouldn't forget one!
I checked my paper calendar, I checked my Google calendar, there's nothing written down for today for me to do other than to pay my Verizon DSL bill!
I wish they would call me back quickly, let me know what the hell happened, did someone forget to tell me about this one?
I know I have a lot of different appointments for different things, it's very possible someone just overlooked it, forgot to tell me because they made an honest mistake, because I know what day, what time, and where every single appointment is for everything.
Please don't let this screw up the surgery date, let this be an easy fix.
Please.

I know it's not Friday, but I don't think I've done a weight loss progress update in a few weeks now.

I started my doctor monitored weight-loss on July 4th, and my starting weight was 190lbs.
I started taking a product he approves and sells in his office, and he agreed to monitor my progress at every visit.
I would stick to taking 2 pills per day, eat better foods, walk, work out as much as I can, and try to increase my water intake.
I absolutely hate water, but I alternate, for every 1 can of Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke, I have 1 large glass of nearly frozen water, and I suck it down as quickly as possible.
I actually use a plastic cup that can be put in the freezer, and I really do freeze my water.
Not all the way of course, but I get it to that point of frozen where it's like a slurpee, all ice, some liquid left, slush-like, and then I just chug it down and deal with the "ice cream" headache.

But anyway, I've been doing really good sticking to my plan, I don't call it a diet because I fail at diets, so I call it my weight-loss plan, and that works for me.
My doc has kept his word, he's been monitoring me, checking my blood pressure, my weight, taking random urine tests to check iron levels and stuff, and encouraging me.
I saw my new primary care doc the other day, she weighed me, and I then went to his office, and he weighed me, and both scales matched so they must be accurate.

I am now at 169.10lbs from my start weight of 190lbs, so that's a total weight loss of 20.9lbs.
That's pretty damn good if I do say so myself.
20lbs in almost 2 months, I didn't lose tons of weight quickly which usually guarantees that you'll gain it all back plus some extra, so I'd say I'm doing alright.
I know that during my stay in the hospital even though it's only 4 days, I'll drop a few more because I have like zero appetite from all the morphine and dilaudid, and they shouldn't give me morphine this time because I nearly scratched myself to death last time.
That stuff makes you itchy, and it's such a high dose that I was passed out just clawing at my skin and ripping clumps of hair out, but anyway, I will drop probably between 2-5lbs more.

So there's my update, I'm doing good, I'm proud of myself, and now I'm going to go lay on the couch and catch a few hours of sleep.
I had insomnia again last night, and really need just a few short hours.
Later days! 

Holy hell, 6:45am came far too fucking early this morning.
I went to bed around 1am, but didn't fall asleep until like oh, 3:30am.
Yeah, that makes for a very short night of sleep, just like I knew was going to happen to me.
I knew it at like 10am yesterday, even said so in an email to someone.
"I'll be up all night in like full blown panic attack mode."
I woke up Mark at the usual school time of 5:45am, and told him that right before they walk out the door, they need to come in and wake me up.
I knew I was only going to get about an hour more sleep, but I needed it big time.
When they woke me up, I'm pretty sure I started crying.

I have a busy morning today.
I need to get my butt in gear, take a shower, shave everywhere, and head to my pre-surgery physical at 10am.
Then, as quickly as I can possibly get out of her office, I need to rush over to see my pain doc
before he goes out of town again.
He' gone out of town twice in the last 2 weeks, I know doctors do that kind of stuff, but geez, it makes it very difficult to get in to see him when he's out all of the time.

Flickr isn't working with my blogs very well anymore, don't know why, I can't even get it set up right with this particular blog, so I'm going to try using Twitpic while in the hospital to post photos.
I tested it last night, it's not showing any of the text notes I send with the pics, but at least the pics are showing up about 6 or so minutes after I send them in.
If you want to see whatever pics I send in during that week, you'll be able to follow me here,
http://twitpic.com/photos/mskat

Well I suppose I need to get my ass in gear and get going on everything.
Later days.

I woke up feeling like I got hit by a truck.
I slept weird too.
Like all twisted up and stuff, so now my lower back and right hip are just killing me, and I can't get in to see my pain doc until Monday, before 11:45am.
Because at noon he's going back out of town.
But at 10am, I have an appointment with the new primary care doc for the pre-surgery physical, which I have no idea how long it's going to take.
So this means I'm going to have to call my surgeon to cover the refill on my pain meds again.
For the 3rd time, because my pain doc keeps going out of town.
My surgeon is going to start thinking something funny is going on.
Yeah, not quite so fucking funny when every time I need to make an appointment, he's going out of town.
And so I'm stressed out and in pain, and I can't see my pain doc because I have to go to that physical, I don't have a choice.
I have no idea how long the physical is going to take because duh, it's my new doctor.
The appointment could end up being 2 hours long, or like most doctor's, you sit and wait for a full hour or 2 before you even see the doctor.
And it's a full physical which means full naked, gyno, swabby, poke, prod, touch and pee in this cup appointment.

Seriously.
I'm way stressed out about all of this stuff right now.
In 18 days, I get my neck sliced open, have a couple vertebrae and discs removed, new rods installed, and I never turn my head left or right again.
18 days.
It may seem like that's a long time, but it's not, and it's creeping up on me faster than I know how to handle.

And I swear, if one more person says they'll pray for me, or let go and let god, trust in god, god will take care of you, I'm going to fucking explode!
This bill collector called me at 8am this morning, wanted to talk about an old hospital bill I owe, and when I said sorry, I can't pay that right now, they asked why, I explained why, I let it all out on the girl, and she says to me, and I quote, "I can stave off the collection phone calls for about a week, and I'll pray for you. Wow, I don't even know how you're feeling, but I imagine. I promise, I'll pray for you."

You'll pray for me?!
These calls are recorded for customer quality results, and man, I hope they recorded that one.
You are never to get personal with the customer, never ever, get personal with the customer when you are calling them to collect a debt. I know the rules, I used to work for Georgia Power and Gas, that was one of the major big time rules, never, ever, get personal with the customer, stick to the facts.
Fucking twit.
I hope they recorded that call and heard me tell her to shove her prayers up her ass.