Merry Christmas Eve (the year is almost over)

Merry Christmas Eve to you!

If you follow my blog or are in some trading groups with me, you might have noticed that I haven't been online in about 10 days. I have been in a really dark place and am just now, finally, slowly, coming back into the light. My life has just gotten the better of me and it's just been really hard to deal with everything...

This is the latest and definitely not the greatest story of my soap opera like life (I say soap opera like because it is often predictable and almost always unbelievable). It's funny, back in high school, my best friend always told me that my life was a soap opera, but then it was more relationship issues, and not the hospital drama that has woven it's way into my story...

Let's see, a quick recap is that beginning November 2009 I had a hydro-cystodilation on my poor bladder to help with my interstitial cystitis, then I had a root canal, then a nerve resection, and then another root canal. During all of these procedures I was only given pain medication for 3 out of the 4 weeks of misery I was in. My urologist provided pain medicine for the first week, the pain clinic provided pain medicine and one refill for my nerve resection. My endodontist didn't provide me any pain medicine for my root canals. That's when the darkness started creeping over me, that in addition to insomnia sent me over the edge.

I would easily go 7-10 days without any sleep, and once the pain hit me, my mind just went crazy. I had heard that you could start to hallucinate if you didn't get enough sleep, and I had already spent 3 months without much sleep and I thought that hallucinating would just not happen, but I was wrong. One afternoon, dh said, "Who are you talking to?" "I was talking to..." I replied as I looked up and discovered that I was talking to no one, in particular, except the hallucination in my head! I had one of those weird experiences where you start to fall asleep, but you are still awake and aware of everything going on around you, add an imaginary conversation with a hallucination and you are CRAZY! This happened several times, the kids noticed, dh noticed and OMG, I went to help dh with inventory at his work and to my horror, one of his employees noticed! I was starting to freak out! I went back for a follow up at the pain clinic and was finally given some sleeping pills! THANK GOD for that! I finally got a night of sleep, and then the kids woke me up at 6 a.m. fighting and made me get up to referee! I never seem to catch a break!

It was time to go back to Seattle to check my nerve resection. We left early Monday morning, crossing a very snowy and icy pass to get their from our beloved Yakima. I arrived to find that we had come on the wrong day! No surprise there! This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because they did see me (it often helps to be an out of towner) and although the pass was not great, that night there was a HUGE snowstorm and we would not have been able to go on Tuesday, or if we had made it, we could have been stranded in Seattle for a day or two before being able to make it back home!

He took my cast off, to take off my stitches and discovered one 1/2" area in the middle of my 3" scar had not healed. He removed my stitches, and that HURT! It never hurts, and especially shouldn't hurt where the nerve was cut, right! WRONG! The stitches were like stuck and had to be pulled, and it hurt! Then my doc came in and was not happy to see that a part of it was oozing. He swabbed and cultured it, cleaned it up really well, bandaged it up, gave me a prescription for antibiotics and then had Lou put on another cast. I asked him about the pain on the other side of that foot, and he said, "Let's fix this infection and talk about that another time. I don't know how a bone can move when it has screws in it to hold it in place, but with you, I'm not surprised. I don't know how I'm going to fix that, you are a mystery to me. It is going to hurt because it is moving." Now I had an infection on one side of my foot and pain from my bone separating on the other side of my foot and the darkness crept a little higher.

This was 2 weeks after Thanksgiving, Christmas is coming. We have spent so much money on doctors, prescriptions and 5+ kids that we don't have much money to buy Christmas presents with. DH lets my youngest son bid online for a mini racing bike that he wants. He is outbid on 3 auctions (Thank God). My son is getting really upset because the one thing he wants seems impossible to get and he starts to get in a funky mood. He finds another bike to bid on and dh says, "Go ahead, try it again." Guess what? Predictable, remember...we are practically broke and of course he WINS the auction! Now we have to come up with $300 to pay for this auction! The darkness continues to creep higher!

The pain, frustration, overwhelming sense of failure and not being caught up on my sleep became too much for me. Christmas Break was coming up, and the next Saturday we were expecting almost 20 people to come for our traditional gingerbread making party. I just lost it. I had a good portion of my scrapbooking stuff upstairs because it was too hard to go downstairs because of my foot and knees. Now that I was starting to sleep, I was having really bad low back pain from my bed, and that combined with my awkward walk from countless foot surgeries and knee problems was causing severe back pain, bursitis AGAIN in my hip and NOW NUMBNESS down my right leg. There was no room upstairs for 20 people to make gingerbread houses with all of my scrapbooking stuff upstairs and the darkness overtook me! I lost it and I just started to bring all of my scrapbooking stuff downstairs, to make room for the gingerbread party and I was actually hoping that I would fall down the stairs, I was just too overwhelmed with everything. I did not fall down the stairs, and later that night the kids came home and my daughter helped me bring it all downstairs, she was a really big help. Now I had a huge mess downstairs and I couldn't find my projects that I was working on! I had several projects that I was working on for Christmas gifts for other people and now I couldn't find them! I was so overwhelmed by now I couldn't do anything! Oh, I forgot to mention that my washer quit working and my husband's truck was stuck in 4th gear too! So everything was falling apart! I usually do 8 loads of laundry a day and now I could only do 2, because my washer wouldn't drain properly, and so I'd switch it from setting to setting trying to empty it and spin the clothes, and it would take 2-3 hours to do one load! It was so frustrating! We called the repairman and he couldn't come until after the weekend, so we finally took the laundry to a laundromat and it cost $35, not to mention the time! The repairman finally came out and our pump was plugged! It took him 5 minutes to fix it, but those 5 minutes cost $80! Now our almost insignificant bank account was dwindling even more. Luckily my husband's truck was not that much of a problem, and by putting the truck in neutral he was able to get it out of gear.

I am so lucky to have a wonderful husband and some helpful kids, I must have taught them well, they got everything ready for gingerbread houses without too much help from me! I did do some shopping for materials, and I made some of the frosting and put it into Ziploc bags for the participants. One daughter hot glued 25 houses together and the other one helped make the frosting and put it into bags, and put all of the candy into bowls. Oh, I almost forgot that we also had a horrible case of strep throat to deal with the days prior to gingerbread house day. We got antibiotics and were better by gingerbread day, but before the antibiotics we had a very miserable little girl. The nurse said that my daughter had the worst case of strep throat she had seen in a year! The morning of gingerbread house making, I started to get some pain in my teeth...AGAIN!

By Monday (of this week), I was in a lot of pain from my teeth! I called my dentist and he was closed until January 4th! I called my endodontist who just gave me 2 root canals, and he said he could squeeze me in at 12:45 to check it out. I went there at 12:30 and he saw me at 2:00! Then, he said that my teeth needed to be pulled! I just spent almost $3000 for him, and now I need to pay someone else to take them out! I got an appointment for Wednesday morning, luckily!

That night I was also having a lot of pain in the incision site of my nerve resection. I called my surgeon. I'm in a cast, so there is no way to see my incision site, he chastised me for not taking my temperature. The only way to tell if I have an infection is if my temperature rises, so he said that I have to keep taking my temperature! I had stopped taking my temperature when I finished the antibiotics that he gave me for the infection. I guess I shouldn't have. Then he reminded me that he is not surprised that I am having pain, because my bone is moving on the right side and that the nerve resection may not have worked and could possibly make my pain worse on the left side of my foot! He continued to tell me that I should probably not be having oral surgery because of my recent foot surgeries, and said that I HAD TO HAVE ANTIBIOTICS prior to the surgery!

Tuesday morning I called the oral surgeon and asked for some antibiotics, they said that they could not give me any because they did not know my health history. I called my surgeon back and asked him to prescribe me some antibiotics. He never called me back, or call a prescription in for antibiotics.

Wednesday morning I went to the oral surgeon. I had not taken antibiotics prior to my appointment, so he refused to take my teeth out! I just started to cry! It was the last straw! He gave me some antibiotics and said that I HAD TO TAKE THEM 45 minutes before my next appointment. I told him that last Saturday I finished Zithromax which you take for 5 days and it lasts for 10 days and so I was still on antibiotics, but he did not accept that and said he could not do it. I went to the receptionist and by the GRACE OF GOD she was able to squeeze me in for 1:30 the same day. So I went home, waited, did some laundry (still not caught up), took my antibiotics at 12:45 and then went to the oral surgeon and got my 2 teeth pulled.

As I was writing the latest news on this blog I had a soft cheese tortilla and....




the stitches in the right side of my gums pulled out! Not surprised are you? Me either, upset, but not surprised. I called the oral surgeon and he said that I should be really careful, and try not to eat on that side since the stitches pulled out. No problem...except that the other tooth pulled out is on the left side! So now I can chew with my front teeth like a gerbil! GREAT!!! At least I have my front teeth!

Oh, I saw my pain doctor on Tuesday and he said that the numbness on the right leg SHOULD RESOLVE ITSELF in 2-3 weeks. Really? Probably not. Then he said that he still thinks that the spinal cord stimulator will really help with my foot pain, but he will not try a trial until my foot is completely healed and I'm done with foot surgery! I will soon be having my 11th surgery in 5 years! Will I ever be done? I don't think so, so basically I will have to continue to live with this pain, forever!

Oh, in between all of this, I went back to the urologist, and had an xray for the almost constant pain I'm having in my left (and only) kidney. The xray showed a 4mm calcification. So, I went back the next day for an IVP (intravenous dye and xray of the urinary system). Of course, I had an allergic reaction to the dye! The IVP showed that the calcification is on my spine, not in my kidney, so there is nothing the urologist can do, except wait a couple of months and see if the pain goes away on it's own! Not likely! So now I also have pain every time my kidney gets full, until I go to the bathroom! I still have to catheterize, which causes severe cramping in my bladder for 2 hours after I go to the bathroom. So I now have pain literally from my teeth to my big left toe and in between, for at least a couple of months until they do more tests and tell me that there is nothing that they can do, except wait a couple more months to see if it will resolve itself! Merry Christmas to me!

Merry Christmas Eve to you today, and thank you for reading all the way down to the bottom of this sad story. May God bless you and your family today and always. Merry Christmas tomorrow and have a Happy New Year too! 7 more days until 2010, and I will do my best to make the new year ZEN!

P.S. The darkness has lifted and I will soon finish finding all of my projects and finish them before next year (barring any other unexpected health issues). If you have been waiting on something from me, I am so sorry to have dropped the ball (and then lost it downstairs). I will get it finished before January! Even if I have to quit sleeping again to do it!

I honestly think that my brother's death and working to finish his video and then having nothing but trouble trying to burn it once it was done has really affected me. God bless my brother, who had a very difficult life, and then he was back on the road to greatness when he died so suddenly and unexpectedly. The years preceding his death were spent at the doctors for issues that he never discussed with us. He was unable to work and spent most of his time moving his stuff from one place to another, to keep himself busy. He hated Christmas because he was always broke and he didn't like to watch everyone opening up gifts when he couldn't afford to buy very much for his own 5 kids. Sadly, since he died, I feel like the failure in my family, especially now, when I've had this meltdown and I haven't gotten Christmas presents bought or made for my own family. I feel like my brother, spending days at the doctor's and getting no answers, and then coming home and moving my scrapbooking stuff from here to there and back again. That is depressing me even more.

It's 10:30 Christmas Eve morning and my niece's daughter will be here in 2 hours. I still have to cook dinner and try to make some gifts for my family. I haven't gotten anything done. Thank God for my family, my husband is at the store buying the food I need to make, my daughter will help with the cooking. My other daughter is wrapping up some presents and will help me clean. I really don't want Christmas to come, at all. I hurt so much physically and emotionally and I just don't have any Christmas spirit to share. I will get through it, with the support of my family, and trudge on towards a new and brighter day tomorrow. Thanks for your continued prayers and support, despite my shortcomings.

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Although I may not have been online, or talking to you lately, it does not mean that you have not been in my thoughts and prayers. Please take a minute and enjoy this holiday greeting from me, as I have enjoyed your friendship. May God continue to bless you and your family today and always. Holiday hugs, Shellie

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Same Shit Different Day (SSDD)

I could just scream! Once again I'm having problems getting pain medicine. This is just ridiculous. My general doctor doesn't want to prescribe it because he doesn't know me well enough, he wants the pain clinic to prescribe it. My orthopedist doesn't want to prescribe it because he lives 2 1/2 hours away and can't monitor it. I called in last week to get a refill and the pain clinic doctor that prescribed me some medicine only granted me one refill. Good Lord, I just had a nerve resection and now I can't bend or straighten my leg without excruciating pain and I've used my one refill and they won't give me any more?! What's up with that? I asked if I could get a shot in that sciatic nerve to help alleviate that pain, but no one can get a hold of my doc at the pain clinic to ask him to get me an appointment.

The problem is the nurses! I had a hydro-cysto dialation two Mondays before Thanksgiving. The doctor gave me some Vicodin pills. I've had a gastric bypass and my system doesn't hold onto pill forms very well, they are not absorbed correctly by my body and so they are not as effective as they could be. The week after surgery was spent going to Seattle and having other appointments, so I was unable to rest after that surgery and that kept aggravating my poor bladder. The Wednesday after that surgery I went to the pain clinic and discussed my pain medicine for the surgery. She said that she would write in the notes for the nurses to refill my pain medicine once and that then I would have to start tapering it off. We discussed that I would probably need pain medicine for up to four weeks after surgery, depending on how the surgery went. I took the prescription to the pharmacy and did NOT fill it because my surgery was still a week away.

I was out of some other medication and my mom went to pick it up for me. She picked up my pain medicine, earlier than I had hoped to get it...I did need it though. I was still having pain from the bladder surgery and so I took some of the pain medication-----I was thinking that if I called my urologist for more pain medicine, and my mom had just picked up pain medicine for me, then the pharmacy would get worried that I was getting too much pain medicine from different doctors all over town. I seem to always be having trouble with pain medicine since my original family doctor quit back in August.

So, the following week, I had my nerve resection. They put in the pain pump which didn't work and then it broke so I had to pull it out. I had been using my pain medicine for over a week and when I called the pain clinic for a refill the nurse really reprimanded me! She layed this huge guilt trip on me about how I shouldn't have used the pain medicine before the surgery and that she was really worried that I was abusing medicine. I tried to explain what I was thinking, how I was trying to prevent someone being worried about it by not calling every specialist I see for pain medicine, and only requesting it from the pain clinic. I also told her that I was not out of medicine, but that I would be by the weekend. She refilled the pain medicine ONLY BECAUSE IT SAID TO IN MY CHART and then she said that they would probably not refill it again, because I took it earlier than I was supposed to. It doesn't seem to matter how much pain I'm in and the fact that I can't bend or straighten my knee completely without excruciating pain! The nurse said she would try to get a hold of my provider and ask if I could get in for a shot in my sciatic nerve to help alleviate some of my pain. She called me back on Friday, and said that my doc did not come in on Friday, so she couldn't ask him about the shot and could not ask him about pain medicine. This was 4:00 last Friday night. 4:30 my crown fell off of my last molar on the left side. Within a half an hour my jaw was throbbing. I tried to call my endodontist (I already had an appointment on the 15th to fix this tooth, the timetable just got moved up!) and he didn't answer. So I was up all Friday night, in pain, despite the little pain medicine I still had.

Saturday my tooth still hurt and I was in a lot of pain in my leg, and my left kidney. My left kidney pain is becoming more frequent and constant. I have a history of kidney stones and I have lost my right kidney so if mt left kidney gets blocked I'm in big trouble! I didn't sleep Saturday night either.


By Sunday I was in so much pain, and I was exhausted from the pain and not sleeping. I had been out of pain medicine for over a day, and I was starting to get pins and needles feelings all over my body and I had the chills. My jaw was really hurting now. I did fall asleep for an hour out of sheer exhaustion. I was in the middle of scrap booking when I fell asleep and I was a little confused when I woke up, I thought it was Monday, but it had really only been a couple hours. I was up all Sunday night too.

Monday, and first call to the endodontist, then the pain clinic. I got an appointment for the endodontist today, and for the pain clinic on Wednesday. I still haven't heard if I can get a shot in my sciatic nerve or not. Maybe I will an have an answer by the end of the week. I dd get a nurse to finally say, if another specialist thought that I needed pain medicine, then to get it from them and call the pain clinic with the dosage that they gave me.

I went to the endodontist and got another root canal. My jaw is still throbbing. He asked me to call him if the anti inflammatory weren't working. They aren't helping, but I'm afraid to call him. I just don't want to hear that I can't have any help when I'm in pain.

The urologist decided to have me go through another series of pelvic floor exercises to help with the leakage problem rather than jumping into another bladder lift. Hey, I'll try anything. I am taking a medicine called Urelle to help calm my bladder from the interstitial cystitis and it turns my pee blue! So I know I'm leaking because my underwear is blue! I had an x-ray today for my left kidney and the x-ray was inconclusive. There is a suspicious spot in my left kidney, next to my spine, but they can't tell if it is a stone or not. So, I will wait until my urologist is back from vacation and can check the x-ray himself. If I get any other symptoms of kidney stones I should call them back. So I wait, and wait, and wait for my problems to either go away or get worse! How fun is that?


Then, last Friday, my other tooth that needs a root canal broke off! Exposing a crack in the tooth in front of it! My left jaw is just throbbing, it hurts so much! I have just suffered through a miserable weekend with tooth pain, jaw pain, kidney pain foot pain and sciatic pain with NO PAIN MEDICINE!