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ProfessorTomoe

Changing Medications (Level of Trust Required)

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Today is Shrink Day and I have no [redacted] idea what she is going to do with my Envega dose.  Up it I suspect, due to me still hearing music most of the time.

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I may not be approved by your insurance provider, but I've already developed more than two opinions about the medical professionals you have been seeing...

Was Middle Kingdom Egypt law about practicioners of medicine anything like Babylonian law? If so, maybe these people ought to start worrying about their own health, too. :icon_eek:

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3 hours ago, mlooney said:

Today is Shrink Day and I have no [redacted] idea what she is going to do with my Envega dose.  Up it I suspect, due to me still hearing music most of the time.

Meds stay the same, but I get to go back on Adderall, which is something I have been off of for 2 months now and I can tell it.  Not taking a dose of it until tomorrow however, as I know what would happen to my sleep cycle if I took it this late in the day.

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Middle Kingdom Medicine (not including Funary processing)?

Chew the bark of two willow trees and call me in the morning...

At least willow bark is an analgesic. Still puts the Middle Period ahead of Babylon.

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Got to see the foot doctor today. He said that I do have something that could potentially be shaved down on inside the bottom of the ball of my foot, but for insurance purposes needs to see if a cortisone injection will help first. He wanted me to come back in 2 weeks, but the damned scheduling nurse said his first available appointment wasn't until mid-January. I know how to get around that, though. Just you watch. :)

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Saw the knee doctor's physician's assistant today. Took with me a printout of the MRI report and the DVD of the MRI scan as artillery. Also made him listen to and feel the clicking in my left knee (he called it "crepitus"). Told him the GELSYN-3 injections did squat for my knee pain and suffering. Asked for arthroscopic surgery. He went to talk to the knee doctor.

The knee doctor agreed. In fact, he agreed to do it before the end of the year, while my 100% insurance coverage is still intact.

I've got to wait for a phone call from the scheduling nurse and a pre-op appointment with the doctor, but after those comes the surgery. I only hope to God it works.

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Well, THAT escalated quickly. The scheduling nurse called. I have a surgery date: December 23rd, two days before Christmas. I know what I want for a Christmas present.

Of course, there's a schedule leading up to it. On the 9th, I get pre-op testing done. On the 19th, I have a pre-op appointment with the surgeon, with whom I'll no doubt argue. (He still thinks that my kneecap arthritis is the root cause of my pain, despite all of the problems I have with my meniscus and the physical pain I have on my left side.) Then, finally, on the 23rd, I have the surgery.

In the afternoon. NPO (nothing by mouth) from midnight. I don't know how I'll survive it. Hell, I don't know how they'll find a vein to introduce an IV. I have terrible veins. They told me to hyper-hydrate for 48 hours prior to the surgery date. All I can tell that'll make me do is piss a lot. (Guess I'd better discuss stopping my Lasix with my primary care doctor.)

That's what I know for now. There may be more forthcoming. I don't know. I hope not. All of my fingers and all of the toes I have left are crossed for a good outcome.

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Had to skip today's follow-up blood tests / med checks. Mrs. Prof, a.k.a. my transportation, came back from the urgent care clinic last night with a diagnosis of borderline pneumonia. No way I was making her drive me to the doctor.

My pre-op tests are still scheduled for Monday. They wouldn't let me schedule both the follow-up and the pre-op simultaneously, claiming insurance wouldn't pay for it. Bastages. I'll get the follow-up done later.

A new issue is raising its ugly head, and it has to do with the endovenous ablation of my lower right leg. I'm starting to get some swelling and pain down the back lateral part of my leg, down to the curve of my ankle joint. It feels like something is stuck down there, like perhaps it's not draining properly. I'm going to call the vascular surgeon's office tomorrow to find out WTF is going on.

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I have an appointment with the vascular specialist this coming Wednesday (Dec. 11th) for my right lower leg and foot. The pain and swelling have been getting worse, to the point where my foot is feeling heavy. There's no obvious discoloration, so I don't know why it's doing this. I've spent a good amount of today with my leg elevated. I don't know if I should apply heat or cold, however. I'm confused.

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Well, that escalated quickly.

I called the Blue Cross Nurse Help Line to ask if I should put heat or cold on my leg/ankle to get the swelling to go down. The nurse freaked out and called 911 on me. The 911 operator dispatched an ambulance to my house with three EMTs. They looked over my foot, took my vitals, and decided I didn't need to go to the hospital, which is what I told the Blue Cross nurse in the first place. The EMTs *did* tell me to use cold, however. Or hot. Whichever I wanted. :doom:

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3 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Well, that escalated quickly.

It did. But you know what? What I am really happy about is that you are okay. I don't know what motivated that nurse -- possibly she had dealt with a similar case that turned out to be something much worse -- but at least she had priority number one on mind, namely your health and safety.

I hope this won't cost you a fortune and that you stay all right.

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3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I hope this won't cost you a fortune and that you stay all right.

I'm lucky in the cost part - both the 911 operator and the EMTs told me that they don't charge you unless they transport you to the hospital. I won't get charged for their visit.

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Saw the vascular doctor today. She has no idea what's causing the swelling. However, she believes the skin numbness and the inner pain is caused by nerve damage related to the endovenous ablation procedure. Guess what she put me on?

Gabapentin. 300mg 3x a day. w00t. Here we go again.

So, I get to be ultra-careful with my diet for the next month to keep from gaining weight due to the gabapentin, plus I'm going to have tunnel/double vision off and on as a side effect. Lovely. As long as it makes the fscking pain go away, I guess.

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Today is a very special day, one that many forumgoers here may remember. Today is the ten-year anniversary of my survival of an extremely close brush with death. Ten years ago, I almost bled to death internally after a botched gastric bypass operation while waiting to be triaged in an emergency room's waiting room. If I hadn't had to go to the bathroom, found it locked, stood up from my wheelchair, and either fell or got knocked over, breaking both ankles and summoning the rapid response team who found that my blood pressure was 60/20, I would have died that day.

I spent 3 days in the ICU and almost a month in two different hospitals afterward. I communicated with the EGS Forum with a laptop from my hospital bed. Eight or so weeks after the ER incident, I was back at work, by sheer force of will. I've been in pain from my broken ankles, and have fluctuated in my weight and had to take anti-nausea medicine frequently due to the botched gastric bypass. Still, I have survived, and I hope to survive another ten years past this anniversary. We shall see.

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It is hard to imagine any reason why breaking both ankles would be a GOOD thing
Let this be an inspiration
Anything is possible

Speaking of possible...
Several people I know have undergone gastric bypass, and I have heard many comments that range from dissatisfaction to outright horror stories
Is there any good side to gastric bypass?

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3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

It is hard to imagine any reason why breaking both ankles would be a GOOD thing

True, but if I hadn't, the rapid response team wouldn't have come, they wouldn't have found that my blood pressure was 60/20, and I would have continued to bleed out internally. I probably had about 15-20 minutes of life left in me when they arrived. Those broken ankles saved my life.

3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Is there any good side to gastric bypass?

If you choose the Gastric Sleeve option, yes. That was not available to me, unfortunately - I had a Roux-en-Y bypass. I've had trouble with wildly fluctuating weight, nausea that requires prescription medication (Zofran) to calm down, and unpredictable amounts of how much food I''ll be able to eat at a meal. It has helped me take off and keep off a steady 56 pounds, though, but I want to lose much more, and I can't seem to break through.

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10 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Is there any good side to gastric bypass?

My mother-in-law had what amounts to half of a gastric bypass, because scar tissue from a duodenal ulcer almost completely closed off the exit from her stomach to her intestines. So they made a second connection, on the left-hand side, just as they would in a bypass. But they didn't close off part of the stomach.

(In terms of proper long-term function, a complete gastric bypass would be better - it would be a downhill run from the stomach to the opening, whereas with the half-job most of her stomach is below the opening. But she probably wouldn't have survived the short-term impact of that surgery.)

 

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I just got a time a little while ago for my surgery on Monday. I check in at 11:15 a.m. CST, and they wheel me back at 1:15 p.m. CST for a God-knows-how-long scoping out of my left knee.

I met with the surgeon yesterday and asked him a few questions—he said he'll be doing a "diagnostic arthroscopy" to begin with. In other words, he'll go in and scout out the whole knee to see what might be wrong before he starts doing any repair work. Once the diagnostic is done, he'll do the actual fixing, in which he expects to include repair/removal of torn meniscus material and a small amount of shaving down of my arthritic kneecap. After my surgery and my recovery time, he expects that I'll be walking on my left leg in no time. In fact, I should be using either crutches or my cane to leave the hospital! How different from the primitive arthroscopic surgery I had back in 1984.

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I have made it through my knee surgery, successfully as far as I know of at this time. I'm walking on a cane through the house. However, I'm having a slight problem keeping myself awake. I keep passing out at random times, like I just did. A nurse suggested that I back off on my pain medicines. I might back off on my gabapentin. :P Otherwise, I'm doing okay. More later.

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Here's the "more later" I keep forgetting to post.

Things have healed up quite nicely on the outside of my knee. I'm walking with relative ease, thanks in part to my oxycodone. I did have to go off my gabapentin in the end just so I could stay awake. My right ankle hasn't noticed the difference.

Inside the knee, things are a bit different. I've posted a photo gallery here. Things are supposed to look smooth and off-white, not red and tattered and angry as they were when the doctor went in. He was quite surprised to find bone-on-bone arthritis, which of course he couldn't fix, plus some "angry" spots here and there.

I went to my first physical therapy appointment yesterday. Bleaugh. Can't stand the stuff, but since I'm going to have to walk quite a bit in order to get from the light rail station to the Cotton Bowl Stadium in order to watch the NHL Winter Classic on New Year's Day, I'm going to have to do the exercises. Might want to think about a knee brace before I get there, hell, I don't know. I mean, I've still got steri-strips on my knee that are full of blood and I can't even get them wet until Monday.

Meanwhile, there's another issue developing on my right foot - an infection of toe #2 that literally "popped" open the day before surgery. Spewed blood onto the shower floor. For a day there, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to have the knee surgery, but that obviously happened, mainly since it was on the opposite leg. However, the surgeon added an antibiotic to my IV and gave me a prescription for a very strong capsule - clindamycin. I mean, the stuff is so strong that I can't lie down for 10 minutes after I've taken it (to keep it from damaging my throat), plus I've got to take a probiotic with it. I'm not sure if it's doing anything to my mouth right now or not - might have to go see my regular doctor to check for thrush. I've got an appointment with my podiatrist on January 2nd to look at the toe and see what's going on with it. I hope it's not another case of osteomyelitis (bone infection) - that cost me two toes already over the past year & a half.

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Wednesday's going to be a real test of my scoped-out knee.

Mrs. Prof and I are going to the NHL Winter Classic at the Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas on New Year's Day, just a light rail ride away from our house. Only problem is that there's quite a walk from the parking lot to the rail station, then another much longer walk from the terminal station to the Cotton Bowl. After that, we've got to go through security, make it up the ramps, and navigate the steps to our seats.

I hadn't planned for this when I scheduled my surgery. Here's hoping my knee holds out ... either that, or my pain medicine holds out.

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