Saturday, December 1, 2012

BIG Update - Part "Mom"

So after all the drama a few months ago with mom, the ordeal is finally over (for the most part).  On Friday morning she went in to surgery and we were all very happy to find out that the cyst was NOT attached to anything (they thought they would have to remove part of her bowel and resection it as they thought the cyst was attached to it) and they were able to do the hysterectomy at the same time which means no more surgery :) (Which I doubt mom would have gone through having a separate hysterectomy after the last two surgeries).  She is in a semi-private room right now in Big City and is pretty comfortable.  They took out the pain pump and she is just using T3's at this point which is good.  The back pain she had been getting is already different, still pain but not the same feeling as before. They have even got her up and walking a little (from the bed to the bathroom to the door and back). The doctor said it was pressing up against her central nervous system so having it removed should fix a lot of problems.  The doctor who did the hysterectomy said the cyst was the size and shape of a decent sized turkey!  They guess between 8 and 10 lbs!  Dad is still down there with her and will stay there until at least after talking to the doctor on rounds on Monday.  He will decide then, and talk to me and see how I'm doing here alone with K, about if he will come home or stay up there longer. 

BIG Update! - Part "Me"

Okay, once again it has taken me a long time to do an update and there is so much to update you all on so I will break it down into three posts - update on me, update on my mom and general update on situations going on.  So this is the first one and it will be about little ol' me :)

So a few weeks ago I suddenly got a major toothache along all the teeth in my left top jaw and my cheek was all swollen and so as my eye.  I went straight to the doctor and he barely even touched my cheek and said I had a massive sinus infection and didn't even check my ears or throat, just wrote up for an antibiotic.  I have had this one before and hated it but it left a terrible taste in my mouth.  This time around strangely the bad taste only lasted a few hours yet I had an actual appettite!  I was eating two full meals a day and as eating almost normal portion sizes.  It did cause some GI upset but once I started eating yogurt with it it settled down.  Going to definitly have to talk to my GI/internist/cardio about it next time I see her to see if this could help things in any way at all.

I had a planned doctor's appointment last week mainly to change over my pain meds.  He had no problem switching my long acting meds but was absolute in his refusal to change my breakthrough meds.  He says the one that I switch to is 'dirty' and that it's not used anymore and that he won't perscribe it.  I told him that he wrote for it last year and the fact that I had been on this med for like seven years.  He then said that there was no reason that I needed to change it because he was changing my long-acting.  I told him that I was getting tolerant and because of the switching medications I hadn't had to change my dosage in years.  He asked how many breakthrough I was taking and I told him that lately I had been taking at least one, a lot of the times two a day.  He dismissed this and told me that I could take it at least three to four times a day. I told him that my rheumy always told me that if I as relying on my breakthrough on a daily basis then it was time to either switch or increse my long-acting meds.  He told me that he would rather me take more of the breakthrough I am on instead of switching to the other breakthrough medication.  I still wasn't feeling all that well (even though I did get down-graded to just a cold and that the infection was gone) so I just basically gave up.  The next appointment should be interesting as this could become quite the battle. 

Mom was very mad that he told me to just take 3 or 4 breakthrough meds instead of switching over to the other medication as we have been working this system very successfully for 5+ years and my GP had been going along with the plan my old rheumy set up - until this appointment.  Still not sure what we are going to be doing as I am still needing at least one breakthrough dose a day, which for just changing my long-acting is more than I normally would be needing.

On another note - this cold is killing my joints!  My hands are very stiff (I think part of this is an auto-immune flare up that my doctor just doesn't want to put time into figuring it out) and my knees and all the other joints are really achey and (strange word but all I can think of) arthritisy.  I have also been having some strange 'changes' in my GI system that I have no clue what is going on.  But until it becomes a problem, we have more important things to deal with.