Lions, tigers, and bears, OH MY! May 16, 2009
Posted by Keiran in : Heart, Imported Posts, Knee, Medical, Teeth, Vacation , add a commentI know, I know, I’m a bad girl. I haven’t been using LJ much lately. It gets all my twitter entries, but that’s about it. I have a desire to write.. but then I get frustrated and never do. Feel free to smack me, throw things at me, whatever you deem necessary. 
Let’s see. What’s been up in my world? Lots of doctor’s appointments, mostly. Literally at least 1 a week, since the first full week of April. Ten (11, but really 10 “real” appointments) doctor/dentist visits total … so far. I still have more to come before May ends! Some were pre-planned/good visits. Like my 3 appointments to get the Supartz injections in my knees. One was a total waste of time – the gyn appt I already detailed here (password protected). Four of them were with my heart doctor, as was the “extra” appointment I mentioned. The remaining two appointments were with the dentist – one a pre-planned cleaning, the other an emergency appointment. Upcoming appointments include follow-ups with the knee doctor and the dentist.
The knee appointments weren’t too bad. Three weeks in a row of going in to get an injection in both knees. The shots can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to cause noticable improvement, so I’m not expecting much yet. Right now, my knees aren’t causing much pain, but they are pretty crackly. The left one especially likes to go snap, crackle, and pop on me. They also feel unsteady, like they could just bend backwards at any moment. I’m hoping this passes pretty quickly, and the injections start to take effect.
The heart doctor – well, as I’ve mentioned before, I have extra heart beats. Due to being unemployed at the time, I wasn’t able to have my annual heart ultrasound done last year. I called up and made an appointment to have the ultrasound – even specifically stated I needed an ultrasound. I go for my appointment to find out that it’s only an office visit. Grr. The doctor decided he wanted me to wear a holter monitor again, to see how my PVCs were doing. So I had to go back a week later to have my ultrasound done, and to have the holter wires attached. The ultrasound looked good – the “mild leakiness” of my mitral valve from my first ultrasound 2 years ago has decreased – it’s only “trace” leakage now. That’s a good thing. The heart walls are slightly thick – mine are at a 1.0, and .9 is typically the high-end of thickness for women. But, that thickness hadn’t changed at all in the last two years, so that’s also a good thing. After my ultrasound, I had the holter attached, and had to endure 24 hours of unbelievable itchiness from those danged adhesive pads. Thankfully, nothing incredibly insane happened this time while I was wearing the monitor! My “extra” appointment was the next day – I just had to drive up to the doctor’s office the next day during lunch to have the wires removed and turn in the holter monitor.
A week later I had to go in to get the results of my holter – this time around I had @ 17,000 extra heart beats. (The first time I had the holter, it was over 14,601 extra beats.) He gave me another type of medication, since the only thing the first one did was make me fall asleep. I was on that medication for @ two weeks, until I had my follow-up appointment on last Thursday. I started w/1 week on a half dosage, and then 1 week on the prescribed dosage. After a week, I was supposed to double that again. (And keep doing that a few times, till I was taking about 4x the dosage on the bottle.) This medication doesn’t make me drowsy, but it does make me incredibly dizzy. Dizzy enough that I was starting to be afraid of driving. I mentioned this to him, multiple times during the appointment, but he wants me to just stay on the meds, and try to increase the dosage again. As dizzy as I’ve been, I don’t see this working out well. It was only a minor dizzy on the half dose, but was pretty nasty on the full dose, more vertigo than just disequilibrium. The doctor seemed to dismiss that the dizziness was related to the meds, even though it states right on the prescription bottle “may cause dizziness”. I do have Ménière’s disease, though, so there IS the tiny possibility of it being a very highly coincidentally timed Ménière’s attack. I doubt it, though, since I don’t have any of the other symptoms I typically get during an attack. But, to be sure, I’ve decided to stop the medication for now, and let it work it’s way completely out of my system. Once the dizzy spells have ceased, I’ll make attempt #2 at taking the meds. If I end up dizzy all over again, then it is definitely related to the meds and we’ll have to try a different med, again. I go back to see him in 3 months to follow up on how I’m doing with the meds.
As I stated before, the last 2 appointments were with the dentist. The first one was just my 6-month cleaning, so it was no biggie. I also knew it would set up more appointments, but that didn’t happen at the time. On May 2nd, while eating lunch, I took a bite of my Subway sandwich, and the top left cuspid flared with pain. But, the sandwich was extremely cold, and it felt like more than just the one tooth hurt – so I dismissed it as biting into an almost icy cold chunk of meat. That happened once more while I ate, and that was it. No more pain … for a few days. At work on the 5th, I was snacking on some honey nut Cheerios. I bit down on one, and BOOM! Intense pain flared in that tooth again. While Cheerios are crunchy, they aren’t particularily hard, so I knew it was the tooth starting to act up. But it only hurt that once, for just a few minutes. I figured it’d be okay, and I could call the dentist later in the week or something. Wrong. After work, mom & I had pizza for dinner. I took my first bite, and intense pain blossomed in my mouth. The kind of pain that literally has you howling – loudly. After the pain settled, I attempted a second bite (just to test it) and ended up screaming loudly in pain again. I tried to take it, and attempted to eat without using that side of my mouth, but it didn’t work well at all.
After leaving a voicemail for my dentist, I ended up running off to Walmart to get some severe pain Orajel. Mom went with me, and found this stuff called Temparin to use as well. (I have holes in both of my upper cuspids, so we figured if I could fill it, I could maybe be in less pain until I could get into the dentist.) It hurt like Hades to put the Temparin in because the tooth was so freaking sensitive to any kind of pressure, but once it was in, and combined with the Orajel (and a hydracodone ma gave me), I was able to get the pain under control to where I was even able to eat and drink. The next morning, after the hydracodone wore off, the pain was barely controlled with the Orajel. Lucky for me, though, my dentist was able to get me in before lunch time. Two hours and a root canal later, I was back to work. The tooth had become abscessed, hence all the extreme pain. They didn’t do a 100% complete root canal – after drilling out the diseased part of the tooth and injecting it with meds, they decided to leave it open, and they will seal it when I come back in to get the crown. That way, if the infection doesn’t go away, they don’t have to do a lot more work to get in and work on it. So, I have my temporary crown for now, and go back in another 2 weeks to get the permanent one. I’m going to schedule the appointment for my other cuspid then — I don’t want to risk that getting to the same super pain point before I have the needed root canal on it, too.
So, yes. As I said, that’s pretty much been my life the last month & half – doctors and dentists, oh my!
Protected: why do some doctors have to be so impossible? April 12, 2009
Posted by Keiran in : Female Issues, Imported Posts, Knee, Medical, Rants , Enter your password to view comments.March: In like a lion … March 2, 2009
Posted by Keiran in : Birthday, Imported Posts, Knee, Medical, Pain, Pets, Ramblings, Vacation , add a commentOn Friday, I went to work 30 minutes early specifically so I could leave 30 minutes early. My best friend, Emily, was coming to visit! Her flight landed at 4:24, so I needed to leave early to be sure I made it to the airport in time. Hee.
From the airport, we headed over to one of my favorite bbq joints. (Well, kinda. 99% of the chain is in East Texas. There is 1 location in Arlington. And while it’s still delicious… it’s just not quite as good as the locations further east. ) So, we headed down there, and get in line … only to discover they are completely out of brisket. Now, they still had ribs and turkey… but. No. We were in the mood for yummy bbq sandwiches. Which require beef! So, sadly we left (as did a few other people in line) and went to find our dinner somewhere else. After eating, it was time for home to watch some videos and goof off.
Saturday morning, we hit the road traveling all over the Dallas area to do some serious power shopping. I got a couple of cute tops, but Emily’s the one who really hit the jackpot at the stores. After a brief stop at home (watching more vids), it was off to dinner. We split a green apple frozen margarita, and ended up wandering around Target later, giggling like crazy.
Sunday started out good. It was Emily’s birthday (YAY!) and after lunch with mom, we did even more shopping! We also drove around downtown Dallas, taking in the sights. After watching a few more vids in the afternoon, we decided it was time to head out for dinner. We decided on having dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, then we’d head over to The Melting Pot to have chocolate fondue for dessert.
Going out for dinner is when the day took a painful turn. We get to CPK, find all the outside parking is taken, so we head on to the nearby parking garage. Getting into CPK from the garage was interesting. We went down some back hall, and ended up entering via some back, upstairs entrance. We were very confused, but we finally figured out how to get downstairs (via a very tall staircase, which I descended without incident!) and then we were headed to the front of the store, to the front desk so we could be seated. I was moving at a pretty good clip (at least, pretty darn fast when it comes to me and my arthritic knees!) and then suddenly… I went down. There was a small, 2 step staircase that I didn’t see. So I took a step which turned into a big tumble. I twisted my left ankle as I went down, as well as wrenching my left shoulder and both knees. I think I scared the family sitting right at the foot of the stairs.
Of course, the manager and a couple of staff were all there in a heartbeat to make sure I was okay. Because of a mid-fall decision I made that involved me twisting around (and probably hurt my knee more), I ended up landing on the top step, instead of sprawled out on the ground at the foot of the stairs. After sitting for a minute, I used the handrail to pull myself to my feet, and hobbled to a chair the manager had pulled up for me. After sitting there for a couple of minutes, we got a table, and the manager came back a few times to check on me, as well as get my name, address, etc. (I find it very intriguing that, although she took my personal info, she never had me sign a waiver or write out what happened. I mean, I have no plans to try to sue them or anything, but she REALLY should’ve had me sign a waiver of some sort to protect the restaurant. Just because I’m not the kind of person to sue, doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t if it’d happened to them.) My ankle was sore through out dinner, but I’ve injured myself enough times to guess that the ankle injury probably wouldn’t be very severe. After we were done eating, the waiter brought our bill. As I put in my card, I checked the total so I could start figuring the tip – and was surprised that the total was a lot less than it should be. The manager had comped my dinner because of my fall. (And yes, I did tip on the total pre-comp.) While he was running my card, the manager stopped by again, to let me know she’d comped the meal because of my fall, and she also said that they weren’t allowed to put up a “Watch Your Step” sign there, even though they’d wanted to. I’m not sure why they can’t, but trust me – I would’ve appreciated the sign!
I/we decided that I wasn’t going to allow my injuries to ruin the evening, so we still headed out for fondue! Hee. It was absolutely delicious. I think I could’ve OD’d on chocolate if there’d been more. We had some … interesting women sitting at the table behind us. They had a lot of discussion about their boobs, and they actually had a stop watched and timed each other’s trips to the ladies room. Ummmm… WTF? They were also incredibly rude and kept talking about their urine and boobs the entire time the waiter was at their table, explaining the oils and cook times and etc for their entrees. I was mortified on his behalf! Haha. Once we were done with dessert, we headed back home (after a stop at the grocery store for ACE bandages) and iced and wrapped my ankle. It had swelled a small bit, but was mostly okay.
All in all, I think we had a lot of fun that evening — injuries excluded. Hee.
Today, we got up and I quickly learned that although my ankle was 95% okay, my knees were an entirely different story. They are both feeling incredibly weak and shaky as I walk, and are very sore. Getting up out of a chair – or sliding to my feet off the bed – is not an easy feat. I have to psych myself up for before I can push myself up and my knees scream in protest as I stand. It also doesn’t help anything that my left shoulder is sore – it makes pushing up out of the chair difficult. We had more shopping to do, though, so I managed to get myself up and going so we could hit Target and then somewhere for lunch. We also took some time (at both ends of our excursion) to stop and feed the ducks at Cottonwood park. There were some absolutely adorable baby ducks that I have to admit – most of my food went to. They were just too cute!!!
We came back home, and Emily had to pack to get ready to head back home. 
I didn’t want her to leave, she definitely wasn’t here long enough this trip. But I don’t think her cat or her work would like it too much if I kept her, so I had to let her go. I managed to hobble into the airport with her, sat while while she checked in, then stood nearby and watched her go through security until I couldn’t see her anymore.
I was roughly 10 minutes from home when I got a phone call from mom. One of the cats, Gypsy, had managed to swallow a threaded needle. Gypsy is an overweight kitty, but she’s been losing a lot of weight over the last 6 months. She’s still too heavy, but she’s down somewhere between 10-15 lbs. As a result, Gypsy is figuring out that she can now jump onto counters again! Mom had been doing some mending, and left the needle on a desk. Gypsy jumped up and decided she wanted the thread for a snack … not knowing there was a sharp pointy thing at the end! As soon as I got home, mom was loading Gypsy up into the cat carrier, and we took her up to the animal hospital. Thankfully – the needle had lodged itself into the roof of her mouth and her cheek. I say thankfully because, even though this was a painful thing, it could have been much, much worse. Since it was embedded in her mouth, the vet was able to just sedate her and remove it. If it had gone further down her throat, or into her stomach, we would’ve been looking at surgery to get it removed. It cost almost $250 just to get it pulled out of her mouth – I can’t imagine how much it would’ve been if she’d needed surgery! We probably could have attempted to remove it ourselves, but I was worried that it might make things worse, or cause too much bleeding or something, and figured we’d be better off letting a professional handle it.
And, as bad of a kitty-parent this is of me to say, I have to admit that I’m glad that it was Gypsy who did it, if any of them had to. Windy is 17 years old, and on a slow decline. It might’ve proven too stressful for her if she’d been the one to swallow it, and we might’ve lost her prematurely. And while Mali is the baby of the family, she’s also the most high-strung of them all. She was already highly agitated over having Emily here all weekend, something like this might’ve sent her over the top into extreme panic mode. I would be afraid she’d freak out so badly that she’d make the injury a lot worse. Gypsy is the calmest of the 3 cats, and while she was clearly in pain and unhappy with the situation, she managed to stay pretty quiet during the ride to the hospital and stopped pawing at her mouth once she realized we were attempting to help her. So, while I wish it hadn’t happened at all, I’m glad that it was my calm girl, and that she didn’t freak out and make everything worse than it ended up being. We know that she’s doing okay now — as soon as she was let out of the cat carrier at home, she headed straight for her food bowl to eat! If she feels up to eating, then she’s going to be okay. She’s currently snuggled up with my mom in bed, and was purring happily when I checked on her a little while ago.
I wish I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. I think I jarred my tailbone again in addition to everything else. So, I can’t sit down without my tush hurting. I obviously can’t stand for long. And I have difficulties laying down – I can’t find a comfortable position to lay in, and it hurts to change positions. Ugh. I hope I don’t require doc visits for all this.
So, yes. That was my weekend. I had a lot of fun, in spite of the injuries. I wish Emily hadn’t had to leave, though. It sucks a lot that my best friend lives so far away, and that I only get to see her a couple of times a year. I hope she had a fun birthday down here with me.