Tag: medical tests


Let Her Cry

29
December

I’m not exactly sure how to structure this post because there are so many things I want to talk about, so if it is a little more flighty than usual, then I apologize.

I guess first of all, I should talk about Christmas.  My parents and I had our Christmas meal with Nana on Christmas Eve so that my aunt didn’t have to see me or threaten violence against me.  I cried almost the entire three or four hours that my parents and I were there.  I managed to almost have an asthma attack because of the crying and I messed up my internal system by getting so worked up.  (My temperature shot up, I started getting sick, etc.)  So, it wasn’t all that pleasant.  I felt bad for my grandmother because she’s almost 80 and she’s got a lot of health issues going on, so having to have separate Christmases was tough on her physically and mentally.  (She has a lot of anxiety issues, so this whole situation has upset her quite a bit.)  I also felt bad that I couldn’t even fake a smile or a good mood while we were there.

When my mom talked to Nana about how Christmas Day went with my aunt, uncle, cousin, cousin-in-law, and cousin’s son, she said that it wasn’t a really festive occasion.  Apparently, my cousin’s son went through Nana’s house looking for me and was sad that I wasn’t there to play with him.  I almost cried when my mom told me this.  I missed him, too.  He’s the one person that I have missed every second of this whole non-communication between my aunt and me thing.  He’s just so awesome and thinks differently and is so smart and creative, so being around him is always fun.  I feel like he’s a kindred spirit.

Nana said that my aunt asked how we handled Christmas without them.  When Nana told her that I cried almost the whole time, my aunt said that that was good because I hadn’t made any effort to apologize to her.  Okay, that isn’t true.  First of all, I actually did write a “letter” via Google Docs and sent it through my uncle’s email address with a note for him to please give it to her.  While the apology isn’t a complete acceptance of the alleged wrongs that I’ve been accused of committing, it is an apology for what I did do; a request that she cease this anti-Janet “campaign”; a request that she learn a little bit more about the physical and mental health problems affecting my mom, Nana, and me so that she could understand the context of the posts I write; and questions about why she made comments to my mom suggesting that I should be kicked out of my house, that I was a bad daughter, etc.   Anyway, the apology is the best that she is going to get.  I would’ve sent it to her personally on Facebook but  she blocked me from sending her messages after I sent the message chastising her for not contacting her sister (my mom) after the June 2011 hospitalization or any of the hospitalizations/surgeries.  I can’t do it via the phone (fear/anxiety issues), face-to-face is out of the question, I don’t have her personal email address, and I just don’t think sending a letter is practical.   I would post the apology letter on here, but she doesn’t actually read this site, so it wouldn’t do any good.

On Christmas, I wasn’t just upset about the downfall of that particular relationship.  I was also upset that my maternal grandfather’s only surviving sibling had unfriended me on Facebook, as had one of his kids.  These were two of my favorite people in the family, so being unfriended saddened me.  And part of me wondered if my aunt had anything to do with it.  I hate being paranoid, but it was weird how they unfriended me shortly after she had posted something on each of their walls.  That thought/paranoia, plus the knowledge that she keeps badmouthing me to Nana and (when my mom calls her) my mother, made me very frustrated because some of the key issues with being Borderline are the fear of abandonment/rejection and intense and unstable relationships.  I think anyone who knows me in any way, shape or form could cite any number of examples that I will go to a near breakdown state whenever things change, relationships end or near an end, I start feeling unappreciated, and when I feel alone, unloved, or unwanted. So, when I was crying on Christmas Eve, I was thinking about the familial implosion, possibly killing myself over it, and how I was somehow a horrible human being.  That’s not the kind of thinking that one should have at any time, but it is especially bad during the holidays.  And that thought process and the pain that it caused makes it harder for me to come up with a way to apologize over any of this or keep quiet about how I feel.  I don’t want to excuse my (sometimes) bad behavior, but I want my family to understand where it comes from.

(BTW – When my aunt tried to lay all the blame on me for this, Nana wouldn’t have any of that.  She told her that she [my aunt] was to blame, as well, and that she was the one who wanted the family split up. She’d also told her off on the 23rd when Nana mentioned that she had to fix the table for our lunch and my aunt told her not to worry about it with us because we “weren’t used to eating at a table” anyway. )

Aside from the Christmas tear-fest, I was going to share whatever the results were from my MRI and EEG.  I went to the neurologist’s office yesterday, but (after waiting an hour and a half) I was told that the neurologist had just left to attend to an emergency at one of the hospitals.  In a small way, I was upset over not finding out the answers, but I would rather not know what was wrong with me than know that my neurologist might have wasted time with me that he could’ve spent on someone who was truly in need of his help at that moment.  (And I know that neurologists are not exactly doctors who have soft-fluffy-type emergencies.)  Anyway, my neurologist was supposed to call me sometime later in the day yesterday.  He didn’t.  He still hasn’t called.  I could call them, I guess.  The only thing I do know from the appointment yesterday is that I had lost another 6 pounds, in addition to the ~50 that I’d lost in the last year.

Oh, I finally had my T4, TSH, LH, and FSH tests done yesterday afternoon, over a month after they were originally ordered.  The woman who did the test asked me if that was my husband in the waiting room.  I silently gagged and told her that that was my father.  She told me she was glad because she had been mad when she thought he was my husband because he should know better than to be with someone so young.  In a way, I understood what she meant, but it was kind of weird to have someone say that kind of stuff.  I mean, she doesn’t know me, so what was she going to say if she had been my husband?  How would she have gotten around her disgust?  And is saying that kind of thing a good idea when you’re sticking a needle into someone?  (It could cause someone to tense up and cause veins to ‘disappear’ in someone who, like me, is a hard-stick.)

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Facebook, Family, FPS-Related, General, Holidays, Mental Health, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is, Sickness and Health, So Damn Special

You Get 99 Dollars, But You Shouldn’t Get 1

24
May

You know how I didn’t want to go to the cardiologist today because I knew that he would say that he couldn’t do anything and that he would mention that he wouldn’t (if he could) because of my weight? I was right. He told me that he couldn’t treat the high blood pressure spells because my blood pressure is still on the low side of normal some of the time. He then said that he wouldn’t do anything and he didn’t want to test anything because he feels that the problem is my weight and only my weight. He said my blood pressure may be going up because I’m anxious, which I never said that I was anxious. I’m not really that much more anxious than normal, so I think that was just a way he could ignore dealing with the problem and shift the blame to me. He did eventually decide that he was going to do one test: an echocardiogram.

He spent a grand total of maybe four or five minutes with me. In that time, he didn’t look at the list of medicines I was on, but was able to say that none of my medicines could be affecting my blood pressure or heart. He didn’t look at my chart. He lectured, listened to my heart, listened to my lungs, lectured, left the room, and came back for a second to mention the ECHO. That was it. He left his nurse, Carol Ann (not joking about the name), to finish up my chart. I don’t know why she was even in there, except that she does his chart-work. (I guess he’s too good to do his damn work.)

I don’t understand how he can get paid (or ask to be paid) $99 for an appointment that he doesn’t even really do anything at. If you get paid $99 to tell someone they’re fat and to listen to their chest, then what does he expect to get when he actually does work? I mean, I know when he does surgeries that he gets tens of thousands of dollars, but what about the rest of the time?

The ECHO was interesting. I had to wait a while (almost 2 hours) to have it done. They only seemed to do 2 people at a time, which I think is weird since they had 6 people to do them. (If you have that many people, shouldn’t you have the same number of rooms?) I’d never had an ECHO, but it was a lot like having any other kind of ultrasound. It was a little different, since they used the Doppler and since you can actually listen to your heart rhythm.

I have no idea what was going on in my ECHO or what the results will be. (They’ll probably be normal or “within normal limits”.) All I know is that (at times) it looked like I had a rat dancing in my heart. It looked like there was a head with two arms (the valves) kind of going up, like it was jumping. There was some clicking sound at one point. It also looked like (on the Doppler screens) some of the red was going back into the blue’s area. Of course, I may have been noticing things that meant absolutely nothing, so there’s no point in worrying about it, right?

Though I was disappointed with the rude attitude of the cardiologist, I was glad that I didn’t run into the lady I had seen yesterday at the Mental Health Center. I wore (after washing it overnight) the same shirt that I had worn to the appointment yesterday. Unfortunately, the shirt sometimes lifts up when I move my arms to adjust my hair. The woman yesterday saw me lift my arms and probably saw about an inch or less of my stomach. As I got closer to the building, she started ranting about how she “didn’t want to see” my stomach. When I looked at her, she (of course) snapped at me for looking at her. I was not surprised that she was the one who went to the intake side of the office, since it seemed like she needed some serious help. I know that my stomach isn’t nice to look at, but it wasn’t like I was trying to show it off. I thought her behavior was a bit uncalled for, though it was slightly entertaining.

Wow, and before I can even finish the post, I get a call about the results from the test today.  It’s normal.  I am not surprised.

Comment » | Alabama Weirdness, Confessions, Mental Health, Rants, Sickness and Health

Hey, baby, I’m a rockstar

29
September

I’ll never understand why people think that I am suddenly worth communicating with when I put my earbuds in my ears. My parents will want to tell me every single thing that has ever crossed their minds once I put them in, and if I complain, then they’ll say something along the lines of, “You always have them in.” No, I might usually have 1 in 1 ear so that I can hear them, but I rarely have both in. Generally, both of them being in means I’m listening to something that requires both ears: Bohemian Rhapsody, White Rabbit, etc.

In other listening-related fun, I bought a 2nd pair of earbuds from eBay. I paid $0.99, no shipping, and they came from Hong Kong. I didn’t really have a lot of expectations, but I had hope. It was for naught. My earbuds arrived in just a few days and when I tried them, I could barely hear anything. I almost thought that my brain was supplying the little sound that I did hear, just so that I didn’t feel like I had completely wasted my almost dollar.

In the “one day we’ll be pimpin’ it in jail” crowd (aka the kids who spend time in my yard with no permission) news, my dad found a wine carafe in the yard with 2 hoses. Being that my dad spent 7 years in college, much of which was majoring participating in the hippie/1970′s party scene, he quickly deduced the purpose of the instrument. It was a makeshift bong. Of course, it now makes complete sense about the Pixy Stix and Mountain Dew, as well as signing one’s name on an act of vandalism and the inability to spell words like scientist and deliberately. Not that every pothead is an incoherent, sugar-coma-awaiting idiot (since I went to 2 high schools that had reputations as stoner schools–one known specifically for its continuation of all things hippie–I know quite a bit about this type of “unsub”), but it can be a legitimate stereotype. My dad tossed it, which is kind of stupid because that would be something that the police might want to see. (They might not take things like mailbox vandalism or trespassing serious, but getting South Huntsville kids for drug paraphernalia might actually be a worthy or fun pursuit.)

My dad’s car had to have a belt replaced last week, which, of course, cost $200. Well, the belt didn’t actually cost that much, but the labor was almost that much. The place he took it (Firestone) said that he needed something else done, which we couldn’t afford. (It would’ve been another $200+.) He suspected something might have been done, since this particular place has a history of sketchy behavior. Sunday night, the “Service Engine Soon” light came on. Well, he took it to the Chevy dealership, because Saturn’s dealership is now defunct (thanks Detroit). They changed the oil for free, but “in order to diagnose the problem” they needed to perform a $95 test. When Saturn existed, they didn’t have to do the extra charges and stuff for things that were probably unnecessary. So, he’s planning on taking it to the Pontiac place to get it checked out. Their service department is much nicer + I know that dealership’s owner’s family quite well.

Oh, and remember that 25 blood test day? The Medicare summary of it finally came today. The hospital charged $5103 for all of the tests (one of the tests was a $1890 charge), and Medicare paid, wait for it, $731.56. So, those who think that your taxes go to pay exorbitant charges for those of us on government assistance can rest assured that the government does not pay the majority of the money they are charged. (I am quite sure that when Medicaid saw that there was around $4000 left, they snickered and paid about ten cents.) Honestly, I don’t really blame Medicare (or Medicaid) for not paying the fees. Doctors, hospitals, labs, etc. charge way too much.

BTW, if you want to register on fps for an account (should make commenting easier), I’ve re-opened registration. Hopefully, I won’t be overwhelmed by spammers.

Comment » | Family, FPS-Related, General, How I Met Your Neighbors (aka An Overactive Imagination), Sickness and Health

Indirect Signature Required

14
September

I saw the family doctor yesterday. I really like her, and I’ve seen her before, so I’m pretty sure that she is competent. (My history with incompetent doctors causes my trust level to be almost nil these days.) She seemed concerned with the lump. She said the issue might be due to possible ulceration at the connections made during the gastric bypass surgery. (Isn’t that lovely?) She is sending me for an ultrasound for it tomorrow to make sure that if it isn’t an ulcer, then she finds out what it is.

Tomorrow is also the day that I will get my beloved laptop back, which is aggravatingly funny. Why? I was told on Friday it would be here Tuesday. Of course, the second person that I talked to this afternoon said that the shipping policy for Dell states plainly that it takes 7 to 10 days for a product to go from me to them and back to me. I knew that, but I also know that being told that it will be here one day and it not being here makes me a bit annoyed. When I get annoyed, I get annoying. Also, why would it take over a week for a computer to be delivered? If you use FedEx Express, then it should take 1 day (or less) to get to Houston, then another 1 day (or less) to get back to me. What honestly takes 5 days to repair. As far as I know, when my dad used to do hard drive installs and re-installs on our old Tandy computers, it took a very short period of time (between 15 minutes and a couple of hours, depending on the frustration level, cussing involved, etc.). I grew up having at least 1 computer in my house. Since I was 2 or 3, I’ve seen repair and upgrade jobs. It would only take a longer period if a product wasn’t in stock. I have a hard time believing that a 500 GB hard drive is that hard to find in Texas. Maybe 1 to 2 days, but 5? No. No! NO! This is a level of screwed up that even George Bush would marvel at.

Oh, sweet and nice doctor yesterday was shocked and amazed by yours truly’s über periods. I don’t really know why. Irregular and heavy periods are really not as uncommon as people think. So many people these days are either PCOS-ing or Endometriosis-y that I wouldn’t find it surprising that mega periods are affecting anyone. If you take into account my family history, my weight, my own health history, etc., then the idea that I would have a period that lasts around a month or more and is extremely heavy is not nearly as surprising as the idea that they’re shorter and lighter. I’m surprised that she didn’t call in some kind of hormone treatment or refer me to some OB/GYN that specializes in this kind of thing.

She did do one thing that was completely unexpected. She prescribed Polytrim eye drops. Admittedly, my eyes are itchy, but that is pretty much always true for me these days. They have some red marks in them, but that too is normal. It was a bit unusual when I went to the pharmacy yesterday to get my mom’s diabetes and blood pressure medicines and found out that those drops had been called in.

Comment » | Rants, Sickness and Health

Under My Feet

6
September

I haven’t really been online a lot this weekend. That’s mainly due to heightened anxiety/stress. I think that’s due to the beginning of football season. Around the time my father woke up on Saturday morning, I started giving myself my headache medicine. It kept me asleep for around 12-13 hours. I ended up waking up during Auburn’s halftime, which meant I got to experience rants full-on. I had missed the rants about the teams that he didn’t even care about, which was good. I had wished I could make it through the Auburn ones, too, but they would have been harder to miss. Auburn ended up winning, which was good. If they had lost, then I probably would’ve started dosing myself into unconsciousness again. (I’ve often used medicines to induce sleep. It’s how I managed to sleep while I was having major sleep issues during middle and high school.)

I started crying sometime in the early morning hours on Sunday. I just felt like I was ready to scream, throw things, etc. I started composing a very long letter to my parents about how I felt like I needed to be taken more seriously. (This was what I used to do when I was a little kid–if I needed something or if I felt like I needed to apologize, I’d write a letter.) Well, the ink ran out of the pen and I got upset and threw it across the room. It barely made a sound when it hit Willow’s chair, but it was loud enough that my mom woke up. We ended up talking, and I complained about the thing on my stomach, which she checked out a little closer this time. She was surprised because it was burning up, and I told her that that was normal. (It is hot most of the time, but it gets worse in the middle of the night [around 3:30-5:00 AM] and it starts hurting worse.) I have an appointment to get it checked out with my family medicine doctor, but I have honestly lost faith in most doctors lately. Yeah, they send me for the tests, but the longer this whole saga goes on, the more dismissive they get. (Half the time, the results are never relayed to me.) And with the cardiologist refusing to even suggest anything that could help the extra beats and tachycardia, it just seems to be stupid to go through massive amounts of tests.

Speaking of tests and medical records, I think that is unfair that if I want to access my medical records, I have to pay fees. (Where is Files & Records when you need her?) If I want a copy of my blood work, I have to pay per page of the test, which can be 20-or-so pages. The doctors, who have a lot more money, don’t have to pay anything. They can get paper copies or faxes or computer access without paying anything. All that they really need is a signature from me to share the records. (If they’re in the Huntsville Hospital system and the record is on my hospital file, they don’t even need my signature.) All these people can see whatever they want about me, but I don’t get to see my own file. (At the Mental Health Center, I don’t even get the opportunity to pay for the records to see what’s been said. I can have my therapist or doctor or one of the nurses read it to me, though.)

I’m a little frustrated with the Social Security Administration. When I started on SSI and SSDI, I was told that if I started paying $200+ a month in household expenses, then my SSI check would be increased by that much. After I got the first check, I began doing just that. I’ve told the SSA about this twice. I filled out lots of paperwork the first time–nothing happened. I called again in May or June (or possibly early July)–I haven’t even gotten paperwork or anything that says that anything will happen. I get that the government doesn’t really have lots of money right now, but it seems like they could at least hold up their end of the 1/3 reduction rule.

Anyway, right now I’m dealing with an earache and headache that my mom told me was probably just TMJ. I agreed at first, but after a while, my throat began hurting. I would say it was allergies, but I know that’s not likely.

Comment » | Family, General, Mental Health, National Weirdness, Sickness and Health, So Damn Special

Gut Don’t Lie

25
July

Before I make any kind of posting, I’m going to plug Urban Sunrise again. I know that some folks who read this are under 18, so they can’t post on it yet, but if you like boards, please check it out.

On Friday, my throat started hurting and my gut instinct was that this was some kind of infection. It felt kind of like the beginning of strep. It’s been worse every day and I’ve noticed other signs of an infection of some sort. It’s still not as bad as full-on strep can be, but it’s hurting constantly and I’m trying to find ways of dealing with it. Mainly I’ve tried to eat things that coat my throat in mucus…sugars, dairy products, etc. I’m basically using anything that a choir director would’ve banned the week of a competition.

I would schedule an appointment with a family practice doctor for Monday, but I have to do the test to determine if I can work (so my rheumatologist will fill out loan discharge papers on my student loan) at the therapy center. He, my mom, and I are fairly certain of what the results are going to be. I’m not really looking forward to the test, though. I hate being in pain, and I know it will only worsen it.

My mom is going to try to explain to my dad that he gets to keep the printer that he had prior to Friday, but I get to have the one that my mom and I got at Target. My mom and I both needed one that is accessible to us. Though my dad has the printer on a desk that is, literally, right next to my chair, we have to get up, go through the kitchen, and into the old dining room to actually use the printer. It was kind of stupid to put it in such an inaccessible place, but my dad has been really irritating lately.

I’m starting to worry about my vertigo test results. I know that the blood work might have to go to a specific lab, like how some goes to the Mayo Clinic and takes 2 weeks, but the vertigo test was done in the neurologist’s office and should’ve been analyzed that day or (at least) that week.

Okay, I’m going to talk about the message board again. It’s been a while since I’ve had to plug a message board, so I was wondering if anyone had any tips. If you know of some exchanges or listings that I can join to promote it, that would be cool. There are a few things I don’t want to do, i.e. going on someone else’s board and posting an ad. I know that I’ve done that in the past, but it typically can end up causing some sort of issues. (I know that most board owners don’t like it when other boards are posted.)

BTW – Blah Blah Biddy Blah is going to be moving from the .us address to a .com later this week. This is due to .us being way too expensive to renew. Rants and opinions will probably be on a different domain that I have. I’ll announce all this again later.

Comment » | Family, FPS-Related, Message Board, Sickness and Health

Malingering Brat

25
September

This post may be gross, as it refers to some bodily functions that are usually not discussed on here.

I need a new doctor, which is something that I have been told by many people online for years when I would describe my problems with my family doctor. I’ve been trying to express the attitude that he presents me with to my parents for years. They always acted like this was just part of his typical behavior. I tried to explain how he has gotten worse towards me. My mom finally went back with me today and saw him for who he is towards me.

A little over a week ago, after about a year of absence, my period returned. It came back very heavy and has progressively gotten worse. With this, I’ve had diarrhea, which is a normal thing for me. It’s also gotten worse. This past week, I have gone from feeling my normal tiredness and weakness, to a level of being so sick that I can barely move. I have almost fallen down several times because my body has been drained of everything, or at least that’s how it feels.

I go in to see my family doctor and he chastised me first for not taking birth control pills anymore. When I tried to point out that it was discovered last fall that I COULDN’T take them, nor could I take the mini-pill, he basically ignored me. Apparently, he thinks I should be on the pill despite the fact that the ones with estrogen seem to cause me to start producing the protein that leads to clots forming in legs that can kill you and the mini-pills (progesterone only) causing me to have angina attacks. I guess concerns of blood clots and heart attacks aren’t important.

Then he proceeds to tell me to eat vegetables, which is great, except that the way my stomach has been acting has made it impossible for me to process ANY food. He specifically told me to eat baked potatoes because of their nutrition. Well, a week ago, I had a baked potato and it passed through undigested.

He wrote out a prescription for Bentyl, which is an antichollergic that I took for years for abdominal pain (most of which turned out to be a result of a gallbladder failure that he refused to do tests for when I was a child) that he claimed was for IBS. Well, he wants me to take the Bentyl for the diarrhea. I guess that would be fine, except my body is so sensitive that when I take Bentyl, I pee all over myself without warning. He KNOWS this, as I have told him of this reaction. (I remember because he laughed at that.) I’m not taking the Bentyl.

He wasn’t going to do blood work, because as far as he’s concerned, he believes me to be a malingerer. My mom got on his case and told him that I was clearly sick and that I needed to have some kind of tests done to make sure that I haven’t got something seriously wrong. He relented.

Then my mom asked for a letter from him stating that I’m disabled. The state is refusing to abide by the law that says that people on disability are entitled to a property tax exemption on the home they own. As the property owner (though the same would apply to either of my disabled parents), I have to have 2 letters from doctors proving illness and a letter from Social Security claiming that I really am disabled. Well, apparently, it was news to my family doctor that I’m on disability. This is despite the fact that in 2005, he sent my files to Social Security for the claim, and then earlier this year he and I sat down to write a letter stating I’m disabled for UAH. He asked what I was on disability for. I told him arthritis, fibromyalgia, and mental illness. (Technically, the fibro was diagnosed after I was put on disability, but I still included it.) His response? “I don’t do the mental illness, people on arthritis can’t get disability, and people can’t prove fibromyalgia.” Well, that’s nice, except they do provide disability to people with those problems, not to mention that people with Sjogren’s are often on disability because of the complications from the syndrome. I mean, in the past year, my diagnosis list has gone up to at least 15 different diagnosable illnesses/syndromes/disorders. He gets the reports from each doctor, not to mention he was the recipient of the statement from the radiologist on his own test that I have scoliosis. Does any of this matter? No, because I am a liar.

I have NEVER made up an illness. I know some people think I’m a hypochondriac, but any illness I have ever said that I have on this blog, I have been diagnosed with or it has been suggested that I have. When I claim the 15 illnesses and such, I am not lying or exaggerating. I have had the blood work, X-Rays, MRIs, CT Scans, physical examinations, etc. that have proven these illnesses.

I didn’t ask for the specialist recommendations for a new headache doctor or for a doctor for the scoliosis or someone for the suspected immunodeficiency (which HE should have figured out that I had with the constant infections from my infancy on until I was a teenager, and multiple infections a year since). I couldn’t ask for them. He doesn’t believe ANYTHING is wrong with me. He never has. Ever since my gallbladder acted up when I was 13, he has disregarded EVERYTHING I’ve said.

Apparently, he’s of the Dale Jackson school of thought where the disabled have no rights.

Update: I will be making an appointment on Monday with the UAB clinic, which is a clinic run by the UAB med school. They’re the ones who figured out the Fibromyalgia diagnosis. The only sucky thing about them is that instead of having one doctor, I’ll be under the care of a resident and I’ll see various interns. The best part, though, is that they are EXTREMELY thorough. When they did the tests that led to the Fibro diagnosis, they tested me for everything. There were types of cancer and viruses that are virtually non-existent that they tested me for just to make sure that they covered all of their bases. And because I happen to have Sjogren’s now, my mom said they’ll probably enjoy learning on me.

1 comment » | Rants, Sickness and Health

     

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