Medical updates

It's Sunday and I wanted to get out some quick medical updates before I get a shower and run out the door to usher mass this morning.

Last week was the appointment with the GI doctor; you know, the appointment that was scheduled over 6 weeks ago? The appointment that was canceled on Monday and rescheduled for when dear hubby will be gone? The appointment that angry, dear hubby called about only to find out the rescheduled one was going to be canceled? Angry, dear hubby got me into the doctor last Thursday. Most of my time was spent with a fellow with a few fleeting minutes from his attending. I was poked, prodded, and questioned and stumped another two doctors. The fellow seemed to need convincing that I've been ill for a while and that I was having pain. I considered grabbing his neck tie while he pushed on my left side to hammer home that what he was doing hurt. I opted to wince instead. The result of that appointment is a upper GI endoscopy on Tuesday afternoon and a mammogram on October 17th. The latter is to rule out a possible issue with the breast itself. The fellow kept saying he thought I just pulled a muscle. I would have bought his thinking if the whole issue had started several weeks earlier in July after I got home from cleaning brush and weeds at my parents' house. I had two MRIs on Thursday night and do not have any results back from these yet.

Jon commented that I was looking better the past couple of days than I had in a really long time. My swelling had gone down and I did not have as much pain. I felt so good yesterday that I caught up on some much needed cleaning around the house. I must have gone a bit overboard because I do have some pain and increased swelling today but the house looks and even feels better!

Today's adventures include ushering at mass and grocery shopping. We may watch the NASCAR cup race later today and maybe some football. I hung out in the basement with dear hubby last night watching NASCAR and football which was a welcome break from cartoons!

Have a great week!

What a week!

I'm glad that this crazy week is finally winding to a close.

What seemed like an average Sunday took a strange turn when we lost power to the house. We were lucky that power was only out for 3 hours and that our favorite Chinese restaurant had power so that we could get dinner. Jonnie had no clue what to do since he could not watch TV. Once the NASCAR race finished on the radio, we ended up going to the basement to watch Jon clean his guns by battery operated lantern. Power came back on shortly there after although phone, Internet, and cable did not come back until Monday. Given what others suffered through, we won't complain about one fried cable box which Jon exchanged on Wednesday.

The building where I work was on generator power Sunday afternoon through Tuesday night. I was tasked with keeping all of the staff updated with the current status of the power outage. I went in Tuesday and Wednesday at 6 AM to make sure my department was open early so staff could call in for status. Wednesday, I did triage after the power outage and came out fairly unscathed. Jon's building never lost power although Jon did have a few long days dealing with campus buildings that were without power and security services.

As my husband predicted, I crashed hard and by Thursday, I ended up staying home from work at least for the morning. Jon was able to get me in to see his doctor for a consultation on my medical situation. Since I was down the street from work, I went in and put in a half day. Jon's doctor could not believe how much larger my left side is than my right with all of the swelling. He said he has never seen anything like it. He has no answers and thinks that moving forward with seeing the GI doctor next week and getting MRIs is the right thing to do. With my situation, the way to approach it is to run tests and check off what it ISN'T and then try another test. I see the GI doctor on Wednesday afternoon and I have thoracic and lumbar MRIs scheduled for Thursday night.

Prior to my illness, it has been common for me to come down with a horrible headache for 2-3 days when I get run down. Unfortunately, I am running down sooner with my illness. My headache finally cleared today after starting on Wednesday. Alleluia!

I am trying not to miss work but I've not done such a good job at it. Over the past couple of weeks, I've turned over the car keys to Jon and had him do the driving so that I could at least be present at the office. Some of those days may not have always been productive but I was at least present and accounted for.

I was hoping to be cured by now but that has not happened. The custodian at work reminds me that God has a plan for me and that he has me in His hands and is protecting me. I have a sign on my door with the cartoon character Maxine that says "If you woke up breathing, Congratulations, you have another chance". I have to admit that over these past weeks, I feel grateful for every day that I wake up breathing even if I'm tired and/or hurting.

Jon has a trip coming up where he'll be gone for several days. It will be an exciting time because our son starts Parish School of Religion (PSR) or at least I think he will; I'm not sure the woman who was heading up the program is still with the Parish. It will be challenging because I'll be working full-time and being a full-time Mommy without Daddy for help. My doctor has exempted me from heavy lifting (yeah, no more furniture or equipment moving at work) but since I feel obligated to follow these same rules at home, Jon's trip means running laundry to the laundry room a few shirts at a time.

I need to wrap up this posting for now. I need to get a good night's rest as we're going back to the zoo tomorrow to see the half of the zoo we did not see a couple of weeks ago. We're going on Saturday so that I can have Sunday as a recovery day since the last trip knocked me out.

Have a great weekend and GO BUCKS!

Victory and Defeat

"The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" is something that late sports caster Howard Cosell used to say when I would watch ABC's Wide World of Sports with my Dad while growing up.

Recently, I'm feeling more "agony of defeat" as I battle this undiagnosed illness that has been troubling me for the past month and a half. On Sunday, we took a family trip to the zoo. It was a short trip because Jonnie asked to go home plus I was spending more time sitting on benches watching the wagon while Jon and Jonnie went to see exhibits. When we got home, I washed my face, climbed into bed, and slept for over an hour. I got up and started making an early dinner since we never ate lunch. I perked up after having something to eat. Jonnie wanted to go outside and play soccer. He has a small soft soccer ball and a net. I didn't run much but I walked along and kicked the ball a little bit with him for a half hour. When I got ready for bed, I noticed that my left side swelling had returned and I was really achy. I was in bed by 9:30 but that wasn't enough. I got up for work and felt awful; still swollen, achy, and exhausted. I took care of a couple of things and went back to bed and slept until about 9:40 this morning. I'm getting ready to lay down to take a nap.

Although I am feeling defeated, I feel there is also victory. I have not yet been diagnosed so I can be treated but I am still alive. Granted, I have some days that are better than others but I still have my life to be thankful for. I have people praying for me like crazy, relatives who suggest tests that I should have done, and a doctor that has been receptive since she has no idea what is causing my ailments. My son understands that I don't feel well and sometimes Mama needs to sleep a lot. My husband has been phenomenal. He's changes the cat litter box (I can handle the daily scooping), when he starts to run out of his favorite clothes; he does the laundry, when we ran out of forks over the weekend, we had a good laughed and washed a couple for dinner and then he did the dishes. He makes sure our son gets to bed and on days like today where I have to stay home, he gets our son dressed, to school and back. Since we have no family in the area that can help us, we have become closer through this whole ordeal as well as more tolerant of each other as we try to cope with getting through every day life one day at a time.

Confronted a fear today

My bike has been something that has hung on the rack in the garage for a few years now. Back many years ago, Jon and I rode in some lengthy competitions around the state and his Dad joined us for a few of them. The last ride we did was to raise money for a local cerebral palsy organization back in 2005. Since that time, the bike has been hanging. We have a family membership with the League of American Bicyclists so I get regular issues of "Bicycling" magazine plus a mountain biking mag. I have been reading through the regular cycling magazine during the past couple of days when taking a few moments of respite in the "train room" of our house. This morning, I was reading a mag while having a cup of green tea and banana bread (Jonnie and I made it for Jon to welcome him home). For some reason, something moved me to want to get on the bike. I took a shower and headed out to the garage. My husband followed me. He pumped up the tires and I told him "I want to ride like a normal person, not a competitor". I won't repeat some of the words he muttered at me as I tried to get on the bike and rejected it. I tried putting a different seat on it to make it shorter but the seat posts were two different sizes. Finally, I put the regular seat back on and mounted the surly beast. I was scared at first feeling like I was going to crash. However, I started to get more comfortable and rode for about 15 minutes around the neighborhood. I had my helmet and a pair of sunglasses. I left the cycling computer in the garage but decided that I did get spoiled by the padded half gloves so I will probably wear those again. I have enough padding on the rear that my tush doesn't hurt. :-)

As I continue to battle an unknown disease, illness, whatever I feel like I accomplished something today by facing the fear of my bike.