Doctors, Doctors and more Doctors (Part 2)

and disappointments and hope and a little bit of serendipity.  Over the last three weeks I have had at least one doctor or physical therapy appointment a day.  It's getting really old, especially on days when I have two appointments.  It's very time consuming.  I've gone into the doctor, told them of the problems I've been having only to be referred to another doctor or given advice, getting my hopes up, trying their suggestions only to have them fail or not work as well as expected.  I was beginning to feel like this floor looks, like I was walking into a prison.

Finally  I found the doctor with the answers, but I didn't like all of the answers.  Amazingly the doctor or actually the doctors assistant was the endocrinologist.  One would have thought the surgeon or the pain doc or the primary care would have the answers first, but such was not the case.  Since I have so many medical problems and they all interact sometimes it is hard to know which doctor to go to; so I end up sitting in many waiting rooms with the most uncomfortable chairs in pain and sick.  Why is it that doctors offices and medical waiting rooms tend to have the most uncomfortable chairs?

Anyway it seems that I had come down on my corticosteroids too fast and it was causing all kinds of my symptoms.  From my hair failing out, withdrawal symptoms (nausea, stomach cramps, chills, headache,etc.), trouble keeping my blood sugars stable, lethargy and whatever else.  It's amazing what having a hormone out of whack will do to me, so many things are affected and I feel so cruddy.  Upping my steroids made me feel better much better and faster than any other suggestions from the other doctors.  There was bad news here though, it seems that the reason that I had so much trouble with the pain is because I no longer make my own endorphins which makes my pain level higher than it would be for most people.  Also in spite of taking 3x the high dose of vitamin D supplements I am still deficient.  Now on to looking up and having hope and the little bit of serendipity.

I am no longer vitamin B-12 deficient and therefore no longer anemic so I no longer have to see the hematologist.  I've met all my goals in physical therapy so I no longer have to go there that gives me an extra hour three times a week in travel time.  I still have to exercise but no more travel.  Progress-Progress

Now for the serendipity- several months ago Tom ran across an article on the Internet on how vitamin D helps the pain of Fibromyalsia,I asked the fribro group about it and some were having good luck with it so I asked the pain doc about it and he said he knew nothing about it but it was safe to try and to let him know how it worked so I tried it and it did help a little.  When i next went into the endocrinologist the assistant saw it on my list of supplements and decided to test me to determine if I was indeed deficient, and I was.  She prescribed a dosage and retested this last time I went in.  The level is up a little but still low, so up goes the dose.  Then I go in for my IVIG and find the library in Fayetteville, which has a different selection of books from the Griffin library; only to find the book "The Vitamin D Solution"  This book seems to have so many answers to so many of my medical problems, I have hope and am excited to find out more.  This book has turned into a real page turner for me.  Wish me luck in being able to implement the ideas in this book and hopefully it will improve my life.  I certainly seem to have been led to it.

Doctors, Doctors and more Doctors

What a beautiful day.  I don't know what it is about this summer but we have had the most gorgeous cloud formations.  There were so many today that I finally had to get out of the car and take some photos.  This is the first time since my surgery that I have done that.  I pulled over to the side of the road several times to take pictures of things that I found interesting but mostly I just took the pics from inside the car.  Another step in the right direction for getting back to normal.  Today was a little cooler, in the lower 90's,which while still hot is still cooler than it has been.  The heat has been a real deterant to getting out but this week I have had so many doctors appointments and when I add physical therapy to it most of this week I have had to make two trips out per day.

Foot doctor- had to have sore on my heel checked, I had developed a bedsore while in the hospital, which turned black and needed to be treated.  It is now almost healed and the doctor trusted Tom and I to finish up the process or return if need be.

Infectious disease- this is the doctor who controls the IVIG and last week I looked so bad the nurse was a little hesitant to give me my dose.  They took all kinds of blood tests and I needed to see the doctor for the results.  All the tests came back just fine and the doctor now agrees with the pain doctor that my problems are from withdrawal and the surgery having been a little hard on me.

Pain doctor- This doctor decided that I needed to slow down on coming off the pain meds, take them on a regular basis, not worry about taking it as needed just take it, this is going to slow down coming off the meds, but hopefully it will help me not be so miserable.  Of course this means it could take months to come of these particular pain killers.  All medicines should be given on a risk vs benefits basis because there is no such thing as a medicine without side effects or at least potential ones.  I would never have wanted to go through surgery recuperation without the pain killers but the upset painful insides, chills, lethargy and occasional headache from the withdrawal has been the pits.

Tomorrow I see my primary care just for a check up, but I've developed a couple of cysts that need to be checked. Maybe he'll have some ideas on how to get rid of this constant nausea, any suggestions for my friends out there would be appreciated, too.

On top of that I go to physical therapy 3 times a weeks.  It's kind of exhausting me.  I'm still rebuilding my strength and sitting with my knee at a 90* angle makes my knee hurt worse than any thing else and I'm doing a lot of that between driving and sitting in the doctor's offices.  Not fun.

However on the way to Wal-Mart from one of the doctors I noticed a building that I see all the time and pulled over and just started taking photos from different angle and distances and I noticed what wonderful graphic quality the building and windows had.  When I got home I just had to edit it to see what I could get from my photos.  I edited this complete with taking out power lines.  Taking out power lines that goes sideways across bricks is not easy, but I got a lot of practice cuz it went all the way across the photo, but I was quite pleased with the results even if the were not perfect.  I really like the graphic effect of the bricks with the windows. The open ones and the broken ones.

ENJOY and have a good night

Johnina  :^A

The clouds are the stars #3

What a long hard tiring day.  Spent most of it in doctors offices, first the orthopedist, then the pain doctor and most of the rest of the time talking to doctors offices making appointments.  I really don't like days like this that just serve to remind me of my illnesses.  This one was worst then normal, after I fell the orthopedist waited several weeks before doing a MRI so that just in case the injuries were relatively minor we wouldn't be doing an unnecessary test (good doctor) and maybe they would heal on their  own.  No such luck I had the MRI last week and took it to him to look at today.  He came in and said yes I did tear the cartilage in my knee, however the arthritis in my knee looked worse than he expected. He took x-rays of my knee with me standing up and when he brought them into the room and put them up on the light box he inhaled deeply and said "Oh, my...(sigh)".  I knew I was in trouble than.  He said the only thing to do was a total knee replacement if I wanted any pain relief and wanted to continue walking. So we scheduled surgery and it had to be in a hurry because the insurance company and the hospital are having a contract dispute and after July 1 Spalding Regional may not be on our insurance list and with Obama care I'm in real doubt as to which way this is going to go and so are the doctors.  So probably June 22 is going to be the day. Anyway I did some editing for distraction and fun and a little denial.  All three of the long skinny photos started out the same but where edited differently.  I probably could have done a lot more and had more fun but I'm tired and I didn't even open my computer till after 7 and I am more than ready to go to sleep.  I am glad I did the blog; it did give me a distraction then a time to vent before  I went to sleep.  I hope you all enjoy the cloud pictures for the day.  I hope I'm giving you enough variety for the theme that I suggested for the week so you don't get bored.  if you do just leave it in the comments, promise you won't hurt my feelings.

Johnina

Honest and forthright doctors

With many years of dealing with many different doctors I have found that honest and forthright doctors has always been a blessing. I may not like what they have to say at the time, but I always need to hear what they have to say. Sometimes they knock me off my island ofcomplacency and denial and that does not feel good. Getting dunked into the cold water and again realizing I'm on an island can be quite a shocker. That's what happened to me today. I went to the third doctor about the swelling in my ankles and legs. The first saw it and diagnosed it. The second doctor, my primary care doctor confirmed the diagnosis. Both told me to keep my feet elevated, and wear compression hose and I would probably be fine. Well I knew that keeping my feet elevated would cut into my computer time and I certainly was not looking forward to wearing compression stockings, but the consequences were to great. As a diabetic I already had poor circulation which was contributing to my neuropathy and eventually could lead to amputation (not a pleasant thought). Having the small veins in my legs deteriorating was adding to this possibility. Well today I went to the foot doctor because my efforts were not working well. Now this is were the honest and forthright comes in; he told me that the reality of the situation was the compression socks were very difficult to put on and most people who had them gave up wearing them because of the difficulty. Since I have neuropathy in my hands and have had past surgeries in my hands putting the stocking on would be impossible and he went out to show me what they were like. Okay so in honesty that option was out. Then he told me that I needed to keep my feet raised above my heart level for at least an hour at least 4 times a day. Well that was a little longer than I expected; a little more than try to keep your feet up. He also wants me to avoid sitting at a desk for any length of time. Okay, okay that really cuts down on editing and being on a site or writing a blog. Tom is currently looking to see what we can do about a laptop for me.
On top of that I keep spraining my ankle because I have permanently stretched out tendons. I can't have surgery because of my health and I can't wear a brace because of the poor circulation and swelling. That certainly cuts down on my forays to take photographs. Unless I am on a completely flat surface, I can feel my ankles shift while I walk. I have already started to work on that problem; I'm learning to take pictures from the inside of the car or on streets and sidewalks. All the pictures that I have posted tonight was taken one of those ways and for the most part they came out. I'm glad I have a telephoto lens. A lot of the shaking I've had problems with has come from the car shaking. I did some art edits with some of the picture since they were just for fun so I had some fun with them.
I've cried some (well quite a bit) from the reality check but thanks to the family grapevine I was able to talk to Sarah, my eldest daughter, for quite awhile and get some good advice and felt much better afterward. She grew up pretty smart and I'm thankful for all my family. Our grapevine works well and Emily, my youngest daughter called too and wanted to know if I wanted to talk. Pretty nice family, huh.
All in all I will survive and I will develop more coping skills so I can go back to enjoying my life again.