Sunday, January 28, 2007

the wee hours

Boy, Do I Owe You Guys Some Entries

I’ve read some good books, worked A LOT, finished watching the “Wonderfalls” dvd (fabulous), learned some important financial lessons, had a haircut, discovered that I could feed Cricket food that seems decent, but wasn’t Merrick or Eatables, because she’s gone back to her bad habit of, uh, to put it delicately, eating her food twice.  It’s disgusting and we’re just going to have to suck up the higher cost of the better food because it makes the little dogs poop less often and Cricket never ate any of it, which was much appreciated.  Since it’s a weekend free of NFL games, hopefully I can do some catching up on my blog.  I’ve missed you guys - all ten of my regular readers.  If I haven’t commented on your blogs, it’s because I’m also behind on reading them.  I’m sorry and I feel guilty about that - I will catch up on your lives tomorrow.  I hope you’ve all been doing wonderful things and are terrifically happy.

For some super cuteness, go to Leigh-Ann’s blog for Madison’s one week birthday pictures.  She’s so adorable.  She may possibly be in the running for the cutest foster kitten we’ve ever had.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

the wee hours

A Day of Chronic Fatigue Is Much Like You’d Expect…But Worse

Last night I had a really horrible headache, which I discovered during the Sinus Infection Hell of 2006, is generally caused by my sinuses.  All these years of headaches, and I think I’ve had chronic sinus infections.  I can now usually get rid of my headache with a Sudafed and some Excedrin.  Since I generally don’t drink anything with caffeine anymore, the caffeine in the Excedrin helps get rid of the headache.  Still, I felt crappy - post-headache syndrome, I guess.  So I went to bed fairly early.

I got plenty of sleep and I think it was pretty good sleep.  My ultrasound was scheduled for this afternoon (Tuesday - I know my hours are weird, but even though it’s officially Wednesday, I consider Tuesday “today” because I haven’t gone to bed yet), but when I woke up, I was beyond exhausted.  I could barely drag myself out of bed to go to the bathroom.  I called the radiology place and rescheduled for Monday afternoon.  Oh, a funny thing about that appointment - they left a message on our answering machine with instructions on how to prepare for the ultrasound.  They told me to drink 48 ounces of water an hour and a half before my appointment, and then to hold it until after the ultrasound.  Uh, if I could do that, I wouldn’t be having the ultraound in the first place.  Since I know it would be impossible for me to do as ordered (I’m generally very good about following doctor’s orders), because driving on a bouncy freeway is never the best thing for my bladder, but with a full bladder, impossible - I called them and said that I couldn’t do it.  She said to just try to do the best I could.  Hmm, I’ve gotten a little off-track here.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, back in bed.

I went back to bed for another hour, but we had to get up to take a new foster kitten (we got two 1 day old foster kittens on Sunday, but they have a place to go once they’re weaned) to the vet because he had blood in his urine and maybe some pus coming out.  They gave us IV fluids for him, plus they pumped him full of fluids before we took him home.  But still, he wouldn’t pee.  Late tonight when Leigh-Ann went downstairs to feed the kids, Miles had died.    Poor little guy.  We’ve been so lucky with our fosters that this is the first death.  We’d even had some pretty sick kittens (we didn’t think Scampi would make it, he was so little and fragile), but they all pulled through.  It’s sad for us, and his parents, and his poor little sister, Madison.  I got sidetracked again.  I’ll continue my personal woes in the next paragraph.

I forced myself to shower because clearly Miles’ problems were serious and he had to go to the vet.  The vet’s office is only about four or five miles from our house.  I was just so exhausted.  It was a feeling that I’d never experienced before.  It was an exhaustion so powerful that I barely had the energy to walk.  All I wanted to do was lay down and sleep.  At the very least, just lay down.  Because Miles was an emergency case at the vet’s office, we didn’t have an appointment, so they had to squeeze him in when they had free time.  That meant that we had time to run a couple of errands before we picked him up.  I didn’t want to do anything, but I stumbled through PetsMart and Smith’s, and I kept my fingers crossed when Leigh-Ann called the vet’s office from the Smith’s parking lot.  I so wanted to be able to pick him up and not have to go back home and wait more.  But alas, they hadn’t seen him yet.  We went home and I went straight to bed.  From the moment my head hit the pillow until the phone rang with the vet’s office saying Miles was ready, I was fast asleep.  We went back to the vet’s and picked up the little guys, but when I came home I decided to take some Oxycontin.  I didn’t take my normal dose this morning because I didn’t know how it would affect me when I was so exhausted, but needed to be alert to drive.  I’m a super safe medication/driving person.  The Oxy doesn’t make me “high”, it just takes away my pain and sometimes gives me energy.  The energy may just be me feeling like a normal person does without pain.  Anyway, after about twenty minutes, I was actually able to function somewhat.  I was still sore, so I took some breakthrough Oxycodone, and it seemed like no matter how much medication I had in me, it didn’t make me feel “medicated”, it just made me feel a little more like a normal person.

I hope that the debilitating fatigue wasn’t a sign of things to come.  I think I have enough problems with being in pain and being more fatigued than the average person is - I don’t think I could handle having more than a day of what Chronic Fatigue patients deal with on a daily basis.  I literally could barely function, and if Miles’ symptoms weren’t life or death, I wouldn’t have even gotten out of bed today.  I was going to get my bloodwork done after my ultrasound, but maybe since I changed my appointment, I’ll get the bloodwork done sometime this week.  I’m interested to see if they can find anything because I certainly know there’s something wrong with me.  My symptoms do seem to be Chronic Fatigue & Fibromyalgia related.  If I go down the CFS symptom list, I can see that I have just about everything:  fatigue (check!); pain (check! and most of the types listed too); brain fog (check!); hypersensitivity(check! I’ve always been super sensitive to smells); poor temperature control (check! sometimes I’m freezing and then a couple of minutes later I’ll be sweating); sleep problems (check!); psychological (check!  irritability, anxiety, yup); and as far as the autonomic nervous system & hormones...I really don’t know.  I guess I would need more tests for that.  Ugh, I clearly have every symptom, except maybe the last one.  Just thinking about it exhausts me.  And I’m sure reading about it, if you made it this far, exhausted you.  My apologies.  I have a couple of tv posts in me, plus The Buzz Queen tagged me for a meme, so I’ll write about something other than my medical problems soon.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

late at night

She said, “What?” I said, “Ooh-ooh-ooh, whee.”

This is what happens to you when you listen to the 70’s station on Rhapsody, you get Alan O’Day’s “Undercover Angel” stuck in your head for days.  It’s terrible.  I dare you not to hear, “She said, “What?” I said, “Ooh-ooh-ooh, whee” for days.  I dare you.

In the latest Tie & Leanne Domi news, it looks like I befriended the best Domi...the fake one.  Geez, this family is a mess.  Folks, all that money you have, you need to use it for therapy, for everyone.  And hey, Belinda, since you’re at least 50% responsible, perhaps you should pitch in and pay for some of the therapy too.  These kids are part of Canada’s future too.  Don’t let their parents’ acrimonious breakup ruin them.  Oh, as an aside, both books I sent to Leanne, thinking she was “Leanne”, were returned to the bookstores from whence they came, four months after they were delivered, giving me refunds for them.  Chapters.ca gave me a refund of the shipping fees too - we’ll see what Amazon does, especially since that shipping was extra pricey.  Maybe I’ll send the football book to Steve - he’s the one I thought I was sending it to anyway.

I haven’t posted anything in a long time in my Why Hets Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Marry and/or Procreate category.  This story certainly fits.  I never thought I’d be writing this about my beloved hockey player boyfriend.  But alas, it appears that he might very well be an asshole.

The Tie that binds

By SAM PAZZANO, SUN MEDIA

TORONTO—The estranged wife of ex-Maple Leaf enforcer Tie Domi is hauling him back into court Thursday, threatening to shut him out of their children’s lives until he and the family undergo an assessment.

“Tie Domi’s relationship to the children is disastrous: he has induced our son Max (11) to become seriously violent and uncontrollable,” stated Leanne Domi in court documents filed in court and obtained by Sun Media.

“He is trying to recreate Max in his own image—as a bully and an abuser, and this has now caught the attention of Max’s school and hockey coaches.”

Domi last month told his daughter Carlin, 13, that she “is making his life a living hell,” Leanne alleged.

“He has reduced our daughter Avery (8) to hiding from him to prevent being with him; and he has unleashed upon our eldest daughter Carlin a series of furious, vicious verbal attacks that have left her in tears and asking for psychological help for both him and her.”

None of the allegations has been proven in court.

According to the documents, Leanne Domi’s lawyer is seeking an order “suspending (Domi’s) access to the children” pending delivery of recommendations by the psychologists.”

The order also extends the prior restraining order of last September that barred Tie from coming within 100 metres of Leanne Domi, their matrimonial home on Oxbow Road and from communicating with either Leanne or her lawyer.

Leanne Domi stated Carlin is “suffering the most, because she was drawn into the separation not by me, but rather by the indiscretions of Tie and Belinda Stronach.

“In August 2006 . . . one of Carlin’s riding acquaintances had seen Tie and Belinda expressing their affection for each other in Belinda’s kitchen,” Leanne stated in the documents. “I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that I had to stem the damage of Carlin being in the middle of a gossip campaign amongst her peers from her riding stable.”

Carlin is angry because Tie “takes pains to tell her that he is not involved with Belinda. She thinks her dad thinks she is stupid and she wants him to stop lying to her,” Leanne Domi stated.

Max, who is the captain of his Triple A hockey team and was highly regarded as “emotionally mature, caring and polite,” is changing for the worse since the couple split in September, the documents stated.

“Tie has bonded with Max in a way that is destructive: he has become fixated on Max’s hockey career. Tie has embarked on a campaign against Max’s hockey coach. Max told me Tie has told Max not to listen to his coach and Max has been disrespectful of the coach.

“Max has punched a boy so badly that his face was bleeding and he did so for no other reason, than he felt like it,” Leanne Domi alleged. “All in all, it is clear to the children that Tie does not regard the children as a priority . . . There cannot be any other situation that cries out for intervention by professionals.”

Tie Domi’s lawyer hasn’t filed a response to this motion or the allegations. He didn’t return a phone call to Sun Media yesterday.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

the wee hours

A Fascinating First

Sometime after my disc herniation, I decided that weighing myself and worrying about dieting would be pretty pointless when I couldn’t do too much about it.  I was stuck being fairly sedentary and decided to mostly not care for a while.  I got some comfortable pants and quit weighing myself.  I’m still in quite a bit of pain when I do the slightest bit of physical activity, like, oh, walking.  I was doing well in physical therapy, but had to quit when it made my bladder worse.  Anyway, today I weighed myself and I’ve lost ten pounds.  Without trying.  Without changing my diet.  In my life, I have never lost weight without trying.  In fact, occasionally I’ve managed to not lose much weight even when I was trying.  I discovered a surefire method to weight loss - paralyzing anxiety & stress.  I’ve never been one of those people who gets a little depressed and loses their appetite.  In fact, sometimes the opposite.  However, I appear to have tipped the scale, so to speak, to feeling so stressed out that it’s made me occasionally nauseous, to where I lose my appetite.  Some of the nauseousness is from the pain meds, which several times a week make me feel kind of queasy and not wanting to eat.  The moderately severe reflux affects my appetite sometimes too.  So, anyway, I lost ten pounds.  Yay!  I don’t recommend the method though.  Still, I’m thinking that since I’ve gotten a good start at getting back to where my regular pants (versus my super fat ‘n comfy pants) fit, I may as well keep going.  At least to where I have pants choices, not just my fat pants, which to be honest are way too baggy on me.  I can take them off without unbuttoning or unzipping them.  Hmm, maybe I should try on some of my other pants because there’s a good possibility that something in my closet fits me now.

Updated:  I tried on some pants in the closet and they fit.  Whoo hoo, now I have at least two pairs of jeans to wear.  Another fifteen pounds and all but my dream weight pants will fit.  Cool.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

the wee hours

The Little Engine That Couldn’t

I went to the urologist today.  It was a pretty inoffensive visit, especially since I didn’t even need to get undressed for it like I was expecting.  Damn, and I was all prepared for the pants off stuff today.  I shaved my legs and tidied and everything. The nurse came in and took my history, then he sent me off to the bathroom to get a urine sample.  And wouldn’t you know it, when I go in complaining of urinary urgency, my bladder had absolutely no urgency when I needed it to.  They gave me two big cups of water to drink to help me along.  Sadly, the water didn’t help while I was there.  They said I could give them a sample on my next visit.  They then sent me upstairs to make an appointment at the lab for a pelvic ultrasound.  I made my appointment for next Tuesday, then went back downstairs to let them know when it was so they could schedule my next visit to discuss the results.  Luckily, by that time, the water had made its way through me, so I could at least get that part over with and not have to deal with it another time.

My visit with the doctor was fine, although he doesn’t seem to know exactly what’s wrong with me.  My symptoms are apparently kind of odd and rare, especially in the combination that they appear - urgency when I sit, but not when I stand or lay down, and very rarely do I ever have to get up during the night.  I’m glad that I remembered toward the end of my visit to tell him that I’ve tried Ditropan and Detrol LA and that they both caused urinary retention; and that I tried Oxytrol, and it did absolutely nothing.  He said the urinary retention side effect was telling.  Telling what, I don’t know.  I don’t think he wants to guess (out loud) without seeing the results of the tests.  He also refused to give me the Enablex prescription.  Three strikes and I’m out, I guess.  At least he knew enough to tell me that because of my reaction to the other meds, he was pretty sure that it wouldn’t help me.  I guess it’s good that he didn’t give it to me then, because urinary retention is really sucky.

He talked about doing a cystoscopy on my next visit, but when I read up about it, it doesn’t really seem like that would be possible.  It seems too involved a procedure to not warn me to have someone drive me or leave plenty of time for the procedure.  I really hope that the ultrasound will be enough, especially because Leigh-Ann and I are registered for a Microsoft Across America Launch (for the release of Vista) the day after my appointment and WebMD said that the procedure might cause frequent urination for a day or two.  Not what I want to deal with when I have to drive to the Venetian.

The doctor’s office was full of old guys again.  Old guys and their wives.  I guess more men bring their wives to doctor’s appointments than women bring their husbands.  So, it was basically me, at least ten old guys, one older woman, and a youngish girl (early 20’s) and her boyfriend.  They were fairly timely, I think.  I was reading a good book, so it didn’t matter much.  His nurse was really nice, and he tentatively came out to me.  The first time he talked about his partner, he didn’t use a gender.  When he saw I was comfortable with that, he quickly moved on to saying “he”.  I know I shouldn’t assume, but I’d already assumed that the nice male nurse was gay anyway.  I wonder if by the time he talked about his partner, he’d read my paperwork where I crossed out spouse and put partner.  I’m a rebel, man.  Anyway, he said that he thought I’d be very happy with the doctor and that the doctor was really good with urgency/frequency issues.  I thought I’d be happier with him than the doctor I was going to see who was out-of-network.

As an aside, I overheard one of the other doctors talking about a patient that he’d seen at the hospital who had an infected scrotum.  It sounded like the patient might perhaps be homeless.  Frankly, the infected scrotum sounded really really nasty, especially since the guy ended up needing surgery.  Blech.  But anyway, the doctor sounded conscientious, especially when he said he’d gotten up at 3am for some reason, thought about the patient, called the hospital (surprising them with the call) and deciding to set the guy up for surgery because he wasn’t getting any better.

I thought I’d go to the lab afterwards to get my bloodwork done for the pain management doctor, but when I went to the only lab company that I know of in town (Quest), they told me that they were out of network for my insurance.  I decided to call the insurance company to see if it would make a difference if I went to my primary care doctor to get the blood drawn, and then still had Quest do the diagnostics.  That’s what happened for my pre-surgical labs last year and the insurance company covered 90% of the bill.  But, the only time I call my insurance company for something fairly urgent...they’re naturally off for the holiday.  I came home without getting my labwork done.  I couldn’t risk a humungous bill.  I looked up the in-network lab and they were about a block away from Quest.  I’ve never heard of them - Laboratory Corporation of America.  I don’t think I’ve even seen a sign for them anywhere.  I guess I’ll try to go in in the next couple of days...or maybe go next Tuesday after my ultrasound.  I think I’ve now had more doctor’s/lab visits in the past 18 months than in the rest of my life combined.

Funny, the time of this entry is in “The Wee Hours”.  Hahaha.