Tuesday, July 30, 2013

July 29th - Doctor's appointment for thyroid levels

First off, last week I had to go and get blood work done to see what my thyroid levels were at so my doctor could adjust my medications if needed to be.  I went to my normal place and was slightly worried as I heard a 'strange' voice from the room. Thankfully though my good blood taker, H, then came out, saw me kinda laughed said 'oh' and took off into the bathroom lol.  She then came out and told me to come with her.  And said to the other lady that it was her unlucky day as all the hard people were coming in.  The 'other' lady turned around and I realized it was the lady that retired about two years ago. She turned around and laughed and goes 'Oh yeah, I remember you'. So I am well known in my little town lol.  H remembered everything that had to be done (butterfly needle, between my knuckles and I have my own bandaids) and thankfully everything went well and it only took one try.  She joked while she was getting things set up that she went to call the next person, saw that it was me and decided she needed to pee now because she never knows how long I will take lol

So I went to my doctor on Monday and had a very quick, efficient and good appointment.  My thyroid levels are back in the normal range so I stay on the dose that I am on now.  He is very concerned though as we don't know what caused the massive spike three months ago.  Because of this he wants to keep a very close eye on it and see me every three months whereas generally he would do longer time frames.  I asked him whether this could be the autoimmune disorder that Dr. W always knew I had but couldn't pin down.  Dr. O told me that with the connective tissue disorder (that EDS is) and the handful of other disorders that I have, that all of them could be partially autoimmune and probably would never be able to fully pin down without a LOT of testing which wouldn't really accomplish much as I am already on the medications I need to be on.  He said that especially since things can come on very fast and very seriously (like the Vitamin D deficiency, low thyroid, etc) that he believes that this is the autoimmune showing it's hand and 'sabotaging' itself.  The explanation he gave me made a lot of sense and I think it was basically the conclusion that Dr. W was coming too.

So I go back to get new bloodwork and see my doctor in three months and just stay on what I am on as I am 'stable'.  The next appointment my mom will be coming with me as we need to go over my pain medications again and I don't agree to his thoughts about my breakthrough medications so I need back-up lol.

June 29th - Serious Knee Injury and Family Stuff

Yet again it has been way to long between posts.  Not much has been going on medically wise since starting the thyroid medications and things have just been pretty quiet.  My nephew finished grade six with very good marks for him, he amazingly got his junior black belt in kenpo karate at only 11 and things were nice and settled with no word from my brother and I was even able to help out a neighbour by tutoring her grandson so he can get his high school diploma.  We are going to the cottage at the end of August but that was the only thing we had planned for the entire summer so mom and I figured that we would take K and head up to my grandma's house for a week once he was out of school.  We got there, got unpacked and settled in and things seemed to be going well... until that Saturday (29th).

We (me, mom, grandma and cousin) went to go and do some grocery shopping.  After a long (and sweaty!) trip to the store we got groceries for two different family's week of shopping and headed home.  We got home and I was on the back bench seat so was kinda stuck until most of the groceries had been unloaded.  When it was done to only a few items, I went to push a case of water forward with my right leg and ended up dislocating my knee laterally and pushed it up out of the joint.  Mom and my cousin continued to empty the van and then mom noticed that I was pale white, sweaty and grabbing my knee so helped me out of the van, rolled her eyes at how I dislocated it and I went in to the living room with an ice pack and mom went to get me my medications and a drink.  It sucked and I was very grumpy about it.  No one else seemed to really understand what happened (or didn't believe that I could do that much serious damage just from pushing something with my foot).  Basically stayed off it the rest of the day and kept it elevated, wrapped and iced (thankfully I always bring my own ice packs).  Went to bed that night with a pillow under my knee, iced strapped to it and loaded up on pain meds.

On Sunday we headed out to the beach to my aunt's house for Canada Day celebrations.  Spent most of the day just sitting with my knee straight and staying off it as much as I could.  Lost out on fun time though as I couldn't go to mini golf with the kids, to get snacks with my cousins or do a bit of shopping on the strip.  Wasn't very happy.  We headed to the beach to watch the fireworks and all my cousins and the kids wanted to go to the strip to get treats and go to an arcade.  No thought to the fact that I wouldn't be able to go of course but then mom remembered that we do keep a crutch in the van so I was able to hobble along behind them. Thankfully the kids seemed to stay back a bit and stay with me.  Went back for the fireworks then back to my grandma's house.

All hell broke loose on the Wednesday when my cousin had an 'incident' that through everything out of place and added a LOT of stress to the house.  The fact that my knee was injured didn't seem to matter anymore as I had been 'replaced' and was then getting asked to do favours for my grandma and my mom.  Don't even want to get into what happened but it was typical drama for the person and the rest of the entire visit was all about my poor cousin.

I was feeling a bit better the following Sunday and thought I was okay to go with my two cousins, their two kids and my nephew to his work's summer party.  I thought that it was a place with a lot of places to sit down, I wouldn't have to do too much walking and my nephew could just go off and be with his cousins while I sat.  I had even packed a book into the car so if I could find a place I could read.  That's a laugh! Like always the 'adults' wanted to do what they wanted to do (eat lunch) and then the kids wanted to do what they wanted to do (a scavenger hunt that ended in 30 minutes that they could win good prizes with).  Well the 'adults' just said fine and headed to get lunch leaving me standing with three kids (15, 12, and 11) which I were not going to let go on their own!  So I did an entire circuit of this park not once but twice while the other 'adults' ate lunch.  Then I needed a drink so they told me to go get one in the gazebo, well there was nothing so I said I needed to get to the front to get a drink.  Well it was 'let the kids ride this ride first', 'oh they like this ride', 'you guys should do that', 'look at the cute baby animals' and finally 'let's play our round of mini golf cause it's pretty empty right now'. Then I had to go back out to the car to get the kids swim stuff and I didn't have a handicap spot because they had been late getting ready to leave (and I had been up long before we left!). We saw an opening then at the handicap spot so I moved the van closer.  The kids wanted to look in the store so I left my backpack with my cousin to watch, looked in the store and came out to find my bag sitting all alone where I left it with my cousin quite a ways away.  Then I finally got a drink!!!  After a few yards of me limping and being lopsided because I had a full back pack on my shoulder the oldest cousin finally took it from me.  The kids did the water park thing while we sat at the patio and then my cousin had an 'episode' that was embarrassing her husband so we had to leave.  I had told my nephew that he couldn't get fries because that wasn't fair to the other kids, well I go to the bathroom and find the oldest cousin eating fries and gravy so I gave in and got my nephew fries to eat.  I apparently looked really bad at this point because the oldest kid looked at me, got up from the picnic table, bought me a bottle of water and told me to drink it. I was very thankfully as the pop I got early was done in two seconds as I was so thirsty and I would finally be able to take my pain meds. We finally got home and I was glad the day was over!

The next day I literally did not get out of bed.  I was so dehydrated that I couldn't stand up without passing out and my pain levels were so high that I knew I was going to be in a horrible mood if anyone said anything. And I was right when I went out to get a drink and mom goes 'Well isn't it miss. anti-social', so I just got my drink and went back to bed.

Thankfully after one month from when I injured it my knee is feeling somewhat better.  I still think that I did some damage to the tendon but I have no doctor to go to in order to see if I did any damage.  Going to wait until my next appointment (three months from now) and ask for a new MRI done on it to see if anything is messed up. Unfortunately even if it is, no doctor will touch me.  Because of the injury, sleeping on a hard bed and all the stress (which makes pain worse for me as I tense up more) I went through three months worth of pain medications in only two months.  Thankfully when I explained it to the nurse at my doctor's office she didn't hesitate and had my doctor write me a new three months worth of meds.  I am still taking more than I normally would because of it but down from what I was taking.