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Monday, July 28, 2008
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This may be too much information
posted at 2:03 PM  
I was going to post about this on Twitter, but as I pondered how to put it I decided it might be too gross for some people, so instead I'm putting it on my Google-indexed blog.
:>
The other day I thought I had a bleeding rash from riding my bicycle two days in a row. I treated the area with care and didn't go biking for awhile. But it seemed to not want to heal. Sean took a look and said he couldn't find anything wrong. I checked myself and couldn't figure out where the blood was coming from.
It occurred to me that it might be a period. Several years ago when I first started biking and getting back into shape, before the whole heart failure thing, I got a period for the first time in five years. That was when I went to my first Augusta endocrinologist to get put on hormone treatments. After that, when I was on hormones I got regular periods, and when I was off I didn't.
This time, I figured maybe, since I was getting back into shape again, my body would behave as it did before. But I couldn't find any blood when I went looking. It only appeared every now and then when I wasn't thinking about it.
This morning, though, it was confirmed. It's definitely a period. It was just so light at first that it was hardly detectable. (And it's still really light...wonder how long it's going to last.)
This means nothing in terms of my fertility. Nothing. I'd like to believe that as I lose more weight, I'll be healthier and my body will feel younger and stronger. But I refuse to get my hopes up about having kids. It's just too painful when I'm disappointed.
Besides, I wasn't magically fertile again the last time this happened. I had some random periods without hormones last year. And it's happened before, too--just sporadically.
The only way this would be different would be if I got another period next month. But I probably won't. This is probably just another menopausal dump. That's what they all probably are. Here's what Sean wrote about it back in the beginning.
But despite the fact that every time this happens I resolve to be logical, I can't help but feel a little happy.
Sigh.Labels: health, tmi
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Tuesday, October 9, 2007
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Ugh
posted at 9:31 AM
I've had a horrible neckache on the right side of my neck, going from under my ear down onto my shoulder, for three days now. It doesn't seem to be swollen, and my lymph nodes are normal, so I guess I just slept on my neck funny...but it sure is taking a long time to recover. Last night it made it very hard to get comfortable while I was trying to sleep.
Then, at around 5:30, I woke up feeling as though my throat was closing up. I went and hacked up a bunch of mucus, and I sprayed saline up my nose several times, but nothing seemed to help. Finally I took some Benadryl in the hopes that the drying out of my throat would leave a passage open. It took a long time for me to get back to sleep, but that seemed to work.
Unfortunately, I woke up with severe dry mouth, almost to the point of pain, and my throat still feels like it's partially closed or like there's something in there. Swallowing against it hurts my neck, too.
I did discover something helpful last night: if I leave the bathroom fan on, I can't hear Sean talking in the next room.Labels: health, tmi
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Friday, October 5, 2007
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A whiny ramble--feel free to skip
posted at 6:00 PM
So, I'm pretty miserable.
Aside from being horribly depressed, I keep coughing, and my left foot is huge and swollen and purple from where I kept it crammed into a dress shoe all day. I also started having abdominal pain again on my way home (early; my boss said I could finish up remotely). This morning I coughed up snot for the first time in awhile; last night I forgot to Flonase, but I'm not sure if that's related.
I had a bad dream right before I woke up this morning, in which Sean basically informed me that I existed to amuse him, and when I tried to leave, he threatened violence, so I headbutted him and then grabbed him hard in a very sensitive place. But as this was happening, dream-me thought that maybe this was all pretend, so I shouldn't hurt him too badly.
Then I woke up.
When I told Sean about the pregnancy test last night I had already been asleep for awhile, and I woke up when I heard him settling in in the living room. He said the same thing AJ did: "Don't get your hopes up." And like I said before, I really thought I wasn't. But apparently I did a lousy job.
The nurse said that false positives hardly ever happen; it's usually false negatives. I looked up false positives online and it said they are usually due to taking fertility drug shots, which I have not done recently. I guess the test was just defective.
Pretty lame. Oh well, yet another bad memory to add to the pile. I've been thinking about writing a timeline of all the bad things that have happened in my life, but I'm pretty sure that would be counterproductive. Not to mention whiny.
I should be thankful I'm alive, and have such a great family, and a cute and sweet husband who loves me, and a job I enjoy, and enough money to be able to save and eat out and have fun.
It's funny, I had decided recently that I was just going to assume I couldn't have children, because I figured that would be easier. But I guess I never fully embraced that path, because I was so susceptible to the idea when the nurse (who apparently knew nothing of my situation) asked, "Do you think you might be pregnant?" It took a week or two, but then, like a moron, I looked into it.
And then, like a moron, I posted about stat labs on Twitter, and that made Mom wonder why I needed stat labs, and so I ended up telling her, and she was at the farm with Dad and Ben and Manda so they all found out, and so I called AJ because everyone else knew...and I originally wasn't going to tell anyone until I'd had a blood test. I'd had one that morning but it turned out the lab couldn't do them stat, so those results will actually be in tomorrow, and it was too late to get them done by the time I found out, so I had to wait and do them this morning. And I guess I just got upset and frustrated and nervous from all the waiting and ended up blowing it, and I got Mom's hopes up.
Damn it.
When the nurse called to tell me, I didn't want to talk to anyone, so I just sent Sean and Mom a text message about it. Mom called back and I may have been rude. I just tried not to think about it for as long as I could for the rest of the day. But of course, eventually it overwhelmed me, because I'm a stupid wuss, so here I am, sitting at home gushing in stream of consciousness on my blog when I should still be at work. That frustrates me too, because I've been sick so much lately, and I was just getting back to being the kind of employee I strive to be. And now this.
I think life likes to let me rise up before it kicks me back down. Maybe it's more amusing that way. This time I feel like I was crouched on wobbly legs when it hit.
Whine, whine, whine. Let's take a step back. What have we learned here? I was told years ago when I first went to an endocrinologist that my chances of being fertile were low, especially if I couldn't have my own periods. I started out taking hormones, but after awhile I decided I was tired of pills and wanted to be normal, so I just stopped taking them. (Good job.) Five years later, I have a period out of the blue, which is likely a menopausal flushing of all the lining that had built up for those years. I take this as a sign that my body is curing itself, instead. My doctors tell me otherwise but I am apparently incapable of comprehension. I start back on hormones religiously and take pregnancy tests anytime I start to feel "weird". They are all, of course, negative. I get frustrated. After my doctor leaves her practice, I let everything slide again. But after awhile I decide I want to get back on track with my health, so I find a new doctor. She tells me that the chances of someone who's had chemotherapy regaining ovarian function after this long are practically zero. I feel like I can maybe move on. Then she adds, "But miracles do happen." I have grown to hate this phrase because it gives me hope.
That brings us to now. I have weird symptoms where I get overly tired just walking from my office to my car. I have chest pains. I seem to not be breathing properly at night, and sometimes during the day. Flonase, saline spray, and elevating my head seems to help with sleeping, but does nothing for the weird day breathing. Eventually I started getting bloated in my legs and hips. I also occasionally experience abdominal pain, at one point so bad I threw up. I am often so hot that the only thing that helps is sticking my head and arms into the freezer.
Of course I think the hotness is a menopausal symptom, but I have put off starting my hormones because I thought I had a drug interaction one day when I threw up. I'm still not sure what happened there.
In discussing my various symptoms with my various doctors, the nurse at the endocrinologist's office asks the fatal question, the question I've been asking myself. "That's supposed to be impossible," I say, keeping my voice level. "But I suppose I could check." And eventually I do. And for some fucked up reason it says "Pregnant".
Why would you do this to me? I mean really. What is the point?
Maybe the point is that I should just have a hysterectomy so I can stop worrying about it. (Or I could stop having sex, but I doubt Sean will get on board for that.)Labels: health, infertility, life, tmi
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Tuesday, October 2, 2007
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Better and better
posted at 12:09 AM
I'm still coughing, with the addition of burping, sneezing and occasionally an extraordinarily itchy nose, but I feel so much better. You have no idea. I was downright cheerful at work. "There's that smile!" my boss said. I threw myself into what I needed to do and dug through some backlogged projects as well, and set up some meetings for tomorrow with what might be described as zeal. It feels so good to be able to get motivated without feeling sick!
I've still got symptoms, don't get me wrong. The throat gunk still makes an appearance and it still tastes gross. But my overall tiredness seems to be passing.
Part of this, I'm sure, is just that I'm so happy that I'm going to see Brooke tomorrow, and get to spend time with her all week. She's promised to come spend the night here one night, and I'm looking forward to watching a couple of our favorite episodes of Kyou Kara Maou. I also think I'll introduce her to Detective Conan by way of The Case of the Time-Bombed Skyscraper, because that is a fabulous movie. I will even allow the dub (though a rather important line is changed at the end).
I think I also told her I was going to show her the first two DVDs of KareKano, and I might try to do that, but it's not a high priority. What is a high priority, apparently, is eating curry and lime sherbet! And I am down with that.
Pajama party!
Today I felt good enough after work to run some errands, including picking up some more prescriptions and going to the grocery. I got more cottage cheese and milk, and a head of broccoli and some potatoes, and a bag of salad, and a bunch of noodles, and some soup. I also bought two pie dishes and two pie crusts, which I hope to use at Thanksgiving...I'm tentatively hoping to host it here, assuming I can figure out where people would sit to eat.
The most exciting thing about the shopping experience was where I went. I decided to try the Columbia Road Kroger, mainly because of the fact that I was leaving the Bobby Jones Walgreens. I figured it might not be as much of a hole as the Wrightsboro Road Kroger.
And wow, is that an understatement.
Dude, the Columbia Road Kroger is upscale. Seriously, they have a Starbucks in there. The deli is gorgeous, the aisles are wide and fully stocked, and they have literally everything I look for in a grocery store. They even carry the brand of rice I like, which normally I have to go to Asian groceries for! And I was finally able to find rolled up, refrigerated pie shells...I haven't seen them at Evans Wal-Mart, well, ever, and I'm still not sure why.
The produce section was well-stocked and everything looked delicious. And they had pumpkins. For $5! They were so cute, I bought two. Not too big, not too small, the perfect size for sitting around to remind me that it's fall. (Or that it should be fall, anyway.) I saw a neat idea about using doilies as painting stencils for pumpkins in this month's BH&G, which I may try out.
Wow, it is just so cool to feel like I have energy, and to be so enthusiastic about things again.
When I say "feel like I have energy", I mean that while I am starting to feel like my old self, I'm still getting exhausted after minimal exertion. I don't know if I buy Dr. B's "out of shape" argument, at least not entirely. We'll have to wait until all the GERD symptoms are handled before I can be sure. But that walk through the grocery store certainly wore me out.
The second coolest thing about the shopping experience was running into a former coworker, Rebecca, in the parking lot. I could feel my skin turning clammy and sweaty while we were standing there talking and I felt so gross. But it was still cool to see her, and meet her boyfriend.
When I got home I had planned on making spaghetti, but it took a lot out of me to get the groceries inside and put away, so I decided to relax instead, and ate some Kroger brand cottage cheese a little later. It was oh so good. I followed it up with a small glass of delicious apple juice. Ahhh, this is life.
Since I won't have any errands holding me back tomorrow, I should be able to make the spaghetti. Mmm.
That's another thing that's been nice...finally feeling up to eating regular food, instead of just warm or cool smooth things.
I also have a theory about the acne. During much of this time, it has been gross to drink water due to the throat gunk. It was just like drinking the taste of throat gunk. So I'm pretty sure I was dehydrated like crazy, and I think that did bad things to my skin. Yesterday I started drinking a lot of water, and the acne seems to be declining. Thank goodness.Labels: health, life, quality of life, tmi
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Thursday, September 27, 2007
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Makin' it somehow
posted at 2:21 PM
Twitter has been down all day, which is annoying because I like to use it to dash off quick complaints. Earlier, for example, I wanted to bitch about this production dude who decided to recite for me a complete plot synopsis of some anime he really likes. Yes, I enjoy anime, but you are boring the hell out of me. Shut up!
Time seemed to be moving awfully slowly this morning. It started when I was in bed waiting for my alarm to go off. The light coming in around the curtain in the bedroom looked the same every time I looked at it. I kept falling asleep and waking back up and still feeling tired but knowing I was going to have to get up "soon". Finally at 8:30 I actually checked the time and got up.
The first two hours of work were like two weeks. Very tired, trouble concentrating, and later, mild abdominal pain. I took the opportunity to call my doctors and create a game plan for tomorrow.
Today's symptoms include: coughing, nausea, gross taste in my throat, mild headache, mild abdominal pain, occasional burping, general feeling of tiredness. As usual, mild exertion exhausts me and I have to sit down for awhile to recover and catch my breath. When I woke up this morning, the wet raspiness was back in my throat and lungs. Also, I don't know if I've mentioned this at all, but I have had so much acne since this all started. It is driving me crazy. It seems like every time I look in the mirror there are five more zits.
Seeing my GP tomorrow morning to demand that he actually order some tests. Like a meeting with a cardiologist, and a chest X-ray, and more labs, and whatever else I can think of before then. I'm going to bring in my calendar with all my symptoms for this month written in it, to see if that will help him think of anything we've missed. I'm supposed to call my endocrinologist after that appointment and let them in on everything that's happening, so they can decide whether or not I should resume hormones.
My boss is back from Japan. I had asked her to see if she could find me a protection charm for my car, but apparently she didn't visit any shrines. She did, however, bring me a beautiful floral pattern drawstring bag and a cute bookmark with a paper girl sculpted on it, both handmade by her aunt, and she also brought me an adorable little desk ornament of an owl. It's hard to describe the thing. There's a big ball that sits on the desk, and out of that comes half a hoop of black wire, and then hanging off that is a smaller straight piece of wire, and on one end is the little round owl, and on the other are two colored balls to balance him. It's neat and it moves around with the air conditioning or with any vibrations on the desk.
She came in to talk to me today and told me that health has to be my first priority, because if we don't have our health, we don't have anything. It's a total cliche, but I know full well how true it is. I have never been so miserable in my life--well, maybe when I was hospitalized with cancer, but at least then I knew what I was in for and didn't fight every day to get things done.
I'm really lucky to have such a good boss. I hope I can get all this straightened out so I can go back to being the kind of employee I want to be--the kind of employee my boss deserves to have working for her.Labels: health, life, quality of life, tmi
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
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ER
posted at 11:19 PM
This morning at about 4:30, I woke up with severe lower abdominal pain. It was probably indigestion, I knew. But it was the worst abdominal pain I can remember ever having, besides the time in the hospital nine years ago when exploratory surgery revealed that my appendix had burst.
I tried going to the bathroom, but while I was marginally successful in that effort, the pain didn't go away. I tried relaxing my muscles as much as possible. I went back to bed and did my best to lie still and relax. But the pain just wouldn't go away.
On my way back to the bathroom I suddenly realized I was going to throw up...and I did, and from the horrible burning I'm guessing it was mostly bile. I kept throwing up and it didn't make me feel any better; the pain was still there and now my throat was raw and stinging. I was near tears as I left the bathroom again.
So I got dressed and asked Sean to take me to the ER. We went up the street to Doctor's Hospital.
I was in pain for the whole ride, and as I walked in, and as I sat down and filled out the paperwork. But after that the pain started to subside, of course.
They took my blood pressure several times, and my temperature, and did something to my finger, and then they put me in a room and had me give them a urine sample. The doctor came in eventually and did a standard examination. Eventually it was decided that since the pain had gone away, he'd give me a prescription for pain and nausea and I could then follow up with my GP. We waited on the urine test results, which were normal, and then Sean took me home.
Due to the drugs they gave me while I was there, or maybe because I was just tired in general, I slept until 6:20 in the afternoon. I did wake up long enough around 9 o'clock to call in to work, fortunately.
While I slept I had a couple of bad dreams. The first one involved one of my side teeth breaking into pieces. In the second one, my cousin Carl was married and had a baby, and the whole family had moved to Iraq for missionary work, and they'd been killed there. I actually woke up wanting to call my mom to make sure that wasn't true.
Since I slept past the end of the standard business day, I wasn't able to call my GP to talk about my ER adventure, and I missed a call from my endocrinologist. Also, I need to contact the people who made my glasses about the weird imperfection in the right lens that refracts light from monitors and makes it seem like there's a big fingerprint on the glasses. Kind of distracting :P
So I'll try to get all my calls done tomorrow during my lunch break, I guess.
Another sucky thing about all this is that I was already out of sick days at work, which means I have two unpaid days this week. I could use vacation for them, but then I would have fewer vacation days...:P
My boss has been very understanding of all this so far, but I imagine she's getting tired of it. I am too.
I just want things to go back to normal.Labels: health, tmi
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Saturday, September 15, 2007
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Well, I'm awake
posted at 5:33 AM
My nasal passages seem clear enough, but I still kept waking up gasping for breath this morning. It just felt weird because I seemed to be breathing fine, so I couldn't find a reason for that to stop.
Last night I slept in our bed instead of the guest bed, which felt great on my back, but I wonder if Mom's right and the flatness of it makes my throat get closed off. I guess tonight I can try sleeping on more pillows or something.
I went to bed early last night to try and get myself back on the good schedule. I'm thinking about trying to go biking later. But I don't know how that's going to work out if I get out of breath as easily as I have been. It shouldn't be exhausting to put sheets on a bed, for example. I'm frustrated and I want to just try it and see if I can work myself out of this, but if it's some sort of problem with my circulatory or respiratory system I'm just going to antagonize it. So meh.
Rex is coming over today to take the desk away. I need to get all my junk off of it at some point. :> Once the desk is gone I can reposition the second bedroom as a workout area, or something.
Right now I feel like there is gunk in my throat--not at the start of my nasal passages where I had been feeling it before, but instead a little lower--and it is grossing me out.Labels: health, life, quality of life, tmi
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
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Gastroenteritis
posted at 10:10 AM
So, I'm like really sick and stuff.
I always feel like I'm cheating when I take time off work when I'm sick. I really shouldn't, especially this time, because I was told by the doctor to absolutely stay home the rest of the week. I have a highly contagious stomach virus, and I need to rest and rehydrate and take medicine that will probably make me drowsy.
But aside from the varying chills and sweats and constant diarrhea, I feel okay. That's why I went to work yesterday (and came home after three hours when I saw how high my fever was) and also, like a dolt, went out to lunch with Wes and also went to see Order of the Phoenix again at 8 o'clock.
Spreading those germs everywhere was apparently my mission yesterday ;P
So I'm going to take this seriously. I picked up my prescriptions and some sports drinks and water at Walgreens, and I'm going to stay home and relax and watch anime and piddle around online and sleep for as long as it takes for this thing to go away.
I hope nobody I've been around lately caught the bug from me :( I honestly thought it was food poisoning at first, since it started while I was eating lunch, so I didn't worry about possibly being contagious.Labels: health, tmi
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Thursday, May 3, 2007
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Ugh (TMI)
posted at 11:22 AM
Is nausea, to the point of having bile come up into the back of your mouth, a symptom of being out of shape?
I've had nausea at various times of day, often in the morning, intermittently for awhile now.
Sometimes it happens after I've eaten something, but it's not the kind of nausea you get when you've overeaten. And usually I haven't overeaten. I haven't overeaten in quite some time.
Sometimes it happens hours after I've had anything to eat, and it's kind of like the nausea you feel when you're hungry, but more pronounced.
Lately it's gotten to where no food sounds appetizing, and I both really want to eat and really don't want to eat.
Like a fool, I took a pregnancy test, and it was of course negative. I think the chances of a person whose eggs have been fried by chemotherapy all of a sudden getting pregnant are about zero. But I don't think my heart will give up on the idea until I'm maybe 45. ;PLabels: health, tmi
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Thursday, March 22, 2007
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T to the M to the I
posted at 11:12 AM
You know those T-shirts that say "I don't trust anything that bleeds for three days and doesn't die"?
I hate those.
Not because the joke isn't funny. It's funny, all right. No, the reason I'm pissed is because my normal periods have always been far longer than three days.
Man. Three days. That would be fabulous.
So apparently this is a real, full-blown period, achieved without the influence of hormone supplements. I've had cramps all morning and I still feel bloated. The blood (ewwww, I know, but I told you this was TMI) is bright red, and this is not a trickle.
There was a time when I thought I would love to have a regular period again naturally. I thought that the knowledge that I was "normal" again would supercede the discomfort.
Obviously I was delusional.
I was thinking this morning "At least I'm not all hormonal and emotional like I used to get on my period," but apparently thinking that was all it took ;> So now little things are starting to irritate me. Here's hoping the Midol will help.
Ah, the chalky taste of Midol. It's been years.Labels: health, tmi
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