Thursday, October 20, 2011

Great couple of days!

I haven't mentioned on here, but most people that I know, know that I am a HUGE Michael Jackson fan.  Have been since I was really little (mom tells me that I would go around singing 'Beat It' before I could even talk in full sentances).  His death was a huge blow to me as I always dreamed of seeing him in concert.  I even was very close to buying tickets to the "This Is It" tour even though it would have cost a small fortune to travel from where I am (Canada) to even just get to the UK to get in the right country.  I was devestated when I learned of his death and have been following the news daily about the trial and what has happened.

Last year I had heard of the Cirque du Soleil show doing a Michael Jackson tribute show.  I saw a story on TMZ later about the dates being released and found out that they were listing dates so I went to the official site and was very very shocked that the show would be coming to a large-ish city only an hour away from where I live (I thought I would have to travel hours away to a major city in the States to see it).  I then somehow stumbled upon a pre-sale for tickets and managed to get to a site where I could buy tickets right then even though they didn't go on sale for another week.  I went through and put in two seats and came up with amazing seats.  I very quickly went upstairs to ask mom if she wanted to go and then broke it to her gently that it would be just under $400 for the two seats.  I also let her know that even if she didn't want to go to the show, I would be going no matter what.  Mom definitly wanted to go but wasn't too sure with the price.  Dad came in at that time and said basically if she wanted to go and she said yes, dad then told me to go order the tickets and he would put $200 towards the tickets for our Christmas gift.  I then told mom that I would pay the extra $100 for her ticket as her birthday and Christmas gifts so that she wouldn't have to pay anything for them.  I went down, ordered our tickets and was so very happy!!  For Christmas that year dad also booked us a hotel room so we could go down and enjoy the show without having to worry about driving the hour home at night.

Fast forward a year and the time of the concert has come!!  I was so excited.  I had been fighting a cold for a few weeks so I did absolutly nothing the week before the show so I wouldnt get sick.  Mom volunteers at the school so we left when she got home around 10:30.  We had decided to do some shopping so went to this little strip mall that had lots of stores.  We went to JYSK, Home Sense, Winners, Toys R Us and a few more stores.  I was able to get a small Christmas gift for Kyler but will admit that the majority of what I bought was for myself lol.  We headed back to the hotel to check in and get a bit of a rest before going to the show.  The doors opened at 7 so we decided to call a cab to get to the show and got there shortly before the doors opened.  Then they opened and we were let in!

First thing I saw was a man that was selling programs ($25) and lanyards ($15) and of course I bought both of them.  Mom eventually did decide to buy a program for herself as well.  We kept on heading to the gate for our seats and came across the souveneir booth.  They had lots of different items and it was a tough decision on what to get.  Eventually I bought a t-shirt ($40), keychain ($15), poster ($10) and got a free canvas bag as well.  Mom and I bought a bottle of pop each and headed to our seats.  We had AMAZING seats!!  13 rows up and directly across from the b-stage.  The show was just an amazingly great show!  I was completely enthralled the entire time.  I even was very very close to tears at three different points in the show.  Im not going to go into that many details about what happened here, hoping to remember and be able to write a full recap of it at a later time.  After the show I was able to hail a cab (first time for everything!) and it took us back to our hotel.  We were both quite awake at the point so looked through our programs and watched a bit of TV before heading to bed.

We had planned on some more shopping for the next day but after we went to the first mall and got some breakfast (Cinnabon is so good and their Oreo drink is amazing!) and hit up two different bath product type stores we decided there wasn't much else in the mall so headed to the next side of town.  After hitting the second mall we realized there wasn't much else we were looking for so we left that mall.  We went to a few more smaller boutique type of stores before spending a great deal of time at Chapters (large bookstore) before heading back for home.  We got home around supper and just ordered in some take-out food, got everything unpacked, I had to help K with his homework then watched our evening TV before getting to bed.

It was a great few days and I just loved the show!  The live CD of it is coming out next month and I really hope that this means a DVD will be done of the show as well as I would love to be able to relive it over and over again!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Latest Doctors Visit

****Hmmmm For some reason this didn't post when I wrote it and post it, thankfully it did save though so I can post it now************

This was a very big appointment.  This was my first appointment with my GP (Dr. B) following the 'retirement' of my rheumatologist (Dr. W).  Sadly Dr. B did confirm that Dr. W did in fact have a stroke.  Thankfully though he said Dr. W was getting around better now, had plumped up and gained some weight and seemed to be in good spirits.  He also acknowledged that we now had a serious problem now that he was not around to treat me.  There were a few different issues that I needed to go over and since some of them were quite important my mom decided to go to the appointment with me (he seems to listen to my mom's account of what goes on a bit more than what I tell him).  As I can't remember the exact order of things, I will break it down by 'issue' that we were dealing with.

Depo Shot and Medications refills - Got my shot and no problems at all with the renewing of three of my medications.  I even weighed a lighter weight than I was at my last appointment so that is a good thing too :) Strangely though my BP was slightly high (a lot high for me).  He even made sure that I had adequate pain medications!!!  Big big thing with him!

New doctor - Surprisingly he already had an idea as to who to send me to.  Thankfully it is a doctor that is in my area and is an internist, geriatric specialist and rheumatologist so hopefully will be able to help me.  Dr. B went through my chart and printed out a pile of reports to be sent to this new doctor.  He printed out the last few appointments with Dr. W, a report from the neurologist that I saw last year, a few reports from my internist Dr. C and my most recent set of bloodwork.  He went to print off a report from the clinic I went to about my knee earlier in the year, then asked what happened and when I said that they wouldn't do anything he ripped up the paper and said he didn't want anything negative to be sent with the referal.  He wants me to get in and see this doctor before going in to more details about the frustrations and hard aspects of treating me as a patient.  Unfortnatly when my mom asked if there was away to contact this doctor first to ask about him and his knowledge / experience with EDS he says that can't be done but that I should bring as much information that I could to the first appointment.

Osteoporosis - I was slightly concerned about the medication that I have been taking for the past year.  The muscle pain the day after the medication has completely resolved thankfully!  However, I have been getting very very bad heartburn for about a week after taking the medication.  Dr. B went through the other options that I am on but that the only other medication that is better for me is not covered by insurance.  He did suggest I look into them and I am going to see if it is feasible to just pay out of pocked for them (one is a yearly medication, the other twice a year).  The pill I am on is the best and most safe choice for me.  He was very very adament that I really really need to be on medication for it as take the EDS, add in the meds I am on and that is not a good combination but none of those meds can be changed around at the moment.  He is going to allow me to take my losec (perscription strength proton pump inhibitor) as needed during those periods that my GERD gets out of control.  (Of course, I took my month's pill yesterday and have not had any heartburn at all from it lol).  This is showing that my GP is finally accepting that I can be 'trusted' to regulate some of my medications.

Barium Swallow - The main reason for this appointment was actually to go over the results of the barium swallow test I had done last month.  Unfortunately it has led to no real answers, just more tests.  There are 'things' in my stomach that can be one of two things - 1) Food particles embedded in my gastric wall or 2) Polyps.  Because I had been fasting for the test, and the fact that this 'things' didn't move, even if it is 'just' stuck food, that food shouldn't be there.  And we all know the things associated with polyps.  In the test itself it suggested that there was no reason they could see for the swallowing issues, but that it was evident that I had severe (their world) acid reflux.  The test suggested that an endoscopy could be done to biopsy these 'things' so we could figure out what they are and what we can do about them.  This is when we find out that my internist / cardiologist is also apparently a gastroenterologist!!  Mom and I are so very confused now as she (Dr.C) had the test suggested from a neurologist she refered me to but she had wanted my family doctor to be the one ordering the test.  We have no clue why that happened.  She is one of the doctors in the area that actually do the endoscopy test so I am to contact her about scheduling the test (Note - left a message a week ago and still have not heard back).  This conversation did however lead to one of the greatest quotes of the appointment.  Dr. B had asked about Dr. C doing the test and what she had to say about it all and mom told Dr. B that she seemed most concerned and interested in the fact that I appeared very depressed.  Dr. B quickly replied "If she had half the things wrong that Stacey did she would be severely depressed too!"

Autoimmune - I had breifly mentioned this at the beginning of the appointment but it got 'lost' in all the other questions going on and I wasn't sure if Dr. B really heard me.  Later he did try to tell me that the off values where from EDS until I told him that they weren't.  I then told him that, even though I have been tested for atutoimmune once or twice a year for a long time, this was the first time that my ana was actually positive.  I told him that Dr. W (my rheumy) always felt that there was something autoimmune going on but could never figure it out.  Leading to the second best quote of the appointment "Well we have the proof right here" that there is something in the autoimmune realm going on.  He doesn't know much about these illnesses and asked if I had other symptoms (which I do) and asked that I talk to Dr. C about it as well as brining it up with the new rhuematologist I would be seeing.  He said he could do more bloodwork but would prefer to just leave it to the new doctor and see what he thinks.