Gonna be a long night

I definitely have a sinus infection.  I've had enough of them to recognize the headache, plus I can see the puffiness  under my right eye as well as feel it.  Yes, I had had so many sinus infections that I've learned to poke around for "bogginess" myself.  The good thing is that I had the right meds on hand; I have been doing nebulizer treatments frequently, I can at least take tylenol for headache pain, and I've had 2 of 14 doses of a strong antibiotic.  The green stuff seems to be stopping although not the drainage which is the part that needs to stop to protect my lungs.  I need to use my sinus rinse bottle before I go to sleep. The best part is that thus far I am not coughing all that much and it doesn't sound horrible.  I actually have no idea what the effect on my lungs of an infection is if it doesn't actually turn into something like bronchitis, just that I'm to be careful and we'll deal with it when it happens. Time....

I looked in the mirror and was somewhat horrified.  Pale, unhealthy looking skin, the clumps of hair that fall out daily (so much I have to gather it and throw it away so it doesn't clog the drain which is already partly clogged from what I don't catch) have started to cause serious thinning of my hair, my hair looks very unhealthy.

I actually started to write an email to Dr. Body to explain why I'll be in tomorrow. Then I realized it read like a horror show so I decided to scare him in person rather than risking being sent to the ER. If he makes me go after he sees me fine but I think he and possiblity the pulmonologist can handle this.  I think I need a straight cath to fully empty my bladder, which then lets us see how big my belly is because of whatever is wrong in there.  I don't know what happens after than to ensure peeing commences at 100% capacity. Or maybe I'm wrong and it's empty in there.  it sure doesn't feel empty though.  One thing about home health is that I've got a pretty good ability to identify needs and issues at this point.I also have the ability to identify my own abilities to provide care at home.  Self-cathing?  Bring it on.  Home nursing to cath?  Bring it on.  I know a good agency....I just wish I'd never gone near percocet.  No way to know and I'm glad I know before surgery that I can't have it, but still. Enough is enough.

Figures

It's been a while since I had a med reaction.  I had an allergic reaction to Bactrim sometime during the whooping cough disaster but I've had a lot of meds since then without my usual horrible reactions.  Some have not been pleasant since the effects of asthma treatments on bipolar aren't pretty, but those were expected.

Last night the percocet finally kicked in and I was comfortable until nearly 4 when I woke and took the 2nd dose.  That actually gave me a little bit of pain relief.  And then (I suspect) three things conspired.  Several of the possible things going on can cause urinary retention by impacting the bladder.  Percocet can also cause urinary retention.  And I already have urinary retention, probably because the unusual volume of urine my bladder handles in a day has stretched it.  I'm used to this and just know that if I don't want UTIs I need to be sure to really empty my bladder, not just decide it's done.

You can see where I'm heading.....I woke up and really couldn't pee.  I managed to finally at least get enough out to not hurt in yet another way, and then as the percocet has worn off I've been more successful.  But that means of course that I can't have percocet, at least right now, and whatever is still in my bladder along with whatever is wrong has now made my belly so big that I look more like 6 months pregnant instead of 4 (and for those who are asking questions, I am not pregnant at all).  it's been gradually increasing for some time and I suspect that this has finally become the deciding factor in whether I keep working because I'm pretty certain that I can't wear any of my scrub pants any more, including the ones I keep for when I want to wear layers in the winter.  My biggest pair were pretty tight yesterday and my belly is even bigger now.  I actually have a place where blood vessels have burst open because the skin is so stretched.  And of course the pain is coming back and I can't take more percocet.  I believe that pain now is including bladder spasms and after years of seeing people with catheters I know those hurt.

To make this even more fun not only is a cold or sinus infection a very, very bad thing for me at any time because of asthma and to being able to easily do what someone with asthma does with those situations-take steroids-, so I have done everything in my power to avoid germs.  Well, yesterday my asthmatic symptoms offered proof of a possible infection brewing and so I pulled out the bottle of just-for-when-this-happens-on-a-weekend antibiotics I've had from Dr. Body for some time. The good news that the antibiotic should help if a UTI is brewing from all that nasty urine.  The bad news is NOT NOW. I don't really know if this is something infectious or bacterial or not but I'd rather take one course of unneeded antibiotics than try to recover from illness enough to be intubated in 2 weeks.

So unless things change very drastically I'll be staying home tomorrow to go see Dr. Body and I suspect I am done working until after surgery.  The pants thing will be one factor, but if I can't empty my bladder that's another, and the abdominal distension is so huge now that just the size and weight of my belly is getting uncomfortable, much less anything (aka pants) pushing on it.  Last week was barely tolerable with pain.  Things are worse now so I assume when the last of the percocet is gone the pain is going to be even worse, on top of the bladder discomfort and the cold sx.  And I am also now aware that I work in a germy cesspool and perhaps being near germy people this week isn't so much ideal.

I could be wrong.  Everything could turn around.  I hope it does.  However, there is something that tells me that since I've ignored the pain thus far that I have not avoided the ultimate outcome, just put it off a while.  Dr. Body tells me pain is reason to be off work on disability.  I don't know if my pants no longer fitting counts but I suspect something not pleasant is happening in my belly.  I also suspect I'll have to go see Dr.Surgeon this week which is another reason I do not really think I'll be going back to work.  My fear is that my cyst has grown a lot and that it could rupture which could be extremely painful if it's size is the cause of my abdomen's size.

Either that or I have gained a lot of weight really fast....My shirt is one leftover from 50 lbs ago and it is not fitting well.

So, life is about to get very interesting.....or very, very boring.

Well...

I actually have something somewhat insightful to post but must wait until not under the effects of pain meds.  Except I don't know that I am.  I took 1/2 of a percocet about an hour ago and thus far don't feel groggy or painfree or anything except a little distant.  I am going to give it a little longer than I guess I take the other half.  I'm trying to guage the effects since I've only had one percocet in my life and that was 20 years ago.  It's hard to know how I will respond to anything as my body is used to sedation.  However until I know I'm reluctant to mix it with psych meds for fear it will be too much.

Today was weird.  It started at 3:27 AM when I did that thing where you wake up having shot to a sitting position and gasping for air.  Either something scared me or I had a nightmare.  Or pain.  I suppose that a particularly bad moment of pain could do that too.  I think I did get about 30 minutes of nap before I went to work.  Work was also weird.  It involved a massive scheduling snafu.  I did get some time in the office to organize things a bit before I have to be off, as pain may make me stop sooner than next Monday.  Dr. Body has told me that he will write me off for pain management if I need the percocets and can't take them and drive.  Since I am getting sleepy now I guess they do cause that, meaning they won't mix with work.  My pain has been hanging at 7/10 and if I can get away with that and get some relief with percocets at night then that will be the plan.  If it gets worse at all then I'm going to have to stay home, stay medicated and sleep it off.  So in working toward that possibility my current charts at least are all up to date, my supervision stuff is organized for completion as far as I can take it on Tuesday, and I'm beginning to be unable to spell simple words.  So I guess it is definitely sedating although I'm going to have to take the rest for pain I'm afraid.

OK, this stuff is literally having more effects by the minute.  Time to try sleep.

It's a learning experience

Maybe I will never have a good attitude about what my life is like again, but right now, at this moment in time,  I am both medicated for pain and bundled with a hot pack that I think only distracts me by being hot but whatever, it's not constant stabbing pain.

18 months ago I started working on learning to express pain. The discovery that as a child I had been so unable to complain that I ran 5-10 miles routinely on a broken ankle from 2 days after breaking it until it caused me to damage another joint was very enlightening, especially when I was also hearing that I had very badly injured that same ankle again and proceeded to complain of "it's ok.  It hurts but it's ok" which in turn led to the injury not being treated correctly and also prevented me from having surgery to repair it immediately which would have been ideal.

13 months ago I learned a harsh lesson in how much I needed to develop honesty with Dr. Body about pain.  We had a long conversation about my past and my inability to talk about pain honestly and that he needed to know I would often understate or lie and that I needed help to describe and talk about it.  Since then he has talked me through it a number of times and has even told me things like "your throat HAS to hurt" during the whooping cough mess.  He was the first to suggest endometriosis back when I first complained of the sx because he pointed out I may only now be able to acknowledge pain I've had a long time.

I still struggle to complain about pain to most doctors, but I do ok with him.  This week has included several conversations about pain, Dr. Body finding another pain med for me that I haven't gotten the script yet (please God tomorrow's mail) and after I had a really hard time calling my (wonderfully kind and understanding) gynecologist to let her know how much worse the pain is now and as I realized that if the pain intensifies too much I will not make it through these last few days of working.  So today I had called her.  I also had asked Dr. Body about what levels of pain are reasonable reasons to miss work (I can assume he thinks I'm there as he pretty much offered as many work excuses and pain med scripts as I want/need to get me through this.  He's always taken a proactive approach to pain with me; since I can't take normal pain meds he has made sure I had what I can take available, even though it is narcotics.)  I think I want to hear that I am justified in just feeling this hurts and there are limits to what I can do because of the pain.  So I have a response.  Except his server is down and so I can't get into the clinic's web page to access the answer.  So even more than I already was, I am getting a nice lesson in patience.

Now I believe I have been patient enough........

Thank you

Thanks to everyone who let me know that the posts are going through.  Thanks also for kind comments and for nobody pointing out that a blog that says the same thing daily and that thing is related to pain, not feeling good, etc. is not going to be a very interesting blog.

The good news is that Dr. Body is willing to give me a stronger pain killer.  Unfortunately it's strong enough that I have to either get the script from his office or have it mailed to me so I won't likely have it for a few more days unless I get really lucky with getting up there tomorrow (doubtful).   But, this weekend for sure I've got a chance at some painfree time.  Which is very exciting.

The other good news is I made it through another day.  And that may not seem like much but trust me, it is.  9 more days of work.  If I make it that long and today gave me some hope on that regard.  Partly it's the new pain med because vicodin has become essentially useless, but mainly it's that today was rough and I still made it.  I have some paperwork to finish in the morning but not a ton and that alone says a lot.

Tomorrow is more work with Dr. Mind on panic.  Since yesterday I realized the strong correlation between pain and panic I guess we start there.  It seems backwards because in the past pain has been ignored far too long and now pain is overwhelming me.  I guess though that this is significant; this is the first time that I've been able to appropriately admit  to having pain, ask for help in managing it, and try to handle it appropriately instead of either ignoring it totally or understating things so nobody understood what I truly felt.

Next I have to deal with the concern that they'll find nothing.  How embarrassing to complain so much and have nothing visible.  Endometriosis can be invisible until biopsy, and truthfully I can't imagine there isn't something seriously painful going on with my right ovary.  The same pain has gone on too long to not believe that.  But I'll always doubt myself and as of now all I KNOW I have is a small polyp that may be more (fibroid), pain, and heavy bleeding.  All signs point to SOMETHING being wrong but if I come out and keep having my right oary stabbed I don't know if I'll ever  survive.  This is why I can't wait for pre-op so I can tell her all of this and see what she anticipates.  I keep thinking of pictures I've seen with an ovary encased in endometrial tissue and suspect that's the same here. But I'm basing THAT oh so knowledgable statement on the fact that when an area often affected by endo. is touched in an exam it hurts me a lot which is  a sign of endo.

Anyway, in other good news I only need 2 doses of chicken pox shots and I'll have normal adult immunity.  Yay.  Chicken pox shot one is scheduled for about a week after surgery, a day that is going to wear me out totally as I have 3 appointmets with small gaps between each.  I'm very tempted to try to get a motel room; we'll see how I feel then.

And as per so often I'm falling asleep typing so should stop before I tell something far too private or something.  And I need to heat up my stomach warmer.

Truth

I don't know how to write this post.  I don't want to seem like I'm trying to make you all say things you don't mean or want to say, and I know this time of year is nuts for many people. And I'm whiny and focused on one non-interesting thing and therefore not very interesting.

But are you all out there?  This blog hasn't been so quiet in years.  If I'm being totally obnoxious and need to shut up, please say so (nicely).  I do not want to antagonize all of you and if I am, well this is your place too in a sense and I have no desire to come out of surgery and find no readers.

I'm concerned that somehow this is not going through feeds or something since the design update.  I think it has seriously been nearly a week since I got a comment and that's extremely odd.

I also do not want to make people feel they have to comment.  One thing I committed to when I started writing was that I would allow people as much anonymity as I wanted then, even if that meant that they were lurkers forever.  I want that to still be true, but mainly I want to make sure that when hit post things actually are posting.

So:
1) no pressure
2)  no apologies
3)are you getting this?

Thank you.

What Still makes me smile

Today has been.....rough.  I found out that in all ways I'm borderline anemic, enough to show that the blood loss has taken a toll, just enough over the line to show that the diligent multi-vitamin with iron consumption  (since I don't eat a lot of it) has been useful. There's nothing that can be done to help it.  I've also established that my pain no longer is tamed by vicodin, yet I don't have other options.  Dr. Body is looking I think but the only things I know of that are left are quite strong.  This makes me wonder how I'm going to survive 2 more weeks of working with working getting harder constantly.  I could ask to stop work now.  The thing is that psychiatrically 3 weeks of laying around being in pain is not likely to do me a lot of good and would probably just increase my already frightening anxiety levels.

But I keep remembering Dr. Mind telling me yesterday that I should remember that I'm still smiling easily and that this is a big thing.  He pointed out that he got me to smile without trying twice.  But today what makes me smile is what those two smiles were about.  Ready?  One, predictably, was my niece.  Two, not quite as predictably was my worms.  Odd, yes.  But at this point, whatever works.

home again

By the way, as I enter the last weeks of this nightmare of mine, please forgive weird typing.  Sitting up is increasingly more painful and so I find myself less and less able to tolerate it.  Typing in the odd, curled position I can handle is tricky although I am learning.  It's harder on my netbook so when I'm in the hospital expect less.  If I can even post,   I think I read no wireless in pt. rooms and i'm not sure how much walking around I'll be doing.

I spent too much time in the car yesterday and today woke up panicky and in pain.  I stayed home.  I'll work Saturday, but I can't today.  Dr. Mind gave me a serious review of doing only what I can manage last night and this is what I can manage.  I may go out for a bit later to do a couple errands if I can sit up, but for now I'm stuck in the fetal position.  I don't know why the car is so awful to tolerate but it is; I have one of those seats with 72 position options, but none work well.  I think also things are just deteriorating.  The pain is on both sides at times now, it almost never leaves, and there is an addition of a lot of cramping which may just be part of the panic attacks.  Regardless, all I can do is the best I can and while that's not fabulous right now I am doing something and I suppose that counts.

Dr. Mind did help a great deal by pointing out that I am able to smile and that even saying "your niece" makes me smile.  I needed to know that. Smiles are good.  Tears seem to come more easily.  But that's ok too I guess.

Perhaps something substantial or even interesting will cross my mind later today.  We shall see.

unrelated

First off, let's just say I ITCH!!!  Badly.  Apparently some bug got in my shirt the other day and chewed up as much territory as he could.  And unfortunately insects lack respect for tender tissue women have on their chests. Therefore, despite covering myself waist to neck in cortisone cream this week I wound up having to constantly consider my social behaviors and said tender tissues are now covered in ugly scratches along with bites. I really hope it starts to heal soon because it is torture to wear a bra right now.

Second, serious food for thought today.  Dr. Brain got to Dr. Mind and so he knew before he went on vacation that she felt I had to do this MAOI  anesthesia protocol and that basically he had also agreed that I was a significant suicide risk doing it the standard way.  She read that part of her statement regarding why this was necessary to me, and that is the main requirement, that there is a strong risk of a suicide attempt without doing this the harder way.  So he came in ready to support all of this and during the discussion made a good point.  One which I need to recall over the next weeks.  He asked if I trusted Dr. Brain.  I said mostly.  He asked what lowered my trust.  I said fear.  We talked about this throughout the hour and he kept reminding me of something that I would think was dramatic if I said it but he clearly believes it is true:  I have trusted her with my life, numerous times, and she has saved my life, numerous times.  Therefore I may feel threatened by what is happening but again, she is trying to keep me alive.

Dr. Mind also believes that my horrible panic attack was not as much about my niece as it seemed like at first glance.   I have to go back through what I wrote to people during that time to see what I even thought then, but what asked out of the blue what the trigger was my initial response made a lot of sense:  I know that if this is endometriosis my one and only/last chance to have a baby will be a few months from now.  I won't be doing that.  And eventually the endo. (if that's what it is) will return and diminish my chances more, and since I'm over 35, well, like I said, last shot.  It's not like I have known anything but that I would have no children for many years now.  Nonetheless, know that my ability to have a baby is pretty much likely to be declared over is weird.  And even if the other factors don't come into play I'm getting an IUD that lasts 5 years.  It could come out sooner should I desire to have a baby, but pretty much that thing will be there until based o family history I have very little chance of not being in perimenopause.

There's also the thing where gynecological exams are so hard for me but I manage them through conscious control (and an awesome dr. who chats through it so that I don't notice).  It's very hard to know that these procedures are going to happen while I am unconscious and defenseless.  Nobody is going to hurt me, but it's still scary.

And after being stuck in traffic until very late and not being able to take meds as a result and then knowing I must be up about 4;30 to finish paperwork I think i better stop typing and start trying to sleep.

Here goes

Off into another week where anxiety is my major reason for being awake, where I hurt, and where I am so extremely tired that I wonder how I'll get to Friday.   And  that's before I go to see Dr. Mind tonight after work and don't get home until 10.  I need to do that, hopefully he can help with the anxiety, but ugh, long, long day especially since I have to leave for work at 6:45 tomorrow morning.

Yet 2 weeks from today when I go for the last time I think we can be sure I'll not be liking that either.

I have become a very grouchy person with a very boring blog.  I am very sorry.