"white-knuckling" it through this week...

Posted to my LJ on Feb. 15th, 2008 at 11:45 PM


I have had my head down making my way through this week a step at a time. It really does feel like weeks since I wrote that post Tuesday. Saw my doc Tuesday and instead of trying a different med, we are upping the dose for a test period to see if anything changes. Saw my therapist that night. I need to start journaling (privately, sorry) about my sessions so I actually THINK about things during the week. I am realizing that I have this awful habit of talking about stuff that's important and then I don't think about it again until 5 minutes before my next appointment. I do it outside of therapy and have for years. My family did it all the time. Not insidiously, like the white elephant in the room kind of not dealing with it. Just going on and kind of rolling over it like roadkill. Yep, that's the metaphor.

SysAdmin guy at work has been less outright annoying this week. I am taking it at face value. Is he trying to get along better with me and my co-worker? Or is he actually being slightly more personable? Who can tell - the man has the personality of a bag of hair.

I got to configure new laptops for other people this week. I realized I am kind of annoyed that everyone else in IT is getting one except me and my co-worker.

Manager guy was pretty much not around all week because he was in a conference room with a guy from our software vendor all week. That was nice. I hate having two bosses. Fortunately, they don't really give me conflicting instruction, but sometimes the both tell me to do the same thing, which is very annoying. Yes, I know. My other boss already told me.

This week was filled with puppy poop and puppy vomit. My pooches were both not feeling well and took it out on the house. I shall be shampooing some carpet as soon as I am able (again, just did it last week before we got the house appraised.)

The appraiser came Wednesday morning. After it SNOWED THREE INCHES overnight. Which is good, because all the leaves on the lawn were covered. It's good she was not too late, because just an hour after she came, it began POURING RAIN for the rest of the day, melting all the snow. At work, we had that rain on the roof noise all afternoon.

Thursday began the poop explosion, with Storm starting off the poop-splosion. The next morning, she seemed better and ate normally. Then it was Rogue's turn. Coming home to it was not fun for my sweetie. Not at all. Then Thursday night (that would be last night) Storm began the vomiting. She did not eat dinner at all, and began vomiting at about 6:30 and proceeded to do so about 8 times througout the night. She got very listless and lethargic and couldn't get comfortable to sleep for hours at a time. So I was up with her on my chest for several hours last night, stroking her fur, trying to comfort her a little. Then this morning, more diarrhea and so it was time to go to the vet. I could not get her an appointment at my regular vet, so I went to the Emergency Animal Hospital (and I am very happy there IS one here...) and asked the attendant what she thought (after finding out that just being SEEN is over $100 dollars!) We talked about it and she thought she would be okay and was not in an emergency state. So I called my vet and got on the waiting list to go in later today. As it turned out, she slept a few hours and then my sweetie called me and told me she was almost good as new. Playing with Rogue, jumping around the room, very interested in her food again...YAY!!! So I cancelled the appointment, we don't need to go unless she has a relapse.

The kicker to all this poop and vomit is that our washing machine is busted and we are waiting for the tax return to get a new one. So we will have to haul almost all of the bedclothes in the house to the laundromat to get washed! \m/

Went to work and had a nutty crazy day. Then came home and had to yell at the mortgage company for poor record keeping.

And to top it all off, I am getting sick. I have a cough, my chest feels tight and I have been getting achier (more achy?) since I got home. My eyes feel hot and that probably means I have a fever.

This week has been long. Very long.

Highlights

So, to hit on some points from today:

* I become very focused at work and forget pretty much anything else - including doctor appointments (not to worry, I went later in the day)

* I like Taco Bell a lot

* I like my doctor, but she is an unfortunate victim of HMO Syndrome, aka. the 3 minute exam

* I suck at asking for help

* I am afraid of letting my friends down

* I have increased my reliance on modern pharmaceuticals

That's about it for today. I am really not in the mood to write more about it at the moment. I had a thought this morning on the way to work for some good blog topics, something about pet peeves. But the thought flew right out of my mind a second later and I could not, for the life of me, remember the great idea I had. Oh well.

Crap crap crap!!!!! Forgot to post yesterday!

I even predicted I might forget in my head Thursday because of the day I knew I would have Friday.

I had a doctor apppontment at 9:30 am (which ended up getting cancelled) and then went to work. I left the office for the work event with my dogs at about 11:15 am. I stayed there until 1:00 pm and then my honey and I ate lunch and I went over to where I was to take a one hour seminar on Information Security. I was meeting my boss and co-worker there, which I did. My co-worker and I went back to the office, got there around 2:45. So that was when my work day actually started. I was having dinner with my honey and two friends that night, and I didn't know whether we would be meeting in Providence or if I would be going home first. Being that my day was shortened, I was pretty busy. It turned out that I was meeting everyone for dinner rather than going home. Which offered me extra time to reboot two servers, which I needed to do. We went to Fire & Ice in Providence and ate dinner, and then we wandered around the mall for probably a little over an hour. Then we all went back to our house and hung out upstairs talking for a while. I got kind of tired and headed to bed because I had to get up early again today to go meet my girlys at Mohegan Sun for some brunch and Blackjack.

The kicker is that I went to bed around 11:15 pm. So I still had PLENTY of time to write an entry about my day - THIS entry. But I totally spaced on it and went to sleep. D'oh!!!!

Crap. So if I get picked for any prizes from NaBloPoMo I will sadly not win anything. Crud!

anticipation......

Tomorrow promises to be quite a day. Doc appointment to possibly change meds first thing. Then to work. Then probably less than an hour later, my other half comes up to my work with the puppies and we go to "Heavy Petting", an event by the psychology department at Brown to encourage relaxation and stress free living. The other offering during the school year is they offer free chair massages every other Wednesday. For this event, they ask staff and faculty to offer to bring in their friendly dogs and bring them to the college green for an hour and a half so that anyone who wants to can get a "dog break" as Charlie Brown so wisely put it for many years in 'Peanuts'. So that should be tons of fun as there will be like 20 dogs there and who knows how many students will come! After that, I have a one hour security seminar on campus to talk about sensitive information handling procedures, specifically geared towards the IT end of things.

So I should be working for approximately 97 minutes total tomorrow. Woot!

operation blood work: Complete!

Finally! I went on Saturday to try and get this done, even in the shitty weather, and the damn place was closed! When the website said they would be open!

So I went this morning before work. Got there and realized.....I was at the wrong building! All the medical schtuff I had to do in July when I had my gall bladder out got me all confused as to where the lab actually was. Duh. So this time I went to the REAL lab (which was probably actually open Saturday - I tried to save face and didn't ask) and gave them the slip, they had me in and out in less than 10 minutes!

I told the lady I had crappy, uncooperative veins and she asked what arm they usually get. I said it was a crap shoot, which it is. I have never successfully been drawn from the same place twice. So...she tourniquet-ed (?) my dominant right arm, felt around for a juicy vein, found one, grabbed the butterfly (I advised her that was SOP with me) and drew two big ol vials from me. Lickety split! WOOO HOOO! I never thought I would be so happy about getting blood drawn! I complimented her and said I liked her a lot. I told her about the heat packs, the water drinking, the pediatric vials with the butterfly. She nodded and understood. It made me happy that she commiserated with me. Yay!

Anyway, that is done and DONE!!! They should have the results to my doc for my appointment Friday and we shall see what comes from that.

Whew!

belly troubles

So here I am again, with belly issues.

Awful cramping, so bad it made me cry. Started Tuesday. Brought on and exacerbated by eating - ANYTHING. Doing the broth thing didn't set it off. Chewed a few Immodium Advanced (will wonders never cease!) and that "seemed" to have relieved the cramping/pain. Or time did. I am not really sure. Happened after eating just a bagel with a little butter on Wednesday and Thursday after chicken noodle soup. This morning, I called truce and went to my doctor's office. Didn't even make an appointment, just showed up, because I knew calling when they opened would get me a later appointment.

Last night, the pain was so bad, my other half sat with me on the bed and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. It was about 10pm, and I thought I about it and decided no, because if I went, I would wait and wait and wait and they would run a test and then send me to my own doctor in the morning anyway. So I decided to try and tough it out until morning. The belly pain subsided. For a while anyway. Then it came back around 12:30-ish. It would not go away for hours. I went to my computer and went onto WebMD to see what I could find out. Ulcers, kidney stones, gallbladder attack, irritable bowel syndrome, lactose intolerance and the pesky bacteria I was inflicted with in march - C. Diff. I looked them all up. The one that seems most likely to me seems to be gall bladder. After the web search and still not enough pain subsiding to sleep, I took a shower. At 3:00 am. It helped, at least to relax me. And the hot water felt good on my back, which was also very achy, mostly on the right side.

Went back to bed around 4:00 am. Yeah! Had already told my boss I was going to see my doc in the morning because the cramping was too bad. So I got up with my other half, we took care of the pups and I headed out.

She sent me for blood work, which I STILL had not gotten done from December. And she scheduled me for an ultrasound of my gallbladder and pancreas on Monday. And I have another test to take (for that funky bacteria) that involves 'samples' - I will say no more. And since I told her I was afraid to eat, because it brought on the pain, she gave me an anti-spasmodic med to take if that happens.

I went to the lab that my fiance told me to go to that was great with him and 1-2-3, they had the butterfly in and took 4 big ol' vials of my blood. She checked both arms and took a little time picking the vein, but she did it on the first try. I love her!!! Sort of hurts, because she used an arm vein rather than my tiny collapsible elbow veins. But no bruising and she was great! They are testing for regular stuff like infection and cholesterol, but also testing for Celiac Disease, which is basically an allergy to gluten. That would totally suck, like a whole lot, but I am pretty confident that is not my problem.

My bet is on infection of some sort, ulcer or gall bladder. My father and all his siblings have all had theirs out, I would not be surprised if it happens to me too.

I have the pills in case the pain begins and I have had a small bowl of cheerios. So we'll see what happens. I don't care about treatment or anything, but that pain is not something I want to experience again. It was AW-FUL!!!

Mostly now, I am just tired and listless (because of the not eating-hello?) I want to go home and crawl into my bed again and put the heating pad on my belly or my back and just sleep.
I will stay at work today though because, so Murphy's Law, we have a big server cut-over today at 4:00 pm. Yay. Just the thing to make my week complete. By the way, this is probably going to be a big disaster, but that's just my speculation. I would bet money that by Monday at 12:00 noon we will be back on the old server.

Love to all my chiquitas, especially ones dealing with loss (of all sorts) right now. Maybe my belly is just being testy and this will all go away. R-i-i-ight.

Blood from a....well, not from me!

I will never ever go to the lab upstairs from my doctor's office again. Not even for non-blood related testing. Never EVER!

I go for follow up with my doc today. She asks if I had my blood work done from our last well visit several months ago, I cringe and admit that I have not gotten it done. So she writes a prescription right there and tells me to go upstairs to the lab up there. I should not even have to wait because it's early.

I do this and get right in. Last time I was there for the TMI post a few weeks ago, I thought the attitude of the two people working there was pretty poor. They were complain-y and huffed a lot at people and phone calls. I get there today and the same two people are there. Older man and older woman, I will call them. Older woman appears to be the receptionist, takes my data and bloodwork order and passes me off to older man. I go into the room with The Chair (you know, the one with the big flat arm rests for them to do their dirty work) and sit down. It's cold in there. I pull up my sleeves. I don't realize until I am in The Chair that Older Man is actually going to be the one taking my blood. I am now nervous.

I warn him when he asks which arm that I do not have great veins. He says ok (obviously not realizing that I am not just a whiner) and wraps the tourniquet around my right arm, the dominant one. He pokes around and pokes around. Poke, poke, poke. Push, push, push. Poke, poke, poke. Finally he decides on a vein that he thinks will yield something. He takes the standard sized needle and collection tube and jabs me, semi-gently. He then proceeds to partially withdraw and jab me several times, very UN-Gently. He gives up on that arm and tourniquets the other. More poking and pushing, he seems to find something there. He goes directly into the crook of the elbow. Same jab and withdraw and jab again. He is not gently pulling the needle part of the way out and gently moving it and gently easing it back in. No. He is literally jabbing me again and again. As I watch this idiot ravage my poor arm, I am getting this very troubled look on my face, and starting to make "OW" noises. Just as I can't take it anymore, he stops and withdraws the needle, giving up. He seems frustrated, angry. At me??? What the fuck? I have no control over my fucking veins, what am I supposed to do about it?! He walks out of the room unceremoniously and I hear him mumble something to Older Woman.

A few minutes later, she comes in and tells me I have been handed off to her. She asks which arm is better. I tell her whichever you can get something from. I inform her that in the past most places have used a butterfly on me and have had trouble before. She tourniquets my left arm and has me make a fist and is SURE that there is a viable vein there. She goes to look for a butterfly. Can't find one. Um, hello? This is 2007 folks, does this lab take blood from kids??? You don't use the giant fat needle on them, you use a butterfly!

So she comes in and grabs the normal stuff and begins trying to extract my blood from this vein she KNOWS is there. Nothing. She, at the very least, was gently withdrawing and moving the needle around to find the vein. It still HURT, but a lot less and it was MUCH less disturbing than Older Man, Mr. Jabby McGee! Nothing, not a drop. She incredulously says aloud that she was SURE there was a nice fat vein there and she just couldn't get it.

She gives up on that arm and tourniquets the other one. She pokes around and doesn't even try it because there is even less on the right arm. We go for the last resort - the hand (sorry to all those who get squeamish about this stuff!) Still no butterfly, she looked again. So not only are we resorting to the hand, but she is using the fat needle to get in there. But again, she is confident there is a vein to be bled there. After a minimal amount of poking around, during which I cringed, "ouch"ed, tapped my feet and sucked my breath in several times, she finally stopped and gave up completely.

She was dumbfounded. She told me they had never had this happen before. She was not sure what to do. I remembered while sitting there being ravaged by these two numbskulls that when I had blood taken in the past for my thyroid testing (several times over a 6 month period) they had me drink lots of water in the morning before I came in to plump up the tissues around my veins (it really does work!) and also put heat packs on my arms when I got there for 20 minutes so things would be nice and prominent. Both of these things, combined with using a butterfly and pediatric needles and vials, worked great.

Older Woman suggested I could come back another time, they would take me right in. I could do the water thing, or heat pack thing. She could give me my slip back (the prescription for the bloodwork) and I could go somewhere else if I wanted, or something. I asked for the slip back and said I would, "figure it out", which really meant I would run from the office, never to return again! I went downstairs back to my doc's office to inform her that I had, in fact, NOT had a drop of blood taken from me because the phlebotomists upstairs were TERRIBLE and I would not be going back there. The medical assistants both gasped when I told them they tried three locations and could not get blood from me. They said that Mr. something-or-other would have been able to do it, but he was not there anymore. Oh well for me. So they suggested another lab down the street, knowing I would not be going today and said they would tell my doctor.

So, I have a growing purple spot on my inner left elbow, a surprisingly small pin prick on my right arm and a very hurty pin prick on my hand. I would have expected more bruising with all the poking that Mr. Jabby McGee did, but, well, he missed the veins entirely!!!

I hate blood work. I will NEVER EVER give blood because of this.

I don't get sick or nauseous from needles or blood or anything. But I was feeling woozy after this ordeal and thought I was going to puke! I went to panera bread, got me some OJ and splurged on a Venti Chai from Starbucks to nurse me through the day.

And I still have to go get blood taken. Rah.

(from 4/5/07 LJ post)

TMI - too much information post!

It is not fair! I swear, every time I take some medication to relieve something when I am sick, it gives me something ELSE that makes me sicker!

Several years ago, I had this ear infection. So I go to my doctor and he gives me an antibiotic to stop the ear infection. Well, then I get a yeast infection (told you it was a TMI post!) from taking the antibiotic. So I stop the antibiotic and begin to treat the yeast infection with over the counter stuff. The ear infection comes back in full force (with the dizziness and fever, the whole deal.) So I go BACK to the doc, he gives me a second course of antibiotics which causes the yeast infection to come back full force. But I have to finish the course of antibiotics this time. So I end up treating the yeast infection TWICE to be sure I am rid of it.

This time around, I had a sinus infection. This was two weeks ago Friday. I was really good and went right to my doc and she prescribed Augmentin (a powerful antibiotic) and prednisone, and because I had the presence of mind to MENTION that I would have to start taking Acidophilus to avoid getting a yeast infection, she gave me Diflucan (the yeast infection drug) as well! Great, right? I covered all the bases this time, made sure I would not be sicker, that I would get well. Well, one would think so.

About 6 days after I finished the Augmentin and felt a hell of a lot better, I had chinese food for dinner. That night, I went to the bathroom and thought I was going to die. It continued the next day and I thought for sure that the food disagreed horribly with me. I tried to ride it out, as these things usually end within two days or so (if it's really bad.) But it kept going on. So I popped the Immodium Advanced chewables (the miracles of modern medicine!!) and things stopped. Really stopped. Like, those stop me from pooping for about a full day. I thought we were all set, no more problem.

Friday night, I go hang out impromptu with a friend of mine after I finish dinner. We go to get ice cream and stop at the store so she can finish making her dinner as well. We get back to her house and all of a sudden it hits me and I am in the bathroom again. Twice in 20 minutes. So I take my leave, rapidly. Get home and hit the bathroom like 3 more times! I vow not to eat anymore and take more Immodium. Things stop again for a day.

Then last night, it all happens again. It would not be so bad if it were just the runs. But no, this comes with intense intestinal cramping that makes me double over and moan with pain, not to mention the exhaustion afterwards and the feeling like I have just been kicked in the abs a hundred times. After having to hit the bathroom several times last night, I decided I have to see my doctor.

I call today and they get me right in. She tells me that she thinks I have C-Diff, also known as Clostridium Difficile. See, when you take antibiotics, there is that one intestinal bacteria that they don't kill. And sometimes, they end up taking over the place since no one is there to stop them. Add the random factor that I ended up taking some Acidophilus anyway at the end of my Augmentin regimen because I had developed a cold sore (yet another medical annoyance!!) and I think that kick started the growth and hostile takeover of this C-Diff guy (and it is hostile, believe me!!!)

So, now I am on ANOTHER antibiotic to stop this massive intestinal plague I've got goin' on and I have to provide the lab with stool samples. Three of 'em. Thrilling. I am so excited about this I could just pee. In a cup. No, wait, I have to do the other thing...in a cup.

Will this ever end?