arrrgh!!!!!!!!

[thestrangequark]

Yeah, it's pretty shitty. Everything is. I'm just exhausted...I don't know what I'll do if nothing shows up on my blood work. I just walked the two blocks to the coffee shop, and I feel so wiped out my legs are throbbing and I can barely keep my eyes open sitting at my desk. I can't even type at a normal speed. I've had to tell my boss that I can't go to South Carolina to do the presentation I was assigned weeks ago -- he is hugely sweet and understanding, and I've prepped most of the presentation already and can just coach the substitute tomorrow, but it's getting increasingly difficult just to get to work. It's a ten minute walk to the train, and ten more from the train to the office, and I find myself barely able to make it. A month ago I was getting up every morning at 6am to do an hour of intense cardio on an exercise bike, 10 minutes each strength training and yoga, and then walking 6 miles home after work every day...

And I still have a horrible feeling my doctor is going to call and sy my blood work turned out all fine.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

That really sucks. I hope they figure out what it is very soon so they can start treating it, and you can start feeling better!

 

[Emher]

*Hugs tsq*

 

[rhubarbodendron]

health probs always suck because one has (usually) no chance to actively do anything against them. Fortunately, I am quite ok, apart from 2 slipped discs in my neck that chose to slip not towards the back as they usually do but to the front. Now the damned things press right through my esophagus and into the air pipe so that I continually have the feeling someone strangles me. (which I'm sure quite a few people would like to).
It was ok for months but for the last 2 or 3 weeks it's been very bad. I guess I'll have to ask my GP to prescribe a few sessions with my physiotherapist again.

 

[Sephiroth]

that sucks, TSQ. Wish I could do something to help.

 

[thestrangequark]

Update on the rant....VALIDATION! The heart monitor picked something up! Is it weird that I'm happy about this?

It looks okay, my cardiologist doesn't think it's dangerous. She's going to have me do another test next week. Not-Dangerous plus Not-All In My Head: two negatives definitely equal a positive in this case!

Symptoms seem to be strongly correlated to the activity of lady bits, so she and the gyno are going to test, test, test. Hopefully I can get back to myself soon.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

do you also suffer from back problems? I had really bad ventricular fibrillation 2 years ago. The cardiologist found nothing wrong and after a year and it turned out that a slipped disk had squeezed a nerve that regulates the heartrate.

 

[thestrangequark]

^It's a possibility. They're going to do a nerve conduction test, because while I don't have back problems, I do have sciatica and I'm having some weird nerve-related symptoms that don't fit the pathology of diabetic neuropathy (which would be unlikely in me in any case, as I am young and fit and my diabetes is under good control). I have tingling in my left hand that comes and goes, and if I sleep with my left arm above my head it goes numb. Maybe it is a nerve thing! I sure wouldn't mind if the sciatica could be fixed! I have to have a tip-table test too, which doesn't sound fun (I don't mind the tip-table part, but the adrenalin injection doesn't sound pleasant), and I'm having an ultrasound today to rule out endometriosis or other ladyhood problems. I'm so tired of tests...I'm trying to rejoice in the scientific method, but it becomes exhausting at a point.

 

[Emher]

Great to hear that it's not serious and one step closer to being solved! *hugs*

Also, lady bits you say? Oh my...

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Update on the rant....VALIDATION! The heart monitor picked something up! Is it weird that I'm happy about this?

Not weird at all! I'm glad you're getting answers.

Now, my own rant...

I've been on SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) long enough now that I became eligible for Medicare on March 1. Instead of one health insurance policy that covers everything, I now have regular Medicare (Parts A and B), a Medi-gap policy through a private insurance company, and Part D (prescriptions) through a different company. I'm losing my mind changing everything over...

Medicare doesn't cover the IV antibiotics that I'm getting as part of home health care (Part B), so it has to come under Part D. But the company that currently supplies the antibiotics doesn't accept Part D, so I have to switch to a new provider and, therefore, a new infusion pump... when all I have left is ten more days of treatment! Same basic issue with the home health nurse... Fighting with the surgeon's office to get him to sign and fax some form for only a 3 or 4 more visits.

I so wish I could've just stayed with my previous insurance for another month or two, until all this stuff was finished. But I was in a state program for people who are otherwise uninsurable, so by definition I was no longer eligible for that as soon as I was Medicare-eligible.

Edited to add that there's been a wonderful resolution to one piece of this:

Since I have only ten days of tx left anyway, the home infusion agency has decided to keep me on... and not charge me. If I had to pay, the meds alone would be $190 a day. I am very impressed with these people!

 

[rhubarbodendron]

tsc, that arm/hand tingling and going numb thing sounds very familiar. I get that all the time when I ride my bicycle or drive a car. I have 2 slipped discs in my neck (those between the lower 3 vertebrae). In my case they slipped not towards the back as discs normally do but to the front and slightly to the right, squeezing the nerve for my right arm.
I can put x-ray and CT pics online, if your medicine men need a better description.

When teh tingling and numbness started I had a nerve conduct test made and it showed no problem whatsoever. It was a complete coincidence that we discovered the slipped disks when I complained about an obstacle in my throat when breathing or swallowing (the discs protrude so much that they poke right through the gullet and into the windpipe).

It can easily be treated by physiotherapy but tends to return when I work on the computer for a few days in a row (bad posture)

 

[thestrangequark]

You guys may really be on to something. Thank you for such thoughtful responses! I mentioned the slipped disc idea to my mom, rhubarb, and she told me that she has something called cervical spinal stenosis, which can be inherited. Her's is caused in part by her physiology -- a narrow shaft for the spinal chord -- and was exacerbated by a bad car accident that she and I were in about 17 years ago. I'm scheduling a never conduction test this week, and I'm going to inform my doc of my mom's diagnosis. If it is cervical spinal stenosis it could explain a lot. Not only the tingling in my hand and heart palpitations, but the terrible sciatica I have. I finally realized that I am just too young to be in this much pain!

 

[rhubarbodendron]

IMO one is always too young to be in much pain!
I've been suffering from migraine ever since I was in Kindergarten - my pain threshold is rather high now but that's a training method I'd hardly wish upon my worst enemy.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

IMO one is always too young to be in much pain

It's in my O as well.

It's also in my O that whoever invented Captchas and Recaptchas should be shot without trial.

 

[Ghost07]

Why do banks always think they can't make mistakes? And WHY does everything bad happen on a weekend.

It would seem that fifty dollars has vanished from my checking account. I've gone over it twice and can't find a mistake...and now I have to wait until Monday before I can go to the bank for help...always assuming the weather will hold so I can actually get there since I have no car any more and must take the wheelchair down.

I still come up with I should have 53 dollars left in the account.

This ruins the entire weekend because I can't stop worrying about it.

AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!

 

[Tora Ziyal]

^I'm so sorry. It's been years since I had a major bank problem, but I still remember how awful it was to discover it on a Friday night, on my way out of town for the weekend. Hopefully, yours will be resolved on Monday.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

{{{{{{{{Ghostie}}}}}}} I hope they can solve it really quick! It has never happened to me (...yet!), but it's to be expected, I'm afraid.
I, too, find that evil things tend to happen in the weekend. Heating failures, power cuts, wrong bills, sick pets - whatever you can think of, it invariably happens 5 minutes after everyone closed down for the weekend.

 

[SmoothieX]

Good friend of mine is going to waste away mentally and physically and die in the next couple years. Fuck it all.

 

[Shanndee]

I'm so sorry SmoothieX. Is it ALS?

 

[SmoothieX]

Mitochondrial something or other. Was a little too much freaked out at the time.

I'm complaining that my stuff won't get to my new house here until next week and she's joking about dying.

Absolute sweetheart who talked me through my divorce after she went through hers, she deserves much better.