Shelby Cass’s Weblog

Here I am, luxuriating (read: flopped and propped) on my chaise lounge, post-op.  It’s like deja-vu, but not really.  This surgery was on a body part well below my neck and not, I believe, a contributer to sleep apnea.  Although, I did hypothesize to my surgeon that the reason none of my previous forays into this particular body part repair in essence failed previously was due to the fact that I did not breathe at night, hence had greatly diminished my healing power, and he agreed there was a high likelihood I was right.  I love being right…or even people suspecting I am right.  It just feels so…RIGHT. But I digress as usual. Please do keep in mind surgery was this morning so I’m still in the “don’t operate heavy machinery” zone - which is why I am using a laptop! (ba-dum-bum)

What was it this time?  (Believe me, I heard that question plenty) Alas, it is my knee.  The left one.  But I’m already doing 50% weight bearing (as in 50% of my body weight) and little knee bends (per doctor’s instructions!  I promise I’m not jumping the recovery gun!).  How did this happen?  Well there’s really no easy answer.  Let’s go back in time a few years, shall we?

December 1983.  Or maybe go back even further to my birth.  This story is already too long.  I’ll put it in timeline fashion.

Birth: I was born “toeing in” and wore a Denis-Browne splint to turn my feet/legs/hips out.

Not sure if it was tibial or femoral, but nonetheless, I got to wear a lovely pair of shoes attached to a big blue bar.  I don’t remember this.  I do remember my brother also got to wear one.  Not my sister, lucky duck.  It is hereditary and my mom actually had casts on her legs to correct hers.  Now I don’t know if this contributed to my knee issues, but I figured I’d mention it.

Age 4: Enter the world of ballet.  It’s possible Mom put me in ballet just to help with the pidgeon toed swayed back pot belly thing, but the main point is that I LOVED ballet and I was evidently pretty good.

Age 6 (I think): I was accepted into the San Francisco School of Ballet on scholarship, and by age 7 I think I was dancing in the professional level.  I got paid (I think it covered bridge toll–this was not the lottery) to perform in various ballets, the primary one being, of course The Nutcracker.

Age 10: One of my parts was as the tail end of the Chinese dragon in Act II.  Imagine 5 girls harnessed together under a big dragon costume with only their legs showing.  It’s a short piece, but the guy playing the Chinese Dragon Tamer found himself in a little bit of a pickle when he vaulted himself up onto his pole (he would do cartwheels using the pole instead of his hands if that makes sense) and found his landing spot was either the dragon or the orchesta pit.  He chose the tail end of the dragon (aka: me) and since I couldn’t see more than the girl in front of me, I had no idea what was coming.  Boom!  Splat.  The costume even came up for a moment and I saw a guy in the front row laughing (not mean laughing but probably surprise that the dude landed on the dragon).  ER visit that night, back to performing almost immediately.  Years of PT and chiropractics.

Age 14: Lots of factors contributed  to my leaving ballet, but a big one was that I was watching more classes than I was taking due to knee pain.

I love this picture of the last full length ballet I was in.  Check out the knee brace AND band-aid.  My mom was so mad that I hadn’t thought to take them off before the shoot!

Age 18: Left knee surgery.  PT rocked me back into recreational ballet shape.  I think I would have been good to go.

Age 19: Car accident.  Woman ran a red light and hit me while I was turning Left across an  intersection with a green arrow.  Hit right knee on steering wheel.  College student = no money so no treatment until knee started locking and I started falling.  It was actually kind of funny except for the horrible sudden pain.  I mean, how many 19 year old girls do you see falling out of cars when they are trying to exit when they are NOT drunk?

Age 22: Right knee surgery.  (Doc found pieces of cartilage hanging out in joint, one was the size of a quarter - it had been growing for 3 years. I believe the limping and falling thing was probably what tore the Left knee up again.  No PT (recent college grad also = no $), which resulted in bad knee tracking which led to shredding the cartilage up.

~Age 26: After trying to take Tai Chi and asking my instructor: Is this walk supposed to hurt?  Right knee surgery.  Doc said it looked like “shredded crab meat” on back of knee.  It’s supposed to be smooth like a cue ball.

~Age 26 6 weeks later: Left knee surgery.  Doc found the back of this knee fractured from stress.  When I woke up he said “Well, it wasn’t in your head, it was in your knee!  It was broken!”  6+ months of PT and they still couldn’t get me pain free.  This was when I started REALLY slipping downhill health-wise and still had absolutely no idea that I had Obstructive Sleep Apnea.  I think a couple years earlier I’d started getting “treatment” (read: Ambien) for insomnia.  And as we all know, you don’t give people with untreated sleep apnea sleeping pills.  Almost immediate disintegration of knees Rice Krispy syndrome I call it).

2005: Started Adult Ballet Classes for exercise - no center, just barre.  Painful, but no more than stairs so I stuck with it.

2006: MMA/GA (The BIG Sleep Apnea surgery)

2007: WHAT THE–I went RUNNING!  My knees were actually beginning to HEAL!

2008: UPPP (The small yet ever so painful Sleep Apnea surgery)

2009: Started ballet again.  *joy*  Not professional - nowhere near.  Just a little (yes, sometimes painful and definitely crackly when I bent, but happy) barre work in the Adult Class, but by July I was Jumping.  Unfortunately that also led to falling (with style!…and embarrassment) but I recovered and was back in class (sans jumping) the next week.

November 2009: The infamous Ridge Hike on Oahu.  The trail looked like this:

The Trail - uh, what?

I was told it was a 2 hour hike.  Yeah, 2 hours…ONE WAY.  It probably wouldn’t have ended the way it did, except the group I was with was JETTING up the mountain.  Way too fast-paced for someone with problems stepping UP.  And if you know anything about patellar knee pain, then you know that down hill is worse than uphill.  At 1 hour 45 minutes I was in way too much pain and kinda figured out (yeah I’m slow) that this wasn’t ending anytime soon.  I had to turn around and go back (using poor Courtland as my crutch).  From that incident, I never recovered and stairs became a thing of the past.  Also, squatting (which I do frequently when adjusting chairs and evaluating people for my work) became excruciating no matter how much I stuck my bottom out.  It was time to see the doc again.

2010: Stanford. X-Rays.  MRI’s.

Today: Left knee surgery.  I’ll post those pics later (don’t worry, not gross IMO).

Next Tuesday: Post-Op and PT.

I’m hoping my hypothesis holds water!  And I’m also REALLY hoping my right knee doesn’t take a big dump (it didn’t look as bad on the MRI so we’re going to try just PT instead of surgery) and fracture like last time!

Okay that was maybe my longest post ever.  Smac Out.

…when shall they two meet again…

Thursday was spent on the road.  All day.  Driving.  Well, I stopped to get out of the car in 1 hour incriments (1 hour evaluation in Los Gatos, 1 hour lunch with Max in Milpitis, 1 hour evaluation in Sunnyvale and 1 hour in the chair with my fave cheek spreaders at Orthodontist’ office).  I left home at 9am and got home-ish (stopped at Safeway) at 5.  Only 2 billable hours for that day, and sad sad news for my back molars.

You know how last time I was at the ortho I complained that my back teeth weren’t touching and after many many bite and grinds on the carbon paper the ortho feedback was: it’s just one spot, we can build the tooth up?  THEN when I went to Dr. Steve my DDS he said Uh no, those teeth are nowhere near touching and we can’t build a tooth up that high?  Remember?  I do.  I remember wondering why my ortho would lie to me…or deceive me…also wondered if she was blind.  Well, I wore that newfangled bottom retainer every day and night for months to fill in my gaps, and I went in for my follow up hoping for either good news or an acknowledgement of oversight.  There I was, sitting in the chair doling out ergo advice to the techs (have you ever seen an ergo friendly ortho exam room?) and here comes Dr. Quo.  She’s so cute.  But I reminded myself I was not going to be overpowered by her charms.  I was going to get to the bottom of this life of chewing on only one side.

She looked in my mouth, checked out how my retainers fit, and AGAIN said I needed just one spot addressed to get contact on the back left side.  She (like last time) noted there was a filling in that back bottom molar and that perhaps someday when I got that filling replaced they could build up the composite, but I had already asked Dr. Steve about that and he didn’t think my filling needed replacing for many years.  I was not willing to wait many years.  There was much ahhhing and oh yesing as I explained how horrible life was with the inability to make it even (do you make it even?  I like to chew things equally on both sides…don’t judge me.).  Dr Quo suggested a “turbo”.  A turbo is when they build up many many layers of composite on a tooth to essentially build the tooth up.  I had one before during the post-op my teeth are strangers phase.  So the cheek spreaders were again applied had I known they were coming I would have taken pix (because everyone needs their vanity taken down 1800 notches) and  a lump of composite was deposited onto the top of my bottom left molar.  Then Dr. Quo drilled and drilled and I chomp chomp grinded on the contact paper and she drilled more until I felt pretty even contact back there…                    oh but not quite.  DOH!

I asked to see a mirror and looked in my mouth and lo and behold there was still a very large gap between back top and back bottom molars (see pic from last entry).  My head did not spin, but my mind reeled as I wondered how on EARTH can she be talking to me about these teeth meeting when they clearly are not and are never at this rate going to?!?!  I asked, “So, that gap back there between the back two molars…”  and she interjected.  “Oh.  No.  Those will probably never meet.  After moving your jaw, that’s just how your teeth want to be.”  (Stupid willful teeth)  So evidently she knew long ago that those teeth would never meet and so didn’t talk about them anymore.  When she talked about teeth meeting, she was talking about the second to last molar on the top and the back molar on the bottom.  That 3 decade love afair between top and bottom back molars has come to an end.  And there you have it.  A tale.  Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.  Signifying nothing.

Blarg.

Here we are again, talking about my teeth.  Really the only annoying ongoing problem post MMA (aside from the numbness, but that’s not really too annoying).  Why a problem?  Well, I personally like symmetry.  I like to chew my food equally on both sides.  If I have M&Ms or something small like that, I eat 2 at a time.  One for each side.  Symmetry, OCD, call it what you will, I prefer to chew that way…and since my surgery, that has not been able to happen.  grr.  argh.

When I first got my braces off I commented on the unequal feeling back in molar-land, and my ortho said my teeth would likely still move a little and not to worry.  So I didn’t.  But it’s been awhile now.  A too long while for me to be satisfied…and so I angst my irk here.  For you.

Here’s where I am in orthodontia: The retainer they gave me for the bottom had hooks that looped over my teeth to hold it in place.  Those hooks, unfortunately, started pushing my teeth apart and I got little gaps.

I’ve already been wearing the new retainer to correct that for a couple weeks so the gaps are not as pronounced.  In case you can’t see it in these pix, it’s where the bubble of spit is on the left picture (so rad, I know). :)  sorry.  In other words, the gaps occured between the teeth that some would call canines (though mine be none so pointy anymore) and the first molar-y looking ones.  What did you want me to say?  Eye tooth and first bicuspid?  Okay I said it.

So they made me a new retainer.  This one actually encases all of my bottom teeth within one piece of plastic with springs to pull the teeth back together.

While I was in getting this retainer, I commented (again) how my back teeth didn’t touch on the left side.  Once again the little pieces of carbon paper were inserted and once again I was instructed to chomp chomp chomp and grind…and I was assured that I was crazy (okay she didn’t say crazy)  and that my teeth did touch.  I also mentioned the numbness I am still experiencing in my gums and teeth, and then that was blamed for my crooked feeling.  But I know that’s not true.  I mean, yes, I am crazy…but no, my teeth do not touch at all evenly on the back left.  Here, judge for yourself and tell me how the carbon paper touched…I’m pretty sure it didn’t.

I went to see hottie Dr Steve my dentist (he looks like my boyfriend and has a Shelby of his own) who was about to do the carbon paper thing for me (I felt he was unbiased but skilled in the carbon paper test) when he put the cute little dentist mirror back there and said, “Uh Shelby, I don’t need carbon paper.  Those teeth don’t touch.”  SEE!  Told you!!!  So I’m feeling miffed…but I do have to say that I didn’t peek back there before getting the new retainer so things may have changed.  HOWEVER: they do not feel different.  So I think this is how it has looked all along and I am … irritated?  Yes, that.

But from the front all looks good, and maybe that’s all people really care about (unless they are me and craving a meetup between upper and lower molars).

ta-da  (Just don’t try to chew on that back left side)

I’m also experiencing a little clickity clickity in the right jaw joint which I think is occuring because I chew everything on the right and non-purposely try to make the left molars touch by moving my jaws around (which doesn’t work, but for some reason I notice sometimes I am doing it and I stop when I notice, but still…it happens).

Okay have I ranted enough?

Here’s a little non-ranting story:  Dr. Steve wanted to make sure I was flossing and I told him I have a huge bag of those pre-flossed picks and I floss while I am driving.  He broke in and said “I’m glad you’re flossing but I can’t condone practicing oral hygeine and driving…”  I said, “I don’t look in the mirror or anything and he said “Oh…” and then I thought, did he think I was driving with my mouth open, chin back, and eyes on the rearview mirror peering into  my mouth?  I suppose I could have been.  But no, I just kind of mindlessly use that little pick thing… Geeze, now I feel like a bad driver…but I swear I’m not distracted!  I think I’m more distracted putting on chapstick (and no I don’t look for that either).  I’ll stop now before the non-ranting story turns into a rant.  Wouldn’t want that.

Next entry we’ll talk numbness.  Everyone’s favorite subject.

I know you missed them.

http://web.me.com/cidstrom/Sleep_Apnea_Surgery/Day_1.html

It’s been 2 years and 2 months since my surgery.  Absolutely amazing.  Just looking back at these pictures it’s extraordinary where I was and where I am now.  I feel like I got the gift of life…  I’m not a different person.  I’m still the same old Shelby.  But I think I am the better non-sick version and that is something I didn’t even know was going to happen going into this.  I just thought I wouldn’t look like Gonzo at night anymore.

As I write this I am at my sister’s house in Dublin (no, not Ireland) taking care of her two kids for a week…more than a week actually.  I moved in on Thursday afternoon (it’s Wednesday night right now), they left Friday night, and will be home (from Belize) this coming Saturday night after midnight.  In a million years I could not have imagined taking care of a 3 1/2 year old and a 15 month old for a week+ on my own…I couldn’t imagine having kids of my own would be really all that possible with how crappy my immune system was and how tired I was even on my best day.

Now, I’m not signing up for the baby wagon just yet.  I think my clock is unplugged or on mute, and that’s just fine.  I mean, after all, I just started sleeping.  Why would I voluntarily give that benefit away so soon?  I hear it takes a long time to make up sleep debt…and I have a lot of it.  Sweet, sweet sleep.  I owe, I owe, so off to sleep I go!  However, big drawback to finding out what a good night’s rest REALLY is?  Take any of that away and I am a GRUMPMEISTER!  Steer clear of the modern-day sleep-deprived Shelby.  Now she KNOWS it could be better…and you will PAY! 

Sleep well!

smac

I added Wall*E into my subject just because Court and I got to see it twice before it hit the theaters and just think it is adorable.

So, braces.  I don’t have them.  But I do have a retainer which has me investing in large quantities of denture cleaner.  Alas, my back left teeth still do not touch, so Dr. Quo added a couple “buttons” and I now wear a rubber band waaaay back there.  I look gooood putting it on.  Buttons are really just brackets.  I had issues with them, but I got over it.  It’s a bit of maneavering to get the retainer on OVER the buttons, but I pretend it’s a puzzle and that I am challenging my pre frontal cortex.  I so smart.

Sleep.  I’ve slept better.  But then again, I’ve slept much worse for years before now so you would think that I could be grateful for the sleep I get…and I am!  Believe me!  But I’ve been getting tired.  And Monday was the last straw.  First of all, the reason I got diagnosed at all was because Courtland kept saying he was so tired and he didn’t know why.  So I started noticing that although he thinks he’s a heavy sleeper (and he LOOKS like a heavy sleeper when he’s asleep), he actually wakes up a little every time I woke up and moved. You know how you can tell someone is just in light and not deep sleep if they move?  Well, I would wake up, move, and then he would move.  So I moved into a different room and after about a week, lo and behold, he was far less sleepy.  Over the past few months we have been getting more and more tired and blamed it on everything.  The cold, the heat, the noise, the silence, the cats, and had resorted to blaming all the smoke in the area from California being on fire.  I suspected bad things because I started having bad dreams (you know, shot in the gut, left to bleed to death, car stolen, the usual) and woke up snoring a few times (sooo attractive), and on Monday morning driving into work I was so sad to realise that I really wanted to pull over to the side of the road and take a nap.  It just would feel so good!  So I called Dr. Li and they got in me in to see him.

Of course seeing Dr. Li just makes the whole world disappear and it’s just me and him and my stupid jaw…did I metnion we were in a fight?  I saw him a few weeks ago for a follow up (I know, I know, should I have mentioned my fatigue then?  Shush.  I figured he’d just tell me I was fat - using different words) and the FIRST thing he said as he burst into the room was “When’s the wedding?”  WTF?  Well, we moved past that random topic and chit chatted about stuff, then on his way out he said “Maybe he’s looking for a younger model.”  Okay.  WAR.  I told the entire office.  But when I went in last week all miserable and tired he poked his head in the door and said “Are we still fighting?” and I decided it wasn’t worth it to be mad at him. So I said no.  And then we back to normal and he stuck things up my nose and peered into my throat and said he needed another sleep study.  I asked what that would show and he said he wanted to know if I still had some apnea and if so, then he wanted to figure out how to get rid of it.  Really?  There may be other options before turning into Gonzo every night for the rest of my life?  He said yes, for startes, you still have your tonsils.  *gulp*  I don’t know how I feel about any of this.  Maybe it was the heat cold cats smoke and I don’t have any sleep apnea and this is all just a false alarm in my wanna be drama queen life.  We shall see.

For now I am going to go take a shower and mentally prepare myself for the wonderful gluing of electrodes to my entire scalp and please oh please do not let them put that tube down my nose into my throat.  Sleep well out there!

I’m so glad I wrote about the sleep apnea surgery I had…because I keep learning every day that it helps people…even in the littlest ways. Like, just letting them know someone’s been there, done that… The other day I received a comment on a very old post from a guy about to have the same MMA/GA I had who, it turns out, works down the street from where I live. He asked if I would mind meeting him for lunch sometime, so of course I said yes. I mean, I kind of had to. He caught all my Morrissey references. Did you?

So, we met at Luna’s…I never say no to Mexican food, and well, John is awesome…and I am so excited for him. Not because he’s getting surged (though it’s by the amazing Dr. Li so I’m not at all worried), but that he’s going to start his healing journey soon…and I look forward to hearing or reading all about it. We talked about the “chin bonus” of the surgery, but overall, we just talked about life with sleep apnea and the things that will most likely change when it fades into the background. John is also a mashup king and had made me 2 discs of his faves. Super score!

I did take a picture…and I can look at it on my camera, but my computer no likee, so you no see. Sorry. I’ll check with John and if he’s cool with it, I’ll mention his blog next entry. He’s writing his blog in letters to mom format which I think is awesome. (If only my mom would get online EVER. Court and I gave her my old computer but so far I think it’s probably being used as a stool for her to sit on.)

I saw hottie Dr. Steve yesterday and he polished up my theethses all nice and squeaky clean. He has a Shelby too. Have I mentioned that? Well, we all think it’s funny. They just had a baby (8 weeks ago) so I got to hear all about it. My teeth still don’t touch in the back on the left and I am really bummed about that, because I’m pretty sure it means more things attached to my teeth. grr arg.

This is more rambly than usual. Don’t know why. Guess the brain is here and there and occasionally pitches in a word or two.

I just got a picture today from some friends who had us over a little while ago. I think I might like it. What do you think? Here it is.

(taken by Sumul Shah )

I have been remiss…not an entry or even a squeak since the nuclear eggs incident. I guess I kind of assume…who wants to know? Then people ask. And then more people ask. And I feel bad for not posting to begin with…and then I think “Oh it’s been too long…” and blah blah blah…the end result is me under my covers hiding from the world like the scared procrastinator I am. So here. I give you: My Upper Endoscopy. (please, hold your applause)

The final frontier of GI specialist world (for now) was my upper endoscopy. That’s the one they did after the LOWER sigmoidoscopy and the “how long does it take your gamma ray eggs to evacuate?” test. The last was far easier in that 1. they “consciously” sedated me and 2. I didn’t have to eat or drink anything nasty to prep. Nope, the only prep was that I had to stop eating and drinking at midnight the night before the procedure to ensure an empty stomach. No problem.

At 5pm I was eating at Fresh Choice and by 5:30 I was done…so being that it takes 6 hours for the average stomach to empty (and the nuclear egg test had concluded that I was normal) and my procedure was 15 hours later, you can imagine my surprise (and my doctor’s when he discovered) when I woke up and my doctor said, “Your stomach wasn’t empty.”

eh?

“I found salad.”

I was about to say, “I ate at Fresh Choice!” but he beat me to it and said, “From Fresh Choice.”

I was stunned. How did he know? Did they brand their lettuce? Then I realised that conscious sedation thing meant he’d probably had that conversation with me at least twice by now. I just didn’t remember. A few days later I got a call from him (what is up with my doctors calling me to see how I am? When did this thing happen? Has the world gone nuts? How can I have the 3 doctors in the world who care enough to do that? I am NOT complaining) and he said he was really glad we did the upper endoscopy or we never would have known my stomach didn’t empty in 6 hours (since the eggs lied). NOT that anyone came to any conclusions, unfortunately. The prognosis is: Shelby, you do not have cancer or an ulcer or anything else we can test for right now. Nothing is swollen. Nothing is broken. You have nausea and that sucks. Eat small meals frequently. Take these drugs (prilosec, prevacid and reglan if it gets bad). Your side pain…well, maybe it’s the siamese twin you never had. Who the f knows. Nonetheless, I am managing. And I have no scopes in my immediate future (except the green stuff that helps prevent plaque).

On the braces front: I went to see Dr. Quo and told her I felt like my teeth didn’t touch in the back on my left and she unfortunately confirmed that and said my bite had slipped…So now I get the old school retainer (which I wouldn’t have minded having to begin with) and maybe some “buttons” in the back to pull my teeth together again. I think “buttons” are probably brackets on some teeth but not enough to call “braces”. You know how I missed those cheek spreaders. So they took a mold (peppermint flavor) and I looked like I had made out with a patch of wet cement, and I will see them again in 2-3 weeks when we will start working on my teeth again. OH! Did I mention my ortho sent out a calendar and it was all client pix and I made the back cover?! Yeah baby.

This should satisfy those Mochi-watchers out there.  She’s only 1.5 lbs lighter than Rira now.  Crazy belly baby.

Today I saw hot Doctor Steve my dentist (he has a Shelby too) and he filled Mr. Crapity sans big needles full of numbing drugs.  I mean really, I’m still numb on my gums, a little nerve action shouldn’t bother me.  Actually, I don’t like getting numbed, so unless the doc knows they are going to touch/expose the nerve, I go numbless…  There were actually 3 people (including me) today who declined drugs in the office.  So I guess they’re crazy too.

Off to Hawaii in 3 days.  Life sucks.  Again I ask…how on earth did I get friends like the ones I have?  I mean, loan me your house in Hawaii?  Yeah…I dreamed that.

Aloha!!!

Today was my ultrasound of my kidneys. They made me drink 24 oz. water 1 hour before pressing very very hard on my belleh…that’s just mean! Well, I found out that more fluid=more pain. So I’d like not to do that again, except that they keep telling me to push fluids. Blech.

One would think (well, I was hoping) that with all this nausea and lack of appetite I would have squeaked a little closer to my OTT goal, but alas, I am still in the 149 range, though one morning I saw 147 and almost broke the scale jumping in excitement. So I guess that diet is on hold…or done with and the new one is called…Operation MMAniversary. So maybe one year after my date of surge (December 26, 2006) I will be the ALL NEW, ALL IMPROVED Super chomping and gleaming tooth action super hero I would have dreamed of being, if I could have had normal dreams. How’s that for a mouthful?

Speaking of a mouthful, I went to a movie yesterday called “Wrist Cutters. A Love Story” Okay yes, bad title…but AWESOME movie. And Tom Waites is in it, so…BONUS. I loved it…and you know what else I loved? POPCORN. A whole frikkin bag of it with MY NAME ON IT. I was shoving that stuff in and getting my hands all greasy and Courtland almost lost a finger trying to snag a kernel. Oh I was loving that. And then I flossed last night WITHOUT the stupid threader thingy…Heaven, I tell you. Absolute Heaven.

And just because I’m so excited to have slippy slidey teeth, I will show you again…

I’m going to make a time line…I am hoping to figure something out. It started in July of this year when I decided to go back on THE PILL. You know the one. Although there are millions of pills in the world, if you say you are on THE PILL, not many have to ask for clarification, unless they want to know “which one”. So, I warned Courtland…I am going to be nauseated and horrible for 3 months. And he said okay, and so it began.

The nausea. The uck. The horrible horrible uck. More than a few times Court said “maybe this wasn’t such a good idea” and I would say “I’ve done it this far, I may as well stick with it. Only 3 months…”

I guess I should add here that the reason I stopped the pill many years ago for health reasons. I had bad side effects and decided to detox for a while.

So, July began the trouble and August sucked. In September I began feeling the pain in my left flank inside. I passed a couple stones. I got pyelonephritis after insisting I had an infection and no one believed me until I produced blood in a cup. So they treated me for that. I still had nausea with eating and drinking, and the pain. Oh the pain. But as you know, the urologist I got told me I psychically predicted my kidney infection because that pain was completely unrelated.

I went a few days (the lst few days of your pill pack) without nausea and things were feeling better when I started my next pill pack and BOOM nausea. And that was the beginning of month 4 so I was OVER IT. And I stopped the pill. The nausea is less, but still there. The pain is definitely still there. What pain? Let me try to describe it: When I inhale I get a SHARP stabbing pain under my ribcage on the left towards the back. While inhaling, if I press on my side I can make it hurt more (wooo fun!) and when I toss and turn at night it wakes me up. I am unable to create the pain without flinching or making sad noises. The good news is it only hurts with inhaling and not exhaling, so only 50% of my day sucks.

In October I got a cold. It started in my throat and went into my chest. I got a cough. Sounded worse than it felt. The pain is not when I cough. It’s when I take in a deep breath.

It’s November. I worked all of 4 HOURS in September with all this stuff, and now it looks like November will be a money hemorrhage month too. I hope you don’t mind getting well wishes from me instead of gifts this holiday season! So anywho, I was at work on Monday when the pain stopped being just with inhaling, I couldn’t even pick anything up with my left hand without pain, so I went to urgent care on the advice of my doctor. I have never wanted surgery so badly. I seriously was praying for gallstones so they could rip the gallbladder out and be done with it already. So you can imagine my despair when the ultrasound came back clear (only a tiny polyp in the gallbaldder and a mildly swollen bile duct) and the chest xray showed nothing significant.

My doc has scheduled one more ultrasound of my kidneys this time for Monday and then wants to pass me to a GI specialist. She wants to get this solved before I get on a plane for Thanksgiving week in Hawaii. SO DO I. But what do I do if she hasn’t? Grr… If it was just pain, I would deal. I can deal with pain. But the nausea. And the lack of appetite. I don’t want FOOD?!?!? That’s just insane. And I just got my braces off!!! I should be celebrating with crap…but I am not. I am celebrating with bland food and ginger ale and lots of pills.

I just want an answer…and I want to be able to eat food…and enjoy it…and…okay I’m done complaining. Just wanted to vent a little because I know my posts are usually happy and positive but this has been eating at me for far too long. I’m getting super depressed…and I don’t even feel like eating to help myself! Stick a fork in. I’m done.