WELL, THAT SUCKED!

 Let me preface what I'm about to say with I'm sorry if this sounds like whining. That is not my intention at all. I just want to write about an experience I had over the weekend that freaked me out a bit so that I can hopefully stop thinking about it!  It's more of a therapeutic writing down of things, if you will. It's harshing my chill.

Over the weekend, Steve was gone to visit some family. I was alone, which I have never minded being. These days, especially with, (*gestures widely at the world*) all of this that's going on, I rarely get time by myself and it's nice to do my own dos and think my own thinks. No offense to Steve, but, yeah.

So Friday was fine. Friday was great. Friday was all the things that a Friday should be and more. I stayed up fairly late so Friday wouldn't be over so fast, you know how those things go. So when I finally went to sleep, I was 100% fine. That is important to know.

I woke up exactly two hours later in a blind, complete, irrational panic. You know that feeling you get when someone jumps out at you and you scream and jump back? Imagine that, but that feeling doesn't stop. I sat up in bed, mostly asleep, and every fiber in my body is on edge telling me that something was very, very wrong. It felt like electricity was running through my body and my first clear thought was that I couldn't breathe. I sat on the edge of the bed gasping and clawing at my throat, only to only finally realize that I was breathing just fine. That didn't help, though, so I ran through the house to the bathroom and threw some cold water on myself (because that sometimes works to shock me out of an anxiety attack) but it just made it all worse. I managed to grab one of my anti-anxiety pills out of the cabinet and tossed it back, but I knew that it would take about 1/2 an hour before it would take effect.

I ran back and got into bed, with waves and waves of panic running through me. I lay there and tried to rationally figure out what was wrong, which is another thing that sometimes helps pull me out of an attack, but my brain wouldn't cooperate. I kept thinking "I'm here alone and something is wrong. I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do!" Every one of my muscles were locked up and I was shaking. It was awful. I thought about calling my mom, but I knew she would be afraid because I couldn't tell her what exactly was going on, and if she decided to drive across town (which she absolutely would) she might not be careful. I finally called Steve, even though he was hours away, because what I mainly needed was someone to talk to to keep me from feeling so alone. I hated to do it, because I knew he'd be asleep and he might get mad, but thankfully he didn't. I lay there in bed, shaking, talking to him, trying to explain what was going on, but finally just talking about anything while trying to unlock my brain from whatever was going on. He talked me into taking another of the pills, which I did - chewing it up this time to make it work faster - and after about 15 minutes, I calmed down enough to get off of the phone. It was terrifying, and I have no idea what the trigger was that caused it.  I've had one anxiety attack similar to it before, years ago, and I wound up in an emergency room because the doctor thought I was having a heart attack. This one was arguably worse. I finally managed to fall asleep again after about an hour when the meds kicked in.

I ended up sleeping until after noon, because the medicine does that to me. When I woke up, I felt like I'd been in some kind of accident. I hurt all over, and I still had remnants of the shakes. I couldn't eat, I couldn't work on the graphics stuff I needed to do, and I couldn't even take a shower. I sat in my chair and watched mindless TV until I could function like a human being again. My mom called and I told her what had happened, and I was right not to call her, I think. She would have come right away, but not in a good frame of mind. She invited me to come and stay with them, but I told her no. I had to be at church the next day, and I didn't want to admit I was too shaky to drive. I ended up taking another anti anxiety pill and calming down enough to eat and get out of the chair for a while, but I was completely drained. I was ok after that, but I made sure to have my medicine in the bedroom with me and a phone in my hand when I went to sleep, in case it happened again. Thankfully, it didn't.

Hand to God, I don't know what triggered such an awful attack. I don't sleep much anyway, so it wasn't going to bed late. I was in a great frame of mind when I was falling asleep, and I don't remember any nightmares. The main thing I remember when waking up was that something just felt wrong. Once I realized I could breathe, my main issue was that I was afraid that I'd have to call someone to come and help me, and I kept thinking "I don't want to go to the hospital again, I don't want to go to the hospital again."  I don't know why I kept thinking that, because I couldn't pinpoint anything that would make me have to go to the hospital. It was very, very weird.  Thankfully by Sunday morning, I felt more myself. I made it to church and was ok by the time Steve came home.  I still don't know what happened.

I do have one theory, and it may be very stupid, but it's the only one I have.

As I have mentioned before, I have degenerative disk disease and that causes constant, relentless back pain. It isn't debilitating, thankfully, but it keeps me from doing a lot of physical activities because one wrong move and my arms go numb and my spine sends signals to my shoulder and rib cage telling me that I could be dying. I already have a phobia of sudden heart attacks because that is how my dad died and apparently I was traumatized by that, so when my arms go numb and my chest hurts, well, that's just where my brain goes. It sucks donkey balls, because even when I can rationally think "that is not how a heart attack works" the lizard part of my brain says "Well, yeah, but what if you're wrong this time?" Also, the nerve shocks that I get through my back feel exactly the same as when I get startled. You know that creepy feeling like someone is looking at you from behind? It's like that, so I have a constant feeling of being stalked, which just adds on to the scary feeling. I think maybe I slept weird and pinched a nerve that set off a bunch of pain that my body didn't know how to handle all at once. I put an ice pack on my back, and it helped me calm down, so maybe it's all just nerve impulses that are triggering a fear response. It's all very stupid, I can say that with authority.

Oh, but the best part? Since then, it's like I have PTSD and anytime I've been alone (which even goes to being alone in a room) I start having mini panic attacks. I had a panic attack so massive that being by myself now scares me. It's so much fun. I can't live like that, though, because Steve has to travel for work and I sometimes have to be in room by myself, and I am a grown ass woman who shouldn't have to have a babysitter. I can't be afraid all of the time. That is not how I want to live my life.

SIGH. I'm hoping this goes away very soon, because I have a life to live and fun stuff to do in it. If there is one part of this that I can appreciate, it's that I am trying to fight against it instead of submitting to it. I cannot stress enough about how stupid I feel this all is. It makes me MAD. I hope I can get the source of whatever is causing this corrected.

So (for those of you still here reading this) I'm asking you to pray or send good vibes, or whatever you might do, that I can get this weird situation under control. I don't have time for this!!

AN UPDATE

I didn't expect to get any answers from my medical tests today, but thankfully they didn't let me leave until they talked to me about what they found. 

Everything is OK.  When they told me that, I almost cried. 

I can't tell you the absolute, pants wetting fear that I've lived through these past weeks. That probably sounds like a bit of an exaggeration, but it is not.  Every moment my brain wasn't fully engaged elsewhere (and sometimes when it was) little thoughts would creep in that would scare me to death.  Not really understanding much about what I might be facing, all I had was worst case scenario ideas to think of.

OK, so what happened is that I found a lump in my breast.  It was sizable and completely new, and I had no idea what kind of thing it could be.  I was going to ignore it and hope it would go away, but that seemed kind of stupid and dangerous of a thing to do. I'd had people in my family with breast cancer and to NOT get checked out felt fairly irresponsible.  So I went to see a guy (I got a boob guy) hoping he could tell me it was nothing to worry about, but he couldn't tell what it was either.  He said he was "pretty sure" it wasn't anything serious, but there were just a few things that kept him from being completely sure, so he sent me to have diagnostic tests done.  Today I was scanned and ultrasounded, prodded and poked, and thankfully what they found couldn't be classified as cancerous. 

I have been so afraid, you guys. Seriously. I'd been practicing how I'd have to tell people I was sick, and wondering how bad it might get if I was. I was considering what kind of plans I'd have to make and Steve and I had many talks about how we'd handle it if it turned out to be cancer. I know that seems extreme, but when you are potentially staring that in the face, it's not easy to be 100% cool about everything. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me.

So thank you for sending me your good vibes and your prayers, and the positive juju magumbo.

My boobs live to fight another day. :)

I AM SCHRODINGER'S CAT

You know, I wasn't going to write about this.  I told myself that it would be better if I just waited to see how things turned out first, because I might not have to write anything at all, you know?  That talking about something personal, even on my own blog, might make people kind of uncomfortable.  I mean, I know that the majority of the people who read this are my friends, but still, why talk about anything before I know, right?

However, my current anxiety levels are about as maxed out as possible in my current medicated state, so I'm going to throw this out into the universe because I need to.  I'm going to be purposefully vague.  Not because I want people to guess or ask questions, but because I haven't gotten to the point where I can comfortably talk about it straightforwardly, even in theory.

Last week I became aware of a possible heath situation. I say possible, because what I noticed could be nothing.  It could also be a Bad Thing, maybe even a Really Bad Thing, and of course when faced with a potential Really Bad Thing, it's hard not to worry about it.  I was hoping it would go away, but it didn't, so I had to make an appointment with a specialist to see what is up.  They couldn't see me until this afternoon, so I've been a little freaked out for about a week now.  I've tried not to think about it, and to do stuff to take my mind off of it, but it's not an easy thing to do all the time.

See, if the Thing is nothing (and there are many types of nothing it can be) then I'm good.  If it's a Bad Thing, even just a little Bad Thing, then all kinds of things will go to hell. I would be sick. Not just sick, but Sick. I've pretty much gone through the scenario in my head already, and so many things would change and I'm not on board with that. At all. My biggest fear is that people would be uncomfortable and wouldn't know how to talk to me and I'd be avoided right when I needed them the most, or that they'd start seeing me as a "Sick Person" instead of just seeing me as me. I'm aware that real friends don't do those kinds of things, but it is a fear I have, OK?! 

I know that I should be positive and believe that until I know for sure what is going on I shouldn't worry.  I know that.  However, right now it feels too uncertain.  I very much don't want to be sick.  I am scared.

Maybe it really will turn out to be nothing and all of this worrying is supremely silly and all of you can point and laugh and thing "Wow, she sure gets worked up about nothing, doesn't she?." I certainly hope so.  I'll let you know one way or the other.

So, if you have a minute today, could you please put some good vibes out there for me?  I would appreciate it.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) So, I have a new update on my brother! 

He was moved to a bigger, more well equipped hospital in Huntsville to get treatment, and so far he's doing better than he was. That's good news and we'll take that!  When I wrote before, he was very sick and weak from not being able to eat, but in the new hospital they have given him a feeding tube (?) which has helped him a lot.  He's still not doing great, but he's much more stable and a little bit stronger, or at least he seems to be.  I have gone to see him a couple of times and he seems to be in a better mood, but of course, if you know my brother, he's usually in a good mood. 

He will have to have another, fairly complex, surgery this Friday morning, and as long as he pulls through that with few complications, the doctor seems convinced that he will get back to the way he was before he got so sick, which would be a huge improvement.  Once again, keep some good vibes out there for him and my mom, who has been by his side this whole time.  She is a superwoman for sure!  I'm sure everyone would just like to go home and be able to get some normalcy back in their lives.

Thanks to everyone who's checked up on them and sent hugs!

2) Last Friday I had a bit of minor surgery, myself. I hate to even call it surgery, because it took all of two hours from start to me being back home, but it did involve actually going to the hospital and being sedated and all of that.  It was nothing serious, just one of those things that I knew I needed to do, and then kept putting it off until I just bit the bullet to get it over with. It's been a looong while since I've had anything more serious than a root canal, so a lot has changed since I was in the hospital last. 

First thing they did was tell me to take off all of my clothes and put on thigh high stockings.  Heh...yeah, I've head that before! It was like college all over again! :)  Actually, along with my blood-clot-fighting stockings, they also gave me some sexy, barf-colored non-skid socks, and a hospital gown that afforded me zero dignity.  Being a hospital patient is decidedly non-glamorous, no matter what ER and Grey's Anatomy might say to the contrary!  Everything seemed to go really quickly once my IV was in place, and then some very lovely gentleman gave me a shot that made me not care about anyone or anything, and they took me into the OR.  I remember saying "WOW, there's a lot of stuff in here!  I didn't think you needed all this kind of stuff!"  Stuff being lights and medical equipment, which in retrospect, makes a lot of sense.

I woke up in recovery, not really sure of what was going on.  I had been fitted with an oxygen mask and remember saying "Oh, good, I like oxygen." after asking why I had it on. They scratched my vocal cord with a breathing tube, and my voice is still a little scratchy from that, but not terribly. I also remember singing a little and then bursting out crying for no good reason, but I think it was just a reaction to everything.  The very sweet nurse talked me through it, so there's no telling what I said to her.  I probably confessed many private sins to that nurse, who now has to live with the terrible knowledge. I have no idea how long that went on, but it seems like in a flash I was back in one of the recovery rooms with Steve getting redressed and wheeled out to the car.  I wasn't completely lucid, though, because there are big chunks of the next couple of days I don't remember, but apparently I survived.  By Sunday night I was almost back to normal and trusted myself enough to send an email.  I still tend to burst out crying from time to time (stuff like, oh, God, I've been abandoned by everyone and every little thing sets me off so don't hurt my feelings, yo) but it is getting much better.  You'll also be happy to know I only had to take 3 of the heavy pain pills, and I behaved myself each time. Mostly. I wanted badly to get out of the house at one point, and so I hobbled into Publix to get some juice.  I had taken one of the pills before we left, and about halfway through our trip I kind of fazed out and found myself giggling and petting a carton of drinks.  I also got into a weird smiling fit, because the more Steve told me not to make "that face," the less control I had over making "that face."  He managed to pay for the juice and get me back home before I did anything embarrassing.  He was a good nurse, all told.  Anyway, I'm healing and hopefully very soon will be back to fighting shape!

3) I'm sure you've been waiting with baited breath about what I ended up naming my car.  I took a poll on Facebook and it was close.  I had an equal number of votes for "Joan Jetta" and "Other" and I had a couple of great suggestions from the "Other" camp.  My cousin Amy's suggestion was perfect.  Now my car has been christened "Brunhilde Farfegnugen" but I'll just call her Brunhilde for short.  I also liked the suggestion "Dave" but the car is clearly female, so what can I do?

So far I like the Volkswagen, with one exception.  When you connect the sound system to Bluetooth and listen to music from the phone, the sound will get louder and softer depending on your speed.  That doesn't happen with the radio, but I've almost deafened myself  when listening to my playlist because when you slow down, the music gets quieter, and not realizing it was a feature, I turned it up to hear what was playing, but then when I started driving again, the sound blasts out at you without any warning.  I hate that and haven't figured out how to disable it.  Don't tell me how loud I can listen to my crappy playlist, Brunhilde!  All in all, though, it's a nice car and I'm glad to finally have something reliable.

Now I get to take all of those road trips I've been talking about!  Imma visit everyone! 

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) My car has been returned, the things that were once broken have now been repaired, and all is right in the universe!  Well, I'm still going to need to get a new car at some point, but at least I have air conditioning again and my "Check Engine" light isn't blinking at me anymore!

As it turns out, the problem with the car started last winter but I didn't know it.  You might remember me talking about how my heater had stopped working last year.  That isn't usually a big deal, but my hands get so cold that it is painful, so those few months were not fun. It never stays cold here for long so I didn't bother having it looked at.  Apparently that was just a symptom of my car's thermostat starting to fail.  The smoke coming out from under the hood was also a symptom of the thermostat not working and the housing being cracked, but it was just more dramatic!  We had to replace the thermostat and we also found out my back brakes were worn through and the front brakes were close to being the same.  So yay, lots of expensive repairs on a car I'm planning to get rid of, but at least I'll be safe for a while longer.  Also, it'll give me more time to save for the new car, so I'm not going to complain about that!

2) I had my holter test done last week, and that was a pain in the butt.  OK, that's not exactly fair.  As far as a test goes, it was fairly straightforward and painless, but having to lug around the holter was both embarrassing and annoying. 

If you are unfamiliar with this kind of test, basically you go into your friendly neighborhood cardiologist's office and a nurse will tell you to lift up your shirt. He/she will proceed to stick five lead connectors on various parts of your chestial and stomachial (those are the scientific terms, BTW) areas and snap on lead wires onto each sticker. 

This is the only one I could show you without adding a "Are You 18 or Older" tag on this entry.

Then you hang the lanyard around your neck and wear a recorder that is roughly the size and shape of a closed flip phone.

 

 Like so.

You can put the holter in your pocket, but you constantly have to worry that you're pressing buttons that ought not to be pressed, so I kept the holter around my neck unless I was going to be going into a place where I didn't want to be stared at, and trust me, people stare at you when you walk into a store looking like a small time suicide bomber.  I ended up skipping Wednesday night choir practice because I didn't want to have to answer questions about it.  That probably sounds rude, because all of the people I know are very well meaning and concerned, but I just wasn't in the mood to talk about it. :)

One of the things you have to do while wearing the holter is keep a diary of times when things feel weird.  Actually, the diary (actually a pamphlet with spaces to write) says to keep an all day dairy, but the nurse told me to only record when my heart felt weird.  I thought I was going to get away without writing anything in it, but I had to make a few entries.  Some were totally explainable, such as when I got startled at work and when I helped to move a mattress out of the house.  There were a couple of times I didn't know what was going on, but my heart would just pound really hard for no reason at all. 

 One thing that I thought was funny about the little pamphlet was the "Activity" part of the directions:

Look, I'm all about gettin' while the gettin' is good, if you know what I mean, but I can't imagine anyone who might be wearing one of these electronic heart octopuses feeling sexy enough to get up to shenanigans.  Maybe that's just me, though.  Good on anyone who feels differently, but that made me laugh!  

I had to wear the holter for 24 hours, and I couldn't take a shower while I was wearing it, so I had to wait until the 24 hours were up before I could unhook myself and take the thing back to the doctor.  Medical grade adhesive is no joke, either.  I had to pull the leads off, and now, almost a week later, I still have sticker hickeys on my body!  I'm just glad it is over, and I hope they don't find anything!  I'm tired of doctor stuff.  I don't want to go back for anything more than a cold or a checkup for a while, if you don't mind.

3)  Speaking of mattresses (which I did. Go back up and find the reference) Steve and I finally got a new one!  We've been sleeping on the old, Big Lots mattress for years and years, and as it was cheap, it was never particularly comfortable.  Steve bought a Casper mattress and it was delivered to our house in a fairly small box.  It was stupid heavy, though. I know this because I had to bring it in off of the walkway by myself because it was raining.  Thanks, delivery guy!  When we opened the box, I had the knee-jerk reaction that we had gotten cheated.  It was all rolled up, and looked nothing like a mattress.  In fact, it looked like a rolled up duvet, and I thought I was about to go get indignant with one of the operators who were standing by.  We pulled the roll out of the box and saw that it was wrapped in a Tyvek compression sleeve (Tyvek being the virtually unbreakable pressed fiber material that concert bracelets are made of).  It also came with a letter opener thing to cut the Tyvek sleeve off of the roll.  We struggled with that for a minute or so before the sleeve and plastic came off and the mattress started...weirdly...swelling up.  You've seen those emergency rafts that inflate themselves? It was doing that in slow motion.  Sorry for being crude, but I was so surprised that I yelled "OH MY GOODNESS IT'S GETTING BIGGER!!" which was loud enough for the neighbors, who's driveway and basketball goal is right outside of our bedroom window, to hear.  Oy.

Anyway, it sort of swelled up until it was a real mattress sized thing!  It was weird, but I can deal with weird! :)  It's miles away more comfortable than our old mattress and it stays cooler than our old one.  It's a bit firmer than I'm used to, but I can sleep on it and that is the important thing.  I'm not necessarily saying you should buy one, but you should totally buy one, even if it's just to watch it expand!

4) I accidentally stabbed myself in the stomach with a dull box cutter.  Just a little stab, so nothing major.  I didn't even bleed that much, so except for maybe bruising my pancreas, I'm ok.  I was wrapping a wedding gift and had to cut down a box to make it more size appropriate.  I made a rookie mistake of cutting towards myself and the blade skipped and hit me in the stomach!  I was scared at first, because it hurt, but it wasn't bad.  The really odd thing was that I had on a shirt and a camisole, and somehow neither of them were cut, but my stomach got cut!  I even went back later to make sure I was right about that, and I was.  How does that even happen?

I really do hurt myself a lot, don't I? 

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) For those of your wondering, I have another update about my back!  Aren't you excited!

I believe I mentioned that I was going to have to have an MRI done.  I've had numerous scans done because of my lungs, so I wasn't worried about that bit of it at all.  At least I wasn't worried until they called me back and handed me a booklet that just so happened to mention that people who are claustrophobic might have a problem.  Sigh.  Nice.

I had thought it would be an open MRI, but I was mistaken.  However, I put on my brave pants and decided that since it was only my neck that would be scanned, I'd mostly be outside of the machine and would be able to stand it.  The radiologist gave me a set of big, 1970s DJ earphones and said we would listen to the new Loretta Lynn album and everything would be over in 10 minutes. So I lay down on the cot and the lady got me settled, handed me a panic button, and then she inserted me into the depths of Hell's belly button.

Y'all, it is well established that I am violently claustrophobic. I've gotten claustrophobic is small places and I've gotten claustrophobic in huge places that just happened to be full of people.  The only, and I swear the only, way I'm usually able to handle it is if I can convince myself that I can get out if I have to.  Sometimes I have to literally get up and leave, but mostly as long as I know I CAN leave, I can deal.  When she slid that cot into the MRI machine, I was in there up to my knees. I think I was in there for 14 years, and every second of that time I was in a state of high adrenaline fight or flight mode. I immediately started to panic, but I stayed still because I knew if I freaked out and pressed the panic button, they'd just stuff me back into the machine. I clamped my eyes shut and counted forwards and backwards, tried self hypnosis, and did everything I could to stay calm.  At least 10 times I came within an inch of screaming and clawing my way out of the thing, but I barely managed to stay inside. She finally slid the cot out, and it was only when I tried to stand up that I realized those giant earphones were attached to clamps that basically had my head in a vice.  If I had known that, I really don't think I could have stayed in there.  At least before, I thought I could get out, but if I'd known I was clamped in, I would have probably Hulk-smashed my way out of the thing and gone running off into the night.  After it was over, I shook for a solid hour.  It was terrible.

But the scans turned out to be super awesome.  I saw my spinal cord and medula oblongata, and also saw that my disks are slightly bulging into the spinal cord, which is less awesome, but still, the fact that I can see it is pretty neato. I even got to keep the scans, so when we finally get another chair and can have a friend over, I'mma pull those things out and show them off like vacation slides!

2) So, my blue funk has faded a bit and now it's just sort of a dingy gray, but the funk it still around.  At least now I can make complete sentences and just look at otters on my own.  I don't need to post them here.  I hate feeling like this, but I still can't seem to shake it off.  (Cue Taylor Swift.)  I don't know.  I'm ok sometimes, when I'm distracted or talking to someone, and other times I just sit staring at the wall and feeling sad.  Haha, it sounds weird to type it out like that.  Very emo of me, no? The weirdest part of it is that my music is gone. That has happened twice before, and it came back, but it's really quiet in here when it's gone.

I've mentioned that I don't like to feel feelings anymore. One day, when I don't feel so weird and protective about it, I'll explain why so that you folks will get that it isn't just something I say and you will understand me a bit better. All I know is that I usually have my armor on and it protects me and I can just let it all bounce off. I get dented, of course, but not too badly.  Sometimes, though, something just whacks against me hard enough, my armor falls apart and I open up like a busted can of biscuits and feelings go everywhere. With a bit of perseverance (and duct tape) you can eventually get the biscuits back in the can, but it takes a while and stuff gets messy.  I'm in the process.

Thanks to those of you who were concerned, though. I appreciate it. I'll be fine. I always am!

EDIT: Heh...I'm a busted up can of emotional biscuits.  Emotional Biscuits is going to be the name of my new band. 

3) So, yuck, enough of that.  Look! Puppies!

4) I went to see a movie by myself the other day!  I've done that once, years ago, because I got stood up for a date and figured maybe the whole evening shouldn't be a complete loss.  Steve was working last weekend, so I decided I'd go see 10 Cloverfield Lane because I wanted a excuse to get out of the house.  It wasn't bad.  It was more like an episode of the Twilight Zone, or X-Files than a movie, but it was entertaining.  I've realized I don't mind going to movies alone, but it is better when you have someone to talk to afterwards so that you can pull yourself out of it a bit. That is true, especially when the movie is creepy, and this one was.

At any rate, to date, I have finished an entire tube of Chapstick on my own without losing it, and I went to see a movie alone!  At this point, I might as well run for President because I'm on a roll!

AN UPDATE

A couple of entries ago, I mentioned that I'd hurt myself somehow, probably last year, and had probably pinched a nerve in my back.  It only made sense, seeing at how my arm was going numb and everything was tingling.  Even the DPT I know said it was probably just a twisted disc or something similar, so when I went to my GP and he told me to go see an orthopedic (I think I said an osteopath, but I didn't know the difference) doctor, I figured that I'd be directed to the nearest chiropractor and be popped back into place!  Easy peasy.
Not so much, actually!

Yesterday I had my appointment. I honestly had no idea what was going to happen (I made sure to wear decent underwear just in case) but all they did was take some X-rays of my spine.  It was actually a bit anticlimactic, to be honest, but they took the things and sent me back into the exam room to wait on the doctor.  By this point, I was feeling as though I'd been repeatedly stabbed in my neck with a butter knife, but I had faith that they'd come in and twist me around a bit and fix it all.

The doc came in showed me my x-rays (I have lovely bones, just so you know) and as it turns out, I had not hurt myself and my problem is just a tiny bit more complicated than a pinched nerve.  It took her less than a minute to figure out what was wrong. She pointed out that my cervical vertebrae (which were way, WAY higher up in my body than I had thought) had a problem. Apparently, I have degenerative disc disease, arthritis and bone spurs! All in my neck!  That's kind of an embarrassment of riches.  You'd think stuff like that would get spread around in my body more.  She also pointed out how straight my spine was.  I was a tiny bit flattered until she said that was because my muscles were pretty much in a state of pissed off contractedness, which is a bad thing.  She did tell me, happily, that she didn't think I'd need surgery, but that they'd treat me with anti inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxers, and epidurals.

Haha, no. I know what an epidural is and I don't think I want that unless there is just no other way.

The muscle relaxers were a bit of a letdown, but the anti inflammatory thing works well for a while.  I also get to have another MRI done tonight, but at least this time they don't have to inject me with anything, so SCORE!

So what does all this mean?  Well, it could mean nothing.  The pain can just go away on its own. That would be number one on my wish list!

It can also mean I might have to be on medication forever, which would be OK as long as it helps.

It might also mean I will eventually lose the ability to do fine work with my hands if the nerves that are currently being irritated get damaged, which would be sad, but it would keep all of you from having to pretend to like the stuff I make for you!  Honestly, how much more jewelry and crochet can you really be polite about?

I might also eventually end up in a wheelchair, which would suck, but I'd save so much money on buying new shoes!

In a nutshell, I have a whole spectrum of possibilities!  I'll actually find out more next week when I got back to see the doctor.  Let's hope it's a lot more of the pain going away on its own and a lot less of the wheelchair thing. That's what I'm hoping anyway.

So, you know, finding out all of this was just a cherry on top of one of the best weeks ever for me!  If it gets any better, I'm going to be tempted to fling myself in front of a train out of sheer delight!

I did find a silver lining, though!  If I wind up not being able to use my hands for things, I'm one step closer to that helper monkey I'm always talking about!

I'm going to name him Henry.

YOU CALL HIM DR. JONES, DOLL...

So...Saturday morning I woke up in a great amount of pain.  I won't elaborate too much, because when it comes to pain, elaboration isn't altogether necessary. Let's just say that it was somewhere in between "Wow, this is kind of bad" and "This is appendicitis and I need to go to the hospital."

I thought I could tough it out, honestly, because what are the chances that I'd wake up with appendicitis out of nowhere, really?  I figured that the pain would stop and I'd go about my day.  Only, it didn't stop.  It got a bit more bearable, but it didn't go away.  I think I've mentioned that I'm not the kind of person who goes to the emergency room for just anything (and the fact that I went to a walk-in clinic for what I thought was a heart attack should be proof enough) but this time I decided that I should probably go and get checked out.  I couldn't stand up straight and it felt like I was slowly being stabbed in my right side.  Granted, as the pain had lessened a bit, I knew I wasn't in immediate danger or anything, but if something inside of me is getting ready to explode, I thought it might be best to see about getting ahead of any unpleasantness.  I was determined to take a shower and put on clean clothes before going, so I (quickly) did that and we drove to the hospital.

We were taken back to a room impressively quickly, and I was immediately given an IV and had blood drawn.  Then I was given pain meds and everything got so shiny and bright.  They x-rayed me, gave me a CT scan, and then the doctor came in to talk to me.  The pain had quietened down a bit, so I wasn't in agony, but when the starting pressing down on my side, I felt like a water balloon on the brink of popping.  It was a weird feeling, but it wasn't terrible.  The doctor left us to wait until they could run tests and see what was going on, and that is how we were for several hours.  I kept thinking how embarrassed I was that I was at the hospital and wasn't hurting anymore, but Steve kept reminding me that I'd been given pain meds, so I shouldn't be hurting.

I have this fear, or if not a fear, a concern, that I'm going to end up being the kind of person who goes to the emergency room for absolutely no reason and waste everyone's time.  That is the main reason I always usually go to the walk-in clinic when something's wrong.  I know a lot of nurses, so I don't want to be an unnecessary burden on them in case someone who needs them more comes in.  I kept apologizing on the off chance that there was nothing wrong with me.  I'm sure they were annoyed, but they all assured me that it was better that I came in, just in case.  I just don't want to bother people.  That's pretty much the crux of the matter.

I'll be honest, though, I was expecting to be operated on that day.  Steve and I discussed all of the things that we might need to discuss in the event I needed surgery, my DNR preference, the go ahead to take out anything that needed to be taken out, and if I died, donate everything salvageable.  You know, the normal stuff.  I even gave him the info on how to implement my zombie apocalypse plan in case it happened while I was unconscious (I should have never watched the first episode of The Walking Dead. Also, pain meds are fun.)  We waited and waited, but no one came in to tell us anything.  We noticed that the ER doc who had seen me was Dr. Jones (unfortunately, his first name was not Indiana) and Steve started cracking Indiana Jones jokes that made me laugh, which didn't feel good, but it was good to laugh.  I'm not sure how long we were there, but the nurse came back in to tell me all of my tests were OK and I could leave.  They didn't explain the angry wolverine that had been trying to claw itself out of my abdomen earlier that day, which was disappointing.  I would have liked to know why that was happening.  They gave me  prescriptions for pain and anti-nausea medicine, I apologized again for any inconvenience, and we left.  So, I have no idea what happened to me Saturday morning, but I was pretty much OK by noon. I didn't hurt, but it felt like a balloon slowly inflating inside of me getting bigger and bigger. 

We went to Target to get the medicine, just in case, and I was still kind of high from the pain medicine they'd given me at the hospital. That was fun.  It wasn't too bad, because I think it had mostly worn off, but I know I texted a bit and maybe didn't make a lot of sense. I don't know, really.  Maybe no one else noticed!  I went home and slept a lot.  I didn't take a pain pill because I wasn't hurting, but I took one of the other ones.  Then I ate, which was a big mistake.  I spent the rest of the evening really, very unpleasantly.  I think it could have been a reaction to the medicine I'd taken, but I have no idea.

Sunday I woke up feeling like death on a stick, but I had to go to church and run the sound for the choir's Christmas cantata.  I was the only one who knew how to adjust the music, so I did that.  It wasn't terrible.  I wasn't in the same kind of pain I'd been in the day before, but mainly the "balloon" was still in there.  I decided that I wouldn't go to lunch with Steve and his dad, and instead went home where I slept for several more hours.  I'd even decided I wouldn't go back to church that night, because of the way I was feeling.  The balloon had been replaced by a feeling like I had been punched in the side and was having a pencil driven into me quite slowly, so I decided to take a pain pill.  I don't know what the pills are, but I know they aren't the really powerful ones.  I don't know what they are, but they WORK.  By the time Steve came home, I was not feeling any pain at all.  I also wasn't blinking, and with a bit of persuasion, I probably would have been convinced that I could have flown to church if I'd flapped my arms hard enough.  Apparently, I'm sensitive to this kind of stuff.  I told Steve that I was going to be fine, so he took me to church.

I don't think I have to tell you that I was only in the initial stages of feeling the effects of that pill when we got there.  I was cheerful, and not hurting, but I still wasn't blinking and the lights were so pretty.  I got steadily more "involved" with whatever I had taken as church went on.  I was running the sound and video system, which went OK at first, but the computer decided to switch off in the middle of things, and I slumped to the ground and scrabbled around with wires until I could make it work again. I had no idea what I was doing.  I also decided upgrading the computer to Windows 10 in the middle of service seemed like a great idea, even though I had no idea if our software was compatible.  By the time preaching got started, I was full on stoned.  I don't know how else to explain it.  All I could do is stare at the lights, and I had no idea what the pastor was talking about. I couldn't follow the music and I STILL wasn't blinking.  I got to the point where, had this been tequila instead of pain medicine, I would have had my top off and been sending rude Snapchats to everyone I knew.  I'm not kidding, I actually started thinking about doing just that, but thank the Lord and whatever pharmaceutical company that made my pills, it didn't disable my Jiminy Cricket voice.  That voice kept telling me "No, no, let's not do that, OK? This is neither the time nor the place."  I listened to that voice.

THANK GOD.

Today the balloon is back and it feels like I swallowed some staples, but I can't take anything until I get home because I have to drive.  I hope that I don't have to go back to the hospital.  Maybe not!  So that was my weekend!  Hope yours was as much fun! :)

For the past couple of weeks, I just haven't felt well.  Mentally, I was tense, obsessive over silly things, quick tempered and spacey. Physically, I could go from feeling fine to feeling like garbage.  Mostly I just felt really strange all the way around. You know that feeling you get right before you cry?  I felt like that a lot, only I never cried. In turn, I'd get super hyper, which was strange.  I'd also wake up feeling panicky, I was itchy and my skin felt like it was fizzing. My feelings never really seemed to match my emotions. At times, I literally thought I could be losing my mind. It was scary. I kept trying to tell Steve I thought something was wrong, but I couldn't explain it well enough for him to understand. I probably sounded crazy!

It wasn't until last night that I got an inkling as to what could be the matter.  I have to take a prescription medication to correct a thyroid imbalance. (eff you, HIPAA, this is my blog!)  It isn't even a very serious one, to be honest, but it's just off enough for me to need to take the medicine. I've been on it for a while and I've never had any problems, which is why I didn't put two and two together. I'd finally gotten into a consistent pattern with taking it, because it has specific sort of guidelines.  You can't take it with anything else, you have to take it on an empty stomach and blah, blah, blah.

I'm not sure what triggered it, but apparently I became hyper-sensitive to it and I had no idea, so I just kept taking it!  I was taking medication that screws with all kinds of mental and physical things, and I never once thought that it could be the cause of why I was feeling so weird all the time!  The only thing that finally tipped me off was that I forgot to take it one day and I started feeling a little better. Since I wasn't sure I was right about it, and I didn't want to NOT take medicine I'm supposed to need, I took half of one and within an hour, I started feeling the panicky, fixated, itchy, fizzy feelings I'd had before.  I looked up side effects online, and I had so many of them that I was convinced it had to be that.  I even called the doctor's office (and I never do that with things like this) to make sure I didn't need to eat charcoal, or say a prayer to the moon goddess Diana to keep from dying or something. Luckily, I didn't!  I just have to stop taking it and keep an eye on myself!

I think the worst part of the whole thing, to me anyway, is my behavior while all of this was going on. I was mean to people. I said and did very odd things.  It wasn't constant, of course. I was able to be relatively normal for the most part, but I keep thinking about all of the little strange things I said and did to people and I am embarrassed. I try so hard to be kind and funny and good to people, and I haven't been as successful at that as I would have liked. It bothered me so much I just sat in the back of the church and cried.  Maybe it isn't as bad as I think it was, but maybe it was!  Of course, I'm going to remember the worst parts of it all!

I've been told that I apologize too much, and for weird things, but I am really, really sorry if I did or said anything too weird or hurtful to anyone of you over the past couple of weeks. I hope you guys can still like me a little. I'm actually already feeling better than I was, so maybe I can get back to being myself again soon! I hope so!

VISITING ALL THE DOCTORS!

I'm so tired of going to the doctor.  I mean, I'm glad that there are doctors out there that can basically digitally peel you apart and see what is going on inside of you, and I'm glad that I have access to those doctors, but I feel like I've had more than my fair share of them this year.

I told you about my visit to the Doc-In-the-Box in January because I thought my heart was glitching, and about that visit leading me to the hours long stress test that I had to take to "ease my mind."  Well, just the other day I had a regular visit with my GP.  Just routine stuff, but I had to have blood work and a chest X-Ray beforehand as part of it.  Two days before my appointment, the doctor's office told me they saw some shadowing on my X-Ray and that I needed to go and have a CT scan of my chest.  This probably would have scared me if they'd told me they found a spot, or a lesion, or a ferret on it, but shadows can be caused by almost anything, including leaning too close to the machine-thing.  So I go to have the CT scan, which was a lesson in patience, because you have to wait SO FREAKING LONG before you get to go back there.  I was given an IV (which thankfully didn't squirt my blood across the room this time) and injected with what felt like hot coffee, but what was (I was assured) contrast dye.  That part was really weird because they told me the dye would feel hot in my veins, and then make me feel like I'd just wet my pants.  They were NOT lying about that.  It also made my liver feel like I'd swallowed some lit birthday candles.  Then I was passed in and out of a scanning doughnut, which spoke to me in a creepy robotic voice "Breathe In. Hold Your Breath. Exhale."  I kid you not, it was like the weirdest Disney ride you could ever imagine.

So that was over, and I was fine with it.  Certainly it would ease the doctor's mind about any lung shadows he may see.  I'd had pneumonia after all, so I was sure that's all that it was.  The same thing happened to Steve a year or two ago, and they'd had him convinced it was inoperable lung cancer, but thankfully it was just because he'd had scars from an earlier bout with pneumonia (which he'd never been treated for because he's stubborn and likes coughing a whole lot.)  So, at my actual appointment I was told everything was fine. Blood work was fine and my CT scan just said I had a nodule (just like Steve) from my case of pneumonia.  He even showed me the report that said it was a lung nodule with a very low chance of being anything scary.  I'm paraphrasing, of course.  All he said was that I have to lose weight, of course, but when do I not?  The only other complaint I had was that my side had been hurting quite a lot. I thought it was my gallbladder, and so did my doctor.  So the next monday he sent me to have an ultrasound on my abdomen.  Fun stuff, that ultrasound.  Imagine getting covered with jelly while someone rolls a Tonka truck all over your stomach. It was weird.  Later that day (and way sooner than I'd imagined) they called me to tell me that my ultrasound was fine, although that doesn't explain the pain, but for all I know there really is a ferret in my spleen.  She also told me that the doctor went back to look at my CT scan and wants me to see a pulmonary specialist after all.  The same one as Steve went to, actually, and he says that doctor is a bit of a bastard, so that should be fun.  Now I have to go see yet another doctor who will probably have me scanned or jellied or some crazy thing.

Somewhere in there I also had a dentist appointment where they told me I need to have my crown replaced in early May and I have yet another, unrelated to anything else thus far, doctor's appointment I have to go to in either May or June (depending on when there is an opening.)

Seriously, I'm very, very grateful that I have access to so many doctors and insurance to help pay for these visits, but this is an embarrassment of riches. Getting old sucks.