Changing Medications (Level of Trust Required)

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

I asked her, and her eyes glazed over. She's decidedly low-tech. However, just now she got up and got her documentation to figure things out. I told her she's going to have to add what she needs to her wish list. She said she will, but I get the feeling she doesn't want to take advantage of all of you (Texan pronunciation: y'all) too much.   One too many very appreciative trips to the well, that sort of thing.

I'm overwhelmed by all of this. I don't know what to say anymore.

[Don Edwards 548]

11 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I buy class-10 or better SD cards for my picture-cameras so they can record video smoothly.  Many trail cameras record video and buying class-10 or better means the SD cards can be pressed into service in a picture camera if need be.

For SD cards I strongly recommend SanDisk over competing brands. For camera use they routinely UNDER-rate their cards, while some other manufacturers tend to OVER-rate them.

And the recommendation is even stronger for computer-like, as opposed to camera-like, usage. Cameras write huge files all at once, and then read them all at once. (Audio devices the same except the "at once" takes longer.) Computers read or write a little bit from this file, then a little bit from that file... the standards for SD cards were written for camera usage, not computer usage, and they don't measure the ability of the card to switch where it's reading or writing from. SanDisk cards are pretty good at that; many others are pretty bad. So bad, in fact, that if you're running the OS off the SD card (the original Nook Color can do that very nicely) they'll cause the OS to crash.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Mrs. Prof has populated her Wish List with the necessary memory card. She also wants me to pass along a message that you are spoiling her.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

7 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

For SD cards I strongly recommend SanDisk over competing brands. For camera use they routinely UNDER-rate their cards, while some other manufacturers tend to OVER-rate them.

Mrs. Prof was made aware of this, but the compatibility chart only listed SanDisk up to 8GB. She choose a Kingston 32GB, which is the only tested compatible 32GB card.

(I don't know what the veracity of said test chart really is, but she figured better safe than potentially not covered by warranty.)

[Vorlonagent 442]

37 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Mrs. Prof was made aware of this, but the compatibility chart only listed SanDisk up to 8GB. She choose a Kingston 32GB, which is the only tested compatible 32GB card.

(I don't know what the veracity of said test chart really is, but she figured better safe than potentially not covered by warranty.)

Can we have the amazon account name to look for?  (PM if you feel security or anonymity warrants it).  I'm good for a SD card.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

bjfnord@yahoo.com

[Vorlonagent 442]

22 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

bjfnord@yahoo.com

Someone jumped on that really fast.  Already wasn't there.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Thank you again to whomever is jumping on the various items on the wish list! We're both honored, and I've made sure to let Mrs. Prof know that she needs to hop on and give you all a proper thank you herself. I've also asked her to give a post lumbar caudal injection update when we get home from the hospital tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be particularly difficult. Nothing by mouth after midnight until after the pre-op and the lumbar injection at 2:45 p.m. CDT. I'm going to be as thirsty as a Longhorn after a hot day on a dusty trail drive. Right now, I'm waiting for my last pain pill of the night to kick in so I can take a shower and crash out completely. I hope I can sleep through most of the morning—my pre-op for my Friday foot operation is set for 11am, and I don't want to sit around here waiting while I watch Mrs. Prof eat and drink.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

26 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Thank you again to whomever is jumping on the various items on the wish list! We're both honored, and I've made sure to let Mrs. Prof know that she needs to hop on and give you all a proper thank you herself. I've also asked her to give a post lumbar caudal injection update when we get home from the hospital tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be particularly difficult. Nothing by mouth after midnight until after the pre-op and the lumbar injection at 2:45 p.m. CDT. I'm going to be as thirsty as a Longhorn after a hot day on a dusty trail drive. Right now, I'm waiting for my last pain pill of the night to kick in so I can take a shower and crash out completely. I hope I can sleep through most of the morning—my pre-op for my Friday foot operation is set for 11am, and I don't want to sit around here waiting while I watch Mrs. Prof eat and drink.

Good luck! We're rooting for you.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

9:12 a.m. CDT 20170516. I'm up, but I'm not at the hospital yet. My last hydrocodone dose was at 10pm last night. I'd forgotten how much relief it was providing.

I HURT EVERYWHERE.

I'm awake mainly because I hurt too much to keep sleeping, especially on my right side (where the spinal nerve issue is). Walking to the bathroom was a new experience, with both my spine pain and my broken foot pain working with nothing to numb either. Not to mention my knees, which still hurt from the fall and which have never beer properly examined. I'm a mess right now, and I'm going to be that way for at least the next six hours.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

3 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

9:12 a.m. CDT 20170516. I'm up, but I'm not at the hospital yet. My last hydrocodone dose was at 10pm last night. I'd forgotten how much relief it was providing.

I HURT EVERYWHERE.

I'm awake mainly because I hurt too much to keep sleeping, especially on my right side (where the spinal nerve issue is). Walking to the bathroom was a new experience, with both my spine pain and my broken foot pain working with nothing to numb either. Not to mention my knees, which still hurt from the fall and which have never beer properly examined. I'm a mess right now, and I'm going to be that way for at least the next six hours.

Ouch All I can say is that I hope the procedures go well and without holdups. I will keep you in my thoughts.

[mlooney 3,417]

2 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

 

9:12 a.m. CDT 20170516. I'm up, but I'm not at the hospital yet. My last hydrocodone dose was at 10pm last night. I'd forgotten how much relief it was providing.

I HURT EVERYWHERE.

 

 

 

Ah, crap.  Let's hope the find and fix your problems.  On the bright side, they know what is wrong with your foot, just fixing it might be tricky.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

5:44 p.m. CDT 20170516. I'm home from a medical nightmare come to life. I'm too out of it to go into all of the details, but suffice it to say:

• I hate paperwork, especially when it's screwed up and not sent on time.
• I was in a constant state of pain between 8.0 and 10.0 all day long, including after the procedure.
• Dilaudid (hydromorphone) doesn't do jack for nerve pain.

I'm going to have to go through a reduced version of this on Friday, where (I hope) the post-op pain medication actually does some good. More news later.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Okay, more updates.

The hospital didn't have my pre-op orders for my Friday surgery when we got there at 11am. They went ahead and checked us in for the 2:45 p.m. spine injection, though. After many stops and false starts, including a red herring that made me think I'd have to come back Wednesday for pre-op, everybody finally got their act together. I got the pre-op done around noon.

Worst part: my pain level. I woke up hurting in the 9.0 range. It spiked near 10 while I was going through all of the check-in and pre-op waiting. They couldn't give me anything until they got me back and got an IV started. That didn't happen until somewhere around 12:45 p.m. Only then were they able to give me two fentanyl shots. Neither of them did any good whatsoever. I sat in the bed, writhing in pain, until the doctor and the anesthesiologist showed up at about 3 p.m. (late). Both were surprised that the fentanyl didn't work. They promised relief, albeit not immediate, from the steroid epidural.

I was wheeled back, rolled over, and given general anesthesia for the epidural. Next thing I knew, I was back in the same room with Mrs. Prof. With the same pain. More writhing and groaning ensued. It was as if I'd never even gone through the procedure.

At one point, I told Mrs. Prof that I was ready for them to just amputate the leg from the nerve level and be done with it. I couldn't stand it anymore. She calmed me down, with some difficulty.

The nurse in charge of me watched over me for a while, asked me questions about my pain relief regimen at home, and brought up fentanyl again. She got the full story on that, after which she got permission to get synthetic morphine (dilaudid, a.k.a. hydromorphone) for me. She administered four or five shots, I forget how many, and I have no idea how much. They made me groggy and tired, but did nothing for my nerve pain. I got a "some drugs don't work on nerve pain for some people" talk from the nurse. The anesthesiologist even checked in on me and got an earful of groaning and agonized yelps. He was quite surprised.

They finally made the decision to let me go home and take my normal "drug cocktail," as the nurse put it, after giving me a 30-minute period to shake off the dilaudid. Surprisingly, moving around, getting dressed, and getting back into the Ridgeline helped lower the pain level down below an 8 for the first time all day.

One side note: Mrs. Prof noticed an unusual bruising along my right shin as I was getting dressed to leave. It was quite pronounced, and was definitely not there when I got to the hospital that morning (all I had was a bruise around my knee from the fall). A nurse who was in the procedure room was called in to "lay eyes on" the leg, I guess to witness it in case it causes problems or gets worse.

Back to the story. I managed to use my walker to get back into the house and get seated to send the previous update. A brief bathroom break ensued, followed by Mrs. Prof having to reapply my gauze bandage (that's how low the shot was—it went down the toilet, unintentionally, and had to be replaced). During that time, either the lidocaine from the injection or the dilaudid has taken a stronger hold on my nerve pain. It's improved as more time has passed, allowing me to eat something, take my medications (including hydrocodone and Topamax, which have also helped), and get seated to type this second update. I'm considerably more comfortable now, albeit still very groggy from the dilaudid. (Lots of spelling corrections going on while typing this up.) Mrs. Prof has since gone to the grocery store for cranberry and orange juices and to meet a cat person for some brief business.

So, what does the future hold? Well, tomorrow and Thursday, I'm still supposed to take it easy on the tailbone. However, I've got to call the podiatrist's office and get them to get their act together on the CT scan report so I can sign and e-mail back whatever form they need prior to the surgery on Friday. I've also got to get a firm check-in time for the surgery—the 5am time right now is not set in stone, according to the hospital. I swear, this has been a ballet of errors on a grand scale that has made me want to drop the whole thing and reschedule the foot surgery until next week. Only Mrs. Prof's stubbornness has kept it on track.

Right now, though, I'm going to hobble into the kitchen with the cane, get another glass of tea, hopefully make it back without falling again, and try to drink some of it without nodding off in mid-drink. No guarantees beyond that.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

I don't see any updates since yesterday....fingers crossed that this means Prof T is resting and feeling some relief!

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

I don't see any updates since yesterday....fingers crossed that this means Prof T is resting and feeling some relief!

Seconded.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

I don't see any updates since yesterday....fingers crossed that this means Prof T is resting and feeling some relief!

Well, I'm back to where I was before the whole nightmare started, medically. My "drug cocktail" is doing the job it was for my spinal nerve pain. I'm still waiting for the lumbar caudal epidural steroid injection to take effect, which should happen some time Friday or Saturday if the doctor was right. I'm told it may cause a flare in soreness in the injection site before it provides pain relief, so that's something to (not) look forward to. At least it'll be a signal of impending relief, for however long the shot lasts.

The bruising down my right leg is still there. It looks more like varicose veins than anything else. Mrs. Prof (who is away at work right now, so I'm being extra super careful making my way around the house) is more worried about them than I am. She thinks I may have developed a DVT, or deep vein thrombosis, but what she doesn't understand is that those develop deep within your legs—not on top, where you can see them. It's probably just some stress bruising.

Speaking of stress, I got to see my pre-op lab results. My blood work showed a couple of interesting items. My white blood cell count is high again, but this time in both the neutrophils and the monocytes. I was also running a 99.0°F fever yesterday (my normal is 97.6°F), possibly stress induced, but the monocyte count might explain it as well. I also had some enlarged red blood cells, for whatever good that'll do you. I have no clue there.

Moving on to my foot, I haven't seen the CT scan report, so I have no idea what the podiatrist is actually going to do. I know he's going to screw at least one fracture closed and wire another shut, but from me looking at the CT scan disc, he's got a couple of other things that need fixing, like one of my sesamoid bones (which looks cracked clean in two). I saw his preliminary report from his X-rays where he mentioned this as a possibility, but it wasn't on the immediate list of things to fix. I'll want to know before he goes in and starts screwing around.

Bureaucracy-wise, I'm finally scheduled for the foot surgery on Friday, with all paperwork supposedly taken care of while I was in pre-op on Tuesday. I'm just waiting for the podiatrist's office to give me an absolute confirmation of what time I need to check in: will it be 5:00 a.m. or 6:00 a.m.? I've spoken with the nurse already today. She said she would call me back this afternoon. I'm not holding my breath.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Elevated white blood counts can happen due to infection, but other causes of inflammation can do it, too.  Same goes for mild fever.  With all the trauma you've been acquiring, I'd be surprised if there wasn't any inflammation!  When my mom had a badly broken leg and dislocated ankle, I know she got some stuff on the surface of her leg, too, but that was more like giant blisters.

I suppose it's possible for an occlusion in a larger vein to lead to leakage in the smaller veins that lead to it, but I really don't know.  Could also be that your leg banged into something while you were unconscious.  Normally I'd say that deep vein thrombosis is supposed to hurt a lot, but you are on so many pain meds, and have so many other hurts to confuse the issue, that it might be possible.  You can look up other signs to watch for just as easily as I can.

Standard disclaimer -- I have no training in, nor authority for, diagnosing and treating your species.  These are not Medical Diagnoses, but only a layman discussing things just like anyone else on this board might.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

1 minute ago, CritterKeeper said:

Elevated white blood counts can happen due to infection, but other causes of inflammation can do it, too.  Same goes for mild fever.  With all the trauma you've been acquiring, I'd be surprised if there wasn't any inflammation!  When my mom had a badly broken leg and dislocated ankle, I know she got some stuff on the surface of her leg, too, but that was more like giant blisters.

I suppose it's possible for an occlusion in a larger vein to lead to leakage in the smaller veins that lead to it, but I really don't know.  Could also be that your leg banged into something while you were unconscious.  Normally I'd say that deep vein thrombosis is supposed to hurt a lot, but you are on so many pain meds, and have so many other hurts to confuse the issue, that it might be possible.  You can look up other signs to watch for just as easily as I can.

Standard disclaimer -- I have no training in, nor authority for, diagnosing and treating your species.  These are not Medical Diagnoses, but only a layman discussing things just like anyone else on this board might.

Yes. I've been dealing with elevated white blood cell counts for at least a couple of years now. My primary doctor has me going to a hematologist for monitoring. You might remember the scare last year or so when he thought he saw something other than an elevated neutrophil count? Scared the crap out of me until he ruled it out as a "glitch" in the test. No fun.

I was rather well cushioned on the O.R. table, and I was only in there for 15 minutes, so they would have had to have worked fast to bang up my leg to the stage it's at. Again, I'm marking it down to a prolonged bout of severe stress due to extreme pain and leaving it at that. I don't really want to know anything more about it.

As for now, I'm more worried about digesting the cheddar-cauliflower soup I ate for late lunch. Don't think it went down quite right. Urgh. I don't want to take another Zofran just for a bowl of soup.

One thing I haven't mentioned through all of this has been the mental stress.

There's been mental stress. A lot. Like, a whole smegging lot, at every single turn.

I think that covers the mental stress.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

49 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

One thing I haven't mentioned through all of this has been the mental stress.

There's been mental stress. A lot. Like, a whole smegging lot, at every single turn.

I think that covers the mental stress.

I think we got the idea when you posted

On 5/16/2017 at 9:22 AM, ProfessorTomoe said:

I HURT EVERYWHERE.

.....I'm a mess right now....

And of course you're worried about the outcome of all of these tests and procedures, and the logistics of it all, etc.  All the more reason to let us help you out with the mental stress in whatever way we can.  Mental stress and physical pain can affect each other, after all.  We can't send you extra pain medsm but maybe we can reduce your stress hormones just a little bit.

 

By the way, I know gabapentin has a reputation for helping with chronic pain and nerve-related pain in the critters, do you know if it's similar in humans?

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

8 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

By the way, I know gabapentin has a reputation for helping with chronic pain and nerve-related pain in the critters, do you know if it's similar in humans?

I took it for my Chronic Pain Syndrome many years ago. It made me gain 30 pounds. I tell that story to any doctor who asks if I've had it, and they move on to the next medicine on their list.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Standard disclaimer -- I have no training in, nor authority for, diagnosing and treating your species.  These are not Medical Diagnoses, but only a layman discussing things just like anyone else on this board might.

You need to get certification in how to treat Uryuom.

[Don Edwards 548]

5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Standard disclaimer -- I have no training in, nor authority for, diagnosing and treating your species.

I love the way you word that - it sounds like either you or the person you're addressing are an alien.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

I love the way you word that - it sounds like either you or the person you're addressing are an alien.

OH DEAR GOD THEY'RE ON TO ME HIDE THE FILES FORGET THAT VAPORIZE THE FILES AND FIRE UP THE JX-63 POD NOW!!!

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

The JX-63?  How quaint.

Psst, these aren't available to the general public yet.
But if you have any "friends" in the Galactic Security Administration, see if you can get your tentacles on the JX-72 Gama

Admittedly, that model still has some problems.  It's true you can't land one of them without leaving behind crop circles.

But if you want a ride that can intimidate the governments of petty and underdeveloped planets all week and then look good for a weekend of cow tipping and intestinal examinations, you can't beat the 72 Gama.