Searching for My Long Lost Shaker of Salt

During all of my latest round of pokings and proddings, it was determined that I have high blood pressure. I really wasn't surprised because #1, what HAVEN'T I been diagnosed with? and #2 my two younger siblings are both on high blood pressure meds. Did I mention they are YOUNGER than me? Anyway....

I went to the grocery store so I could feed the wild indians, Jason & myself. That had to have been the singularly most depressing shopping trip I have ever been on. There is sodium in everything. Every-fricking-thing...soda, flour, milk, cereal, bread...Jason looked at me and wailed,"what are we going to eat?!?!"

Now, I didn't mention it to him at the time, but really, I could have kissed him right there in the middle of Safeway for using the word "we" and not "you." But, he has this weird thing about PDA, and well, I was too depressed over having to quit my Diet Mountain Dew habit cold turkey to muster up the energy to plant on on him. So, we went schlumping down the aisles, looking for sodium free sustenance.

In addition to not being able to have salt, foods/drinks with Vitamin K and Phosphoric Acid are also on the banned substances list for me. So, I can eat iceberg lettuce (which does NOT count as a leafy green vegetable) and drink water. And that's about it. More or less.

So, when I got home, I did the first thing I could think of. I went online and ordered two Low Sodium Cookbooks. I haven't cooked anything out of them yet, but at least having them in my possession gives me a little ray of hope.

What I could really use is a big ol' glass of Diet Mountain Dew.

If It Weren't For Me, You'd be Dead....

That is Jason's new mantra. If I've heard it once, I've heard it 67.9 gajillion times this past week. All my doctors have heard him say it. Even the dog and the turtle are tired of hearing it.

Now y'all know I love Jason with all my heart. I really, really do. However....when he is right about something, he is like a dog with a bone. He will gnaw and gnaw and gnaw at it and not let it go. Ever.

I will freely admit that when it comes to my health, he has been right about 98% of the time. Unfortunately, it's usually the big stuff he's right about. Like making me go to the Doctor for Bronchitis...and making me go to the ER (although I will point out he got the Pneumonia diagnosis wrong -- as did the ER Doc)...making me follow up with my Primary Care Doctor...all of which got me to where I am today.

It's no secret that I am hardheaded. I've already told y'all about how much I like to go to the Doctor. So, nothing gives him greater pleasure than to crow over me dragging my feet about getting an appointment, and then the Doctor fussing at me. Then, when the Doctor is done fussing, he starts back in and gets the Doctor all wound up again.

I know he does it because #1 he loves me and #2 he doesn't want me to croak and leave him alone with the kids. And the difference between reason #1 and reason #2 is really, really, realllllllly small. I mean, I don't think you could slip a piece of paper between the two.

So, in order to keep me alive, he has become Warden Jason. He hovers, he fusses, he worries, and he tells me that if it weren't for him, I'd be dead.

Maybe he's right, maybe he's not...I really don't care. I just want him to stop saying it. He can think it all he wants.

I'll let you know how it goes after my Cardiologist appointment on Wednesday.

Every Breath You Take

You don't realize how often you breathe until it becomes difficult to do so. Every breath in or out either caused me pain or a coughing fit....and going outside and breathing in cold air? That was the worst.

After my release from the hospital, I came home and was put on lockdown by Warden Jason. After not being able to sleep much in the hospital, I was looking forward to being in my own bed with no nurses waking me up to see if I was ok. I guess I should have told my family that. The door to my bedroom was constantly being opened by my new set of nurses checking on me. At least they weren't drawing blood....there were still needles involved though.

Because I was discharged before my medicine level was at a "therapeutic level," I had to give myself injections in my stomach twice a day. Let me tell you how happy that made me. My stomach is now a sea of bruises from the needles. Thank god I'm not a swim suit model.

The first full day home was a marathon of making phone calls for all the doctor visits the Hospital said I had to schedule. My dance card was definitely full. I must say, Valentine's Day 2011 will go down in Bailey History as being memorable...though not for the right reasons.

Wednesday rolls around, and I go to see my Primary Care doctor. I go through the whole story about the past few days, and we go over what the course of action is. The course of action seems to be more blood getting sucked out of me and even more doctor's visits. Awesome! My discharge papers list everything I am diagnosed with...and one of the items on the lengthy list was "breast tumor." Um....pardon?

It seems when they did the Cat Scan on my lungs, the scan also picked up on the numerous fibroids in my chest. I tried to explain to the doctors that yes, I knew they were there, yes, they were biopsied, yes my mammogram in fall was clear. I felt like Charlie Brown's teacher. The more I talked, the more they only heard, " Whaaa whaa, whaa whaa whaa whaa." The report they sent my primary care doc evidently had even scarier verbiage than "breast tumor," so my doctor wanted me to go for a mammogram just to rule out cancer causing the clots.

This did not make me all warm and fuzzy. The rest of the appointment was a blur of more bloodwork appointments to be made, what I could and couldn't do, what medicine I could and couldn't take. I was now certain that it wouldn't be the clots that killed me, it would be breast cancer. Little Mary Sunshine, I am not.

I get home, and I am laying around waiting to die when the phone rings. It's my doctor, who has just been sent some more of the paperwork from the hospital. She gives me the good news that when they did the sonogram of my heart in the hospital, they found pulmonary hypertension and a swollen left ventricle. Now mind you, the doctors in the hospital did not find it necessary to share that little nugget of information with me. So, she says I need to make an appointment with a Cardiologist.

WTF?!?!

I mean, really. What in the world could be thrown at me next? I swear, the only diagnosis that they didn't give me was pregnancy, and as God is my witness, if they had said I was pregnant with twins, I wouldn't have been surprised. That's how nuts my week had been.

So, I hang up the phone, and I sit in a daze for a minute. As I try to process all this information, I try to tell myself that the doctors are being thorough, they want to find out exactly what caused the clots....but then, all I can think is more doctors, more blood drawn, more tests....ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH! I really need to work on being more patient. It's on my bucket list...towards the bottom.

When I call the Cardiologust Office, the receptionist asks what kind of appointment I want. I tell her I don't know, and I start telling her the story of the past week. There's a brief pause, and she puts me on hold. A nurse comes on the line to ask me what's going on. I tell her the story, and she makes the appintment. I have a feeling there's going to be some sticky note on my file saying, "nutjob" -- or whatever the medical term is.

Now, my mammogram appointment the following day was much better. I get put in my little cube to change in the ever so glamorous hospital gown, and I sit and wait for the Tech to come back and get me. When she finally comes back, she has a Doctor with her. I looked at the two of them, and my first thought was, "Holy crap. This must be really bad if the Doctor is coming to talk to me before I even get the mammogram done." The Doctor proceeds to tell me that he believes what the Cat Scan showed were the fibroids we already knew about. He said he really was leaning against having me subjected to an unneeded mammogram, but he couldn't be truly certain as he had not seen the Cat Scans. Well, this perked me up considerably. I proclaimed (almost to the point of yelling) that I had the Cat Scan films in my car, and I would send my husband out to fetch them.

So, after the Doctor looked over the films, he said nothing had changed, and I didn't need to get squished (I may be paraphrasing the last part a smidge). I just about danced out of the waiting room. One thing to check off my list...cancer was not going to kill me today.

The next day, I had bloodwork to see if I was finally at a therapeutic level of my meds. I did not have high hopes, so I was Snoopy Dancing to find out I was at the right level, and I could quit shooting myself up in the stomach. Oh, happy happy day! Then I found out that they were upping the amount of blood thinner I was on. My mind raced....shots in my stomach or not being able to shave my legs for 3-6 months*....which was less appealing? OK, I can handle the upped dosage. Thank god I'm blonde...and it's winter.

This week brings yet another follow up with my Primary Care Doc, the Cardiologist appointment, and an appointment with my GYN. The original thought was it was the hormones I was taking to regulate my cycle that caused the clots...and that first diagnosis may, in fact, be the final diagnosis...after we rule out every.other.fricking.thing.imaginable. So, I need to visit with the Doctor that gave me the pills that almost killed me. That should be a rip-roaring fun appointment.

Thank you all for the prayers, good thoughts, food, and support. I have more stories to tell about this whole ordeal, and since I am still on virtual house arrest, I will have plenty of time to tell them all. Hold your applause until the end, please. :-)

Doctor, Doctor, Gimme the News....

One week ago yesterday, I went to the doctor thinking that I would be handed some antibiotics and cough syrup and sent on my way. Man, when I am wrong, I am really, really wrong.

What started off as a brief 15 minute Doctor appointment ended in Cat Scans, frantic phone calls, an ER visit and a hospital stay....all in the span of three hours. Let me take you back....

I very rarely get sick. And when I do get sick, I typically don't go to the Doctor. I have nothing against Doctors, mind you, and I am a firm believer in modern medicine. I just have better things to do with my time. Like nap...or do laundry.

However, when an illness interferes with my sleep. it's off to the doctor I go. Three weeks ago, I was diagnosed with Bronchitis. It didn't get better, so Jason took me to the ER, and they diagnosed me with Pneumonia. Awesome! Still wasn't getting better, so last Friday, I broke down and went back to the Doctor....who said it wasn't Pneumonia, but blood clots in my lungs.

Anyone who knows me knows I can be a bit high strung under times of stress. When I heard the words, "blood clots," a vision of my funeral popped into my head (thank you all for the lovely flowers, by the way). The Doctor assured me if the clots were going to kill me, I'd already be dead (seriously, he said that). He wasn't even 100% certain the problem was blood clots, he said, but he was sending me for a Cat Scan just to make sure. I asked when he wanted me to go, and when he said that he was sending me immediately, well, I was really sure it was fatal.

I go to my car, and try to compose myself, and I call Jason. I tell him what's going on, and where to meet me. I drive, alone, to Annapolis to the Imaging Center for my Cat Scan. As I was speeding down Route 50, I was thinking of what I would tell the cop if I were pulled over. I figured if I mentioned, blood clots, cat scan, dying, I'd get out of the ticket. Sadly, by the time I had my story perfected, I was at the Imaging Center.

I walk in, give them my name, and they say, "Oh, we know all about you. We've been waiting for you." This did not make me feel any better.

They take me back to this dark room, and inject me with dye. This is gross. It makes your mouth and nose taste funny, and it makes you feel like you peed your pants. Luckily the Tech told me of the peeing feeling or else I probably would have died from embarrassment from peeing. After the scan, I get sent back to the waiting room. I get called back to see the Doctor, and he has pictures of my lungs on two ginormous computer monitors. For a split second, I had a pang of monitor envy, then I focused on the words he was saying. Spots. on my lungs.

SPOTS?!?! The only time I have ever heard the word spots in conjunction with lungs was lung cancer. I try very hard not to pass out or throw up on the guy. Then he clarified saying the spots were clots. OK. Clots seem better than spots, but clots are still bad. So, Dr. Feelgood (no bedside manner whatsoever) tells me to go to the ER, go directly to the ER, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Or maybe what he actually said was, "you are going to the ER immediately. You don't have time to go home. You do not have time to do anything but go directly to the ER."

Well, crap. Now I'm sure I am dying again. And this really isn't a good time for me to die. I am much, much too busy to be dead. Seriously.

Jason drives me to the ER and drops me off while he parks. I walk in, coughing, and I am stopped by a guy behind a desk who hands me a mask like I am Typhoid Mary. I explain to him that I am not contagious, but I have multiple blood clots in my lungs. That changes his sour demeanor immediately. He takes me arm and walks me into the triage area (10 steps, maybe).

The ER is PACKED. There are people everywhere, and I am pretty sure that if the blood clots don't kill me, whatever germs I pick up from the unwashed masses certainly will. Luckily, if you come into the ER with blood clots in your lungs, you get seen in record time. I see a doctor, who looks at me, and tells me I get to stay in the hospital for 3-5 days. Again, I really do NOT have time for this.

I get hooked up to all sorts of machines and monitors, and they start doing tests...drawing blood, doing sonograms, taking my blood pressure, you name it, they did it to me. I felt like a lab rat...but without any cheese as a reward.

There is no room at the Inn, so I don't get into a real hospital room. I get moved first to a private ER Room, then to an Observation Room. I get poked and prodded and woken up a zillion times. I get so much blood taken from me, I expect to see Count Dracula, Edward Cullen, Count Chocula, and the Count from Sesame Street as my doctors.

Sunday Morning, I get the good news that they are kicking me to the curb, and I can go home. Hooray! Then they tell me that I get to give myself shots in the stomach twice a day while at home. Ummmm....really? I have to follow up with my primary care doctor and my GYN they tell me, and boy does the follow up visit to my primary care doctor open up a big ol' can of worms.

You'll have to wait until tomorrow for that part of the story....