Surgery on the Horizon?

Thursday, I had an appointment to see Dr P. Mostly, I needed to change my pain medication, but I also wanted him to check out my ears and nose, since I feel like I have a sinus infection.

I've been on Vicodin off and on for ten years. Between the migraines and the pain my body gives me, it's what my first "grown-up" doctor felt would help me best at the time. Since then, whenever I've met a new doctor, they've simply restarted it. In recent years, I usually have had to go through a brief counseling session to try an prove I'm not a drug addict first, but since I am, in fact, not a drug addict, that's easy enough.

Recently (two months ago, I suppose it was), my insurance decided in all their wisdom that I simply don't need pain pills enough for them to pay for them any longer. After I calmed down, we went ahead and filled it out of our own pockets - $25 that we simply don't have once to twice a month. Thankfully, I had an appointment with Dr P within a few days of that. I explained to him what had happened, and he gave me a small list of medications that would give me similar, if not better pain relief and asked me to call the pharmacy to find out which would be least expensive.

I had to wait until my next appointment with him before we could officially make the switch, but as of Thursday, I'm on Ultram (or Tramadol, that's the generic) twice a day. For four dollars a month. Super sweet. It hasn't made a ton of difference yet, but I realized today, that I'm probably having withdrawal symptoms  from the Vicodin at the moment, so the achy muscles I have may be the biggest part of that.

Dr P had a medical student with him, a lady who's name will oddly enough also be Dr P when she graduates. She looked into my ears, and said they look fine, but that I have a lot of wax built up, like I didn't know that. She also said I have tiny ear canals, which I actually didn't know.

My Dr P came over to look into my nose, and when he was throwing the little disposable cone away, he asked "What's the story with you and allergies and sinus infections?" I replied, "Yes, I have all those things." LOL. Dr P has a fabulous sense of humor, thankfully.

I told him that a scratch test several years ago shows I'm allergic to pretty much everything that grows, plus swimmy fish (I can eat shellfish), and I get at least one major sinus infection a year. About ten years ago, the sinus infections and migraines got so bad that my doc at the time had a CAT scan done. They sent me to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist to have the scan explained to me. What he showed me was polyps on my right sinus. He told me that at the time, it could be treated with a nasal spray and if it started to effect my life, we could discuss surgery.

At this point, Dr P chuckled. He explained that now, the polyps have grown in both nostrils to the point that he's not sure how I continue breathing. He compared it to some cases of tonsillitis he's seen where the patient can hardly swallow, the tonsils are so big. He wants me to go ahead and do the sleep study as I am now, so we get an accurate record of what's going on, and so that we can prove to the insurance company that the surgery is medically necessary, if and when we decide to do it. It may help, but he said that people who have this surgery are the most miserable people on the face of the planet for about ten days, and according to my research, it's very likely that the polyps will grow back. We'll have to see how things go with the hearings and all.

The meeting with the lawyer is Tuesday. I'm so nervous. I'm afraid she's going to look at me, decide I'm just fat and lazy (like so many people assume) and kick me out of her office. One crisis at a time. I just have to get through the meeting at this point. One crisis at a time.

Update Timeline

I know it's been forever since I've been here. There are days I can't even remember to take meds, much less write a blog post. Much to update ya'll on, so here it is in Bullet-time:

• May - Shady had emergency gallbladder surgery. She was in the hospital about 36 hours altogether, and recovered for almost a month and a half. This meant that I went from being the patient to to being the caregiver with absolutely no warning. Our diet went from mostly homemade to whatever I could take from the freezer and put in the microwave. The house looked like a bomb went off inside it. The whole experience definitely re-emphasized exactly how much Shady does around here, as if I could ever forget. I'd be living in a cardboard box under a freeway somewhere if not for her, most likely having cut off my legs at the hip joints long ago.

         On the plus side of this, she now feels tons better, and is no longer sensitive to wheat. Apparently,
          the gallbladder had been so bad for so long that it simply couldn't process wheat anymore. Her
         doctors say it's rare that surgery fixes a wheat sensitivity, but not so rare that they were truly surprised.
         With all the weight she's lost this last year (60 some pounds last I knew), she said she probably put
          a few back on when she realized she could eat pizza again. Ha!

• I haven't driven since July. The muscle spasms have gotten so bad, and so unpredictable, that I'm a danger behind the wheel. I occasionally will even get spasms in one of my eyes, and it's just not worth it to me to cause a wreck just so I can drive myself around. We don't have a running, licensed car at the moment anyway.

• My brother is moving in here to help with money issues. It'll also help get him away from family he fights with, so it's win-win. It's happening very slowly, but it's happening.

      In current health-related news, I went to the doctor a month or so ago. I have tremors occasionally that my body interprets as earthquakes. As in, I have to find liquid to look at so I can convince my brain that the liquid isn't shaking, so it can't be an earthquake. It's a low level quake all over my body, almost like when you get so cold that you physically start to shake. I believed it to be muscle spasms. Normally, these tremors only happen once in a while, but about a month ago, it began to happen constantly, and that's when I went made the appointment to see Dr P.

As I was describing it to him, he sounded like he had heard that description before, but he said it's not muscle spasms. To him, it sounds like adrenalin being pumped into my body - my fight or flight response is constantly in overdrive, and body has no way to burn off that energy, so it shakes. He suggested I see Dr G and see what she thought.

The appointment with Dr G was just the other day. She disagrees. She thinks it's a reaction to one of my medications. Never mind that I was getting these tremors long before I started any of these pills. She also decided that since I've never gone to the ER after a panic attack, I must have not ever really had one. Maybe I'm just too close to the appointment still, but that pissed me off. I need to call and make an appointment to see a therapist, I need a second opinion. Dr G upped my anti-anxiety dosage and that was it.

I've seen Dr P again since then. He said that if he's right, then the increased medication should help. If she's right, my body will help us figure out what's going on. So frustrating. 



Recently, I've also been having strange symptoms. I fall asleep at the drop of a hat, for what seems like hours. I have vivid dreams, mostly of whatever I was doing when I fell asleep. Then I wake up with a jerk and find I was asleep for a second or less. Or that it's been a few seconds, but that I heard everything that happened while I was asleep. Sometimes I wake up to find that it's been an hour or so and that Shady has tried everything short of dumping cold water on me to get me to wake the heck up. It doesn't seem to matter whether or not I got enough sleep the night before, or how long ago I woke up, or what I'm doing at the time. I've fallen asleep on the couch, on the toilet, and in the middle of a sentence.

The only thing I know of that even remotely fits those symptoms is narcolepsy. Which is scary in it's own right, and it's own reason for me not to drive anymore. However, I am scared out of my mind to go to Dr P with this. I'm afraid that he's going to think I'm a hypochondriac or a drug seeker. Or that I'm one of those nuts that takes every little thing wrong with them and internet researches it to death until they have a panic attack. 

Ok, I'm done for today. Time for Torchwood and sleep.

Sore and tired.

My day went like this:

• 6/7/11 4:30PM: Wake up

• ~10:00PM: Message brother that I eventually need a ride to the grocery store

• Spend several hours watching TV on my laptop
• 6/8/11 5:15 AM: Brother calls. He's awake now, do I want to go to the store?
• ~5:30AM: Go to Food4Less by way of the mailbox, do month grocery shopping to the tune of $250.00 and the heaviest shopping cart in the recorded history of man. Brother's car reaching maximum capacity.
• Go to brother's bank.
• ~8:00AM: Get home. Enlist Shady's help lugging groceries into the house, making sure she doesn't lift anything she's not supposed to. (Her surgeon said nothing over 15 lbs for a month after the surgery. Dummy me then bought a huge turkey and four cubes of soda that I can't lift. Thank Jeebus for brother and the walker we borrowed, it was able to take a lot of weight.)
• Put groceries away slowly, taking all three of us to do so.
• Sit B.S.ing with brother for a bit, Shady goes to lay down.
• Call Pharmacy shortly after 9:00AM. One prescription is ready (brain meds), one has been denied by my insurance, but is inexpensive (anti-convulsant for the Fibro-related muscle spasms). Shady's pain pills are also quoted as inexpensive.
• Brother takes me to pharmacy. We wait around for the pain pills and inexpensive pills for me to be filled. Pain meds are even less expensive than quoted.
• Subway break. I'm starved, and haven't had Subway in what seems like forever, due to Shady's Celiac. Brother and I spend our visit talking about how their in-house radio station should be dubbed "Waah FM."
• Stop by mom's house to print financial info for hospital. Mom is surprisingly awake (she works nights) and is able to sign the letter  the hospital needs.
• Home. So tired I can't even see.
• Take one of the new meds, the anti-convulsion one. Try to lay down, realize one of the letters from the mailbox was telling me of a meeting they wanted me at today that they've been telling me for two months I don't need to attend.
• Get up, call woman the meeting is with. Neither she, nor her assistant, are in the office.
• ~12:00PM: Crash. Unsure if this is due to meds or just sleep-deprivation. 
• ~8:20 PM: Awake. Need food. Snack on various things until noms are ready. Woman from the meeting called between 4:30 and 5:00PM. I'll call her again tomorrow.
• Current time: 1:00AM. Type blog entry.

I'm frigging exhausted. That's more than I'm normally able to do in a week. Now that dinner's in my belleh where it belongs, it's time for "Night meds" and sleep."Night meds" is to include the first dose of the new brain pill, as well as the second of the anti-convusant, so we'll see how that goes.

Crap, no it's not. I forgot the sheets are in the wash. Crapcrapcrapcrap.

Ok, fine. I'll see what's on TV and take my meds as soon as the sheets go in the dryer. Crap.

The name's Migraine, Epic Migraine.

This stupid headache just won't go away. This is day three, and I have no idea how to fix it. More caffeine, no caffeine, sleep all day, stay up late, too many Vicodin, no pain killers at all, nothing's working.

Aside from that, things are progressing. Dr. P has essentially confirmed Fibromyalgia, which is a blessing. He prescribed Baclofen, a medication he has said is normally given to Multiple Sclerosis patients to control muscle spasms. I can't wait. It's a scary thing to get a sudden, unstoppable eye spasm while driving. I also get violent ones that make me kick my girlfriend in the middle of the night, or shriek out in pain in an otherwise quiet room.

I asked Dr. P about possibly getting an anti-depressant on board. Since I was once diagnosed as Bipolar (another doctor later said that was stupid, I couldn't possibly have Bipolar), he referred me to the clinic's psych doc, Dr. G. Dr. G is a lovely, friendly woman who just moved here from across the country. She feels that what I have is Bipolar type II. She prescribed Topamax, which is also said to help migraines. Again, I'm excited to try it. Dr. G also encouraged me to file for disability and see where that gets us now that we have a combination of diagnoses.

There's a ton more to talk about, I'm sure, but our monthly food money will be here at 8:00AM, and since it's currently 1:30AM, I need to at least attempt to lay down.

It's not unusual...

Not surprisingly, I'm in pain. Had a job interview this morning, and ran errands with my brother. I've had a migraine all afternoon - probably a mix of tension, allergies, stress and my sinuses. The regular pain meds haven't touched it.

Additionally, my joints have been much worse this last week or so, particularly my knees. Mama-san has Osteoarthritis, and says that the way they find it it via X-rays instead of by blood tests, so that's something I need to bring up with Doctor P when we see him again. I also want to ask him if he thinks water aerobics would be a good thing for me to do.

Right around the time of my last entry, I tripped over our exercise bike and pulled my hamstring again.Was down for a few days, and now my knees are stiff and swollen. I also bruised the nail bed of my pinky toe. Ugh.

Headache's too bad  to write. More later.