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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
ProfessorTomoe

Changing Medications (Level of Trust Required)

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9 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. B)

Well, technically, I can diagnoses and treat every species on the planet except the species Homo sapiens.  There might even be some debate over jurisdiction if someone ever recreated Homo sapiens neandertalis, as to whether they were close enough to Homo sapiens sapiens for the MDs to claim, or different enough for the DVMs to be a better choice.  Those MDs are way too used to every drug having about the same dosing, same effect, same potential side effects -- they don't cope well with variations like hundred-fold dosing differences in levothyroxine or healthy foods being toxic (grapes, avocadoes, Macadamia nuts, etc).

10 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

You need to get certification in how to treat Uryuom.

Hmm, I don't know who takes care of them in the EGS-verse, but I always felt being a doctor on the Enterprise* would be more like being a zoo vet than an MD.

*As opposed to The Doctor and the Enterprise, which was an excellent fanzine story I probably still have a copy of somewhere.....

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37 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Hmm, I don't know who takes care of them in the EGS-verse, but I always felt being a doctor on the Enterprise* would be more like being a zoo vet than an MD.

As long as it isn't like the execrable Enterprise episode Dear Doctor, in which Archer and Phlox decide that massive genocide is the only ethical course of action left to them.

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8:44 a.m. CDT 20170518. Less than 24 hours until the operation on my broken foot. I know they're doing an ORIF (Open Reduction - Internal Fixation) with screw(s) and wire(s), but since I haven't seen the report on the CT scan, I don't know exactly what bones they'll be fixing. I hope they'll be doing something to one of my sesamoid bones in the ball of my foot, since it looked particularly nasty on the CT disc and hurt a lot when the doctor put pressure on it.

I don't have a firm time as to when I'm supposed to be at the hospital—still. I was supposed to get that info yesterday from the nurse, but I think you know how that went. I'm getting that info today, come hell or high water. Their office opens up at 9am, so I'm going to hit the phones ASAP.

The one thing that really, REALLY scares me is that my steroid shot won't have kicked in yet and my spinal nerve will flare again. I can't stand to go through that kind of pain again, and Mrs. Prof said she can't stand to watch me go through it again. My time without hydrocodone will be significantly less, though—from 10pm to 7am, instead of 10pm until 3pm.

A secondary concern is whether or not they will lay me flat on my back. I've still got my coughing problem, but only when I'm horizontal on my back. What'll happen if they put me under and put me down flat? I fear choking on my sinus drainage or reflux or whatever the hell it is that's causing the problem. A long talk with the anesthesiologist is going to be necessary.

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9:12 a.m. CDT 20170518. Got to talk to both the nurse and the doctor over the phone. The doctor is still doing an ORIF on one of the joints of my big toe and apparently putting in a screw, but that's going to be about it from the sound of things. The fractured sesamoid bone can't be operated on—only immobilized until it heals on its own. That means I'm going to be wearing the moon boot for several weeks after the surgery.

I asked the doctor for a post-op report. He agreed with no reservations. I also got a firm time to show up at the hospital: 5:30 a.m., with surgery scheduled for 7am. That means getting up around 4:30 a.m. to brush my teeth. I'm going to be wishing I had coffee in addition to hydrocodone tomorrow morning.

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1 hour ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

9:12 a.m. CDT 20170518. Got to talk to both the nurse and the doctor over the phone. The doctor is still doing an ORIF on one of the joints of my big toe and apparently putting in a screw, but that's going to be about it from the sound of things. The fractured sesamoid bone can't be operated on—only immobilized until it heals on its own. That means I'm going to be wearing the moon boot for several weeks after the surgery.

I asked the doctor for a post-op report. He agreed with no reservations. I also got a firm time to show up at the hospital: 5:30 a.m., with surgery scheduled for 7am. That means getting up around 4:30 a.m. to brush my teeth. I'm going to be wishing I had coffee in addition to hydrocodone tomorrow morning.

Hang in there, Prof. We're keeping you in our thoughts.

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I'll be keeping an eye out for the magic wand that actualy works, but until I find it, you have my best wishes and sympathies.  It still boggles me that they can't give you any sort of pain med before surgery -- seems terribly inflexible of them, in both senses of the word "terribly."  I do wish you could get to have a nice long talk with the anesthesiologist before the day of the surgery, so they could research and plan out how to handle pain control and positioning of the patient, etc.  Seems unfair to them to spring all this on the day of the procedure.

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As always, I thank you all. And, for once, I'm going to go back and change my mind on something. I do have a few long-standing cheap items on my Amazon wish list that, if anyone would be so kind, would provide tremendous relief beyond what medicines can offer. I feel embarrassed to even ask, but with two surgeries in one week, I am getting a little desperate.

So, if no one would mind:

ljfnord@yahoo.com

Let me know if my visibility settings are correct. Thank you to anyone who even considers this.

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5:18 p.m. CDT 20170518. An interesting confluence of date and time.

It looks like what little sleep I may get tonight may be interrupted by severe storms. I hope they stay away (or stay mild enough) long enough for me to get in a shower tonight and to get to the hospital tomorrow morning at 5:30 a.m. CDT.

I think I'm going to delay my last hydrocodone dose from 10pm to 11pm tonight. As I've said, the last thing I want is a repeat of the spinal nerve pain from Tuesday. I'm hoping I can avoid that by delaying the hydrocodone, but not so late that it interferes with my anesthesia. This will also mean I'll delay the rest of my "drug cocktail" until 11pm. I can handle a one-hour delay on the forward side better than a long delay on the back end of the procedure.

Mrs. Prof had some less-than-kind opinions about the podiatrist earlier today. Granted, he did keep us waiting almost two hours in the exam room, but once he did show up, we had his undivided attention. His nurse has missed a couple of call-back requests, but today when I called to find out about the hospital show-up time and ask about the bones the doctor would be operating on, she transferred me to him and immediately called the hospital while he explained the procedure. Additionally, before he let me go, he waited for her to get the arrival time from the hospital and then gave it to me once she got it. Her opinion wavered a bit after taking all of this into account. I agree with her current perception of him—I'm not 100% sure what to make of him and his nurse (who, if I'm correct, is also his wife).

Right now, Mrs. Prof is out picking up a T-N-R cat and transporting it somewhere. I don't remember her exact itinerary. She's handling things calmly for now, although I think there's an underlying dread in her of me going into another nerve pain flare before and/or after the operation. For her sake, I hope it doesn't happen. (Hell, for my sake as well.)

I'm on my anti-anxiety and antidepressant meds this time, but I still might post again later tonight if something sets my brain running into overdrive. Please forgive me if I do, and thank you for putting up with it.

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3 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

I'm on my anti-anxiety and antidepressant meds this time, but I still might post again later tonight if something sets my brain running into overdrive. Please forgive me if I do, and thank you for putting up with it.

There is nothing to forgive, and you are welcome.

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Mrs. Prof received the memory card today for use with the field camera. She's already put it out and brought it back in a couple of hours after feral colony feeding time (and past sunset).

She is giddy with delight over the results. :)

Seriously, she's been going through the still shots (hasn't used the video mode yet) and has been laughing at some of what she's got. She's also identified a couple of new ferals who haven't been through T-N-R yet. Looks like she's got some more trapping to do.

Thank you for making this possible!

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41 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Mrs. Prof received the memory card today for use with the field camera. She's already put it out and brought it back in a couple of hours after feral colony feeding time (and past sunset).

She is giddy with delight over the results. :)

Seriously, she's been going through the still shots (hasn't used the video mode yet) and has been laughing at some of what she's got. She's also identified a couple of new ferals who haven't been through T-N-R yet. Looks like she's got some more trapping to do.

Thank you for making this possible!

I may as well confess this. I only picked the camera in part because of your wife. The rest of it was for the good of the cats. :)

Give Mrs. Prof my regards, and thank her for her work. With you and the cats. :)

ETA: Oooh, ask her to please share some of the shots! :)

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42 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Seriously, she's been going through the still shots (hasn't used the video mode yet) and has been laughing at some of what she's got.

Maybe see if some of them are worth sharing?

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I've passed along your thanks, tOH, and I've got some pics to share. Let me post what she put on Facebook first:
 

Quote

My husband has the BEST internet friends! Long story short, one of the web comic forums he is on (and been a member of for quite some time) has been following his medical issues. They wanted to thank me for taking care of him. Well, I filled out an Amazon wishlist (thinking, yea, right). To my utter surprise, I have received 2 of the items on my wishlist - a trail camera and a memory card for the camera.

This trail cam is SO COOL!

And, with that, here are two of the 176 pictures she captured within the first 3 hours of operation:

 

Cats02a_20170518.jpg

Cats02b_20170518.jpg

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12:01 a.m. CDT 20170519. I got in a shower, then took my "drug cocktail" at around 10:45 p.m., including hydrocodone, and drank my last fluids for the next foreseeable few hours just before midnight. I'm about to crash out until around 4:30 a.m., when I've got to get up, brush my teeth, and watch Mrs. Prof drink coffee while I groggily wish I could have a cup.

My epidural steroid shot hasn't kicked in yet, so I'm going to be relying on hope that my spine nerve doesn't flare like it did Tuesday.

You know what'd be cool? If the doctor would allow me to bring Mrs. Prof's field camera into the O.R. and film the operation tomorrow. I'd like to see what the podiatrist is going to do.

Thank you for every last bit of your support. Wish me luck. I'll try and post an update later today.

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7 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The Cat at :22:26:09 looks like it is narrating a documentary about the Cat walking away in the background.

<Sir David Cattenborough> "Now, as you observe this elegant cat departing from a fine meal, it may occur to you to think that in the dark all felines are indeed gray. There is some truth to this proverb, as we shall show in the following recording.."

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11:07 a.m. CDT 20170519. I'm home. The surgery went semi-well. Turns out my bone was too brittle to handle the screw, so the podiatrist had to use a pair of pins instead. General anesthesia, with no apparent chronic coughing issues. As far as I know, they didn't lay me flat out on my back. They did intubate me, which left me with a sore throat that hurt worse than anything else. A 5 mg dose of hydrocodone seems to have taken care of that. They also gave me a scopolamine patch pre-op to help with possible nausea. Worked like a charm.

The most irritating part of the day has been dealing with Malwarebytes. For some reason, it decided to deactivate some of the real-time protection on both my system and Mrs. Prof's prior to us leaving for the hospital. I fixed it upon returning by downloading an upgrade to v3.1.2, but that's a hell of a time to have to do that, especially when I'm supposed to have my foot elevated. Not a happy camper, I.

Anyway, I have to schedule a follow-up with the podiatrist for next week. That's not set yet, and won't be until Monday at the earliest.

I'm going to cut this update short so that I can get some food inside me and get my foot elevated. Thanks for all of the kind thoughts prior to the operation—they seemed to have worked!

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50 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

I'm going to cut this update short so that I can get some food inside me and get my foot elevated. Thanks for all of the kind thoughts prior to the operation—they seemed to have worked!

Good. Keep us posted!

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