Monday, June 30, 2014

Today was another day.....

So, I'm guessing y'all wanna know what happened this AM when I showed up at the Dr.'s office right? I got there and the usual receptionist wasn't there.  They told me she was out that day, I said ah ok. I asked for my doctors nurse so I could give her the bag of goodies I had for her then sat and waited for her.  She came out and we talked for a few minutes. I told her what happened and that she and the doctor she was the nurse for were the only reasons I was staying and I may not be after what had happened Friday. She went and got me a stool test kit and we were talking for a few more minutes and I got her to write her address down and slipped it in there as a very nosey nurse came over to butt in and see what we were up to.  So we broke it up and I left.

So then I went to the Pulmonary Dr. and they did indeed have more information than Western Wakemed did. Basically, they are going with Pulmonary Hypertension. Basically right side heart failure. The basic definition is a type of high blood pressure that affects the arteries in the lungs and the right side of your heart. It begins when tiny arteries in your lungs, called pulmonary arteries are narrowed, blocked, or destroyed.  This makes it harder for blood to flow through your lungs, and raises pressure within your lungs' arteries. As the pressure builds, your heart's lower right chamber (right ventricle) must work harder to pump blood through your lungs, eventually causing your heart muscle to weaken and eventually fail.

Pulmonary hypertension is a serious illness that becomes progressively worse and is sometimes fatal. Although pulmonary hypertension isn't curable, treatments are available that can help lessen symptoms and improve quality of life.

My next test is a Right Heart Catheterization. I've had all the other tests thus far.  During this procedure, a cardiologist will place  a thin, flexible tube (catheter) into a vein. The catheter is threaded into your right ventricle and pulmonary artery. Right heart catheterization allows your doctor to directly measure the pressure in the main pulmonary arteries and right ventricle.  It's also used to see what effect different medications may have on your pulmonary hypertension.

Right Heart Catheterization is usually performed during local anesthesia and sedation in a hospital setting. you often can go home soon after the procedure. You'll need someone to drive you home after the test.

So you will know more when I know more! The test has not been scheduled yet.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Gotta Get It!

Hey!  If you own an ipad, check out that company Zoogue in the right sidebar! they have AWESOME cases and accessories! I have been with them since I got the original Ipad and I turned the original in last year to Best Buy so I could get the Ipad Air.  Zoogue did NOT disappoint on having just as cool a case for my new one! NOW, they have an even cooler one about to be released that I just have to have and I was told that my readers could use the code JT30 to get a 20% discount off theirs!  THAT is a deal!  GO FOR IT!

Saturday, June 28, 2014

4 hours wasted

spending 4 hours at western wake last night and getting put through a very painful iv situation for what turns out to be nothing I know, better to be safe than sorry still pisses me off. Why? Because my doctor is now denying he told me to go to the hospital. They paged him and talked to him and he told them he didn't tell me to go.

 So as I'm being discharged the nurse puts the blood pressure cuff up high on my right upper arm where my shoulder injury is and it started getting tighter and tighter. I start screaming bloody murder and moving so it gets tighter and tighter and she said I had to calm down or it would continue to do that. I said I can't help it so she angrily rips the cuff off and I ask her to have someone else come and do it. 

She asks how they will do it any differently and I am sitting there in tears covering my face for at least 10 minutes hoping Bill will speak up and ask for the other person to come in but no, he sits there and brings up the fact I have fibromyalgia so I'm more tender which had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with this and discredits me with them immediately when they hear I have it. 

I finally start breathing normally and look at Bill and the nurses asks if I'm ready to continue.. I had been trying to wait her out to get her to leave and let someone else finish. So she showed me the discharge papers and I said where do I sign, signed and she left me my copy apologizing several times for hurting me. I just kept my mouth shut until she left. 

Bill understands now and knows for the future. I was flashing back very badly to the nurse from UNC that was so bad to me on that same side. I mean, I had told the woman I need to have support under where you are going to attempt to do the iv or I will jump, move, yip, yell, etc. if it is a sensitive area. It is involuntary and I have no idea what will happen. Her superior was in the room at that point and got a sheet that was still all folded up out and put it by my foot for her to use and she didn't. 

She didn't listen to anything. 4 hours of crying, screaming, mental distress, tests, etc. I wouldn't volunteer to do since I was to see the pulmonologist on monday at UNC. I went to my GP to see if I could wait and they said no. I will be in his office first thing monday am to find out who the receptionist talked to and what they really said.

I wrote an e-mail to the Dr. at UNC I am to see on Monday to see if I need to keep the Appt. because the dr. in the ER didn't see since I was therapeutic what else there was THEY could do so was there something they knew that Western Wake didn't that would require me to still go on Monday.  They responded yes, there are things we need to discuss so please still come. At least they are forthright and honest.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

You Think You Know Me?

Throughout my lifetime I have been put through a lot of trials and tribulations when it comes to my health. People have told me that my body is so weird and the things that have happened could have only happened to me that I should write a book. I told them I didn't think anyone would read it.

The current thing I have been dealing with since December 30, 2013 is blood clots, lots of them, all over my abdominal area. I attribute them building up from the fall down our basement stairs the December 2012 wherein I sprained both ankles very badly and my tailbone (which we are just figuring out). I had to be in air boots on both legs and a wheelchair for about 3 months and we did several road trips while my legs were in them and didn't take enough breaks apparently. I had gone down to Atlanta at least 2 times which round trip was about 1000 miles before mid May.

In mid May, we sold our 4 door sedan on the way out of town and had a really cool rented Mercedes to drive up to my husbands family to celebrate his b-day etc. in Iowa. When we left them, we headed across to Queens, NYC where we picked up our new, used Lexus IS-C which Bill drove home while I drove the Mercedes home. The whole road trip was 3300 miles.

I was having problems breathing prior to this trip but we didn't think anything of it.  When I got back I checked in with the doctors and there was nothing on x-rays etc. So we move forward to August when I go down to GA for the court case of Andrea Sneiderman in Dunwoody, GA.I drove to the court daily and back to my folks. I was down there for about 2 weeks. so probably about 2500 for that trip.

We went down for my birthday to celebrate so that was 1000 round trip on mileage. We went down again for Thanksgiving and I was starting to have issues but not as obvious as later. so another probably 1500 given all the shopping I did.

By the time we head to Iowa for Xmas I can't move 5 feet without needing to sit.  I can't walk up a set of stairs without needing to sit to catch my breath etc. It was extremely bad. By the end of the trip my in laws were scared and my husband and I were as well.

I went a total of probably over 10,000 last year road tripping and it caused blood clots galore. I got an x ray and the x ray reader actually came in and said both lungs were full.  I went and picked my husband up at work on my way back to the Dr.'s office as they are all around the same area.

They told me flat out that had I not come in on December 30th, 3 days later I would have been dead. I apparently had clots in both lungs, one in the right atrium, and one in the lower abdomen in the vena cava vein that was 14cm long.  I had gone right from the dr.'s office to the hospital across the parking lot.  From there a week and a day later I was transferred by ambulance to UNC due to the 14cm one so they could do a procedure with what they call thrombeletics  to break up that one clot.

I was brought into the surgical area and the stuff was started and then I was to stay flat on my back and not to move for 24 hrs.  If you know me, you know I have a low back injury and can't lay flat on my back so I whined all night and drove my roommate batty! The nurse came in and scolded me for something I couldn't help.

When they came in to put a pillow under that side to try and make it better that same nurse grabbed my shoulder which had a torn ligament from another incident pre hospital and re aggravated it so I was then in tears and going into a panic attack.

Needless to say I was glad to get out of that hospital after 20 days total in the hospital. I had a job with the Census Bureau and went back to it 10 days after the hospital but ultimately was made to quit.  My lungs are very damaged from all of the clots I had and apparently are still having form so I'm not able to continue to the job I was doing with them.

I am currently on 3.0 liters/hr of oxygen and not sure if that isn't gonna go up. If I don't have it on, my memory goes kaput, forming sentences is harder, etc. I have finally gotten portable cans that are much easier to carry around to go out etc.  I am also on a travel ban by the doctors. I got one pass and that was to go down for my dad's 73rd b-day and to go be with Vinnie Politan for a day at CNN.

You can imagine how much cabin fever I have right now with all the travel I have done in the past :) but my health is more important. It did make me miss my husbands grandfathers funeral which I really wanted to be at and my uncles 50th anniversary of being a priest celebration.