Wednesday, January 24, 2007

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.

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1. Thanks for the link to the symptoms - I’m pretty sure my mom has every one on the list as well.  But it’s not a very comforting diagnosis, is it?  I mean, is there any treatment?  What percentage of doctors can you expect to take y ou seriously?

   Nancy  on  01/24  at  09:06 AM

2. I am so very sorry that 2007 has been so crappy for you so far. You deserve to feel well and to have energy. I hope you get a diagnosis very soon, so that you can start to feel better.

   laurie  on  01/24  at  03:46 PM

3. I wish you’d get better soon! You are preventing me from a return trip to Vegas, because there’s no point unless we can all go to a hockey game.  (And of course, it’s all about ME - and my hockey needs.)

   Seriously, I hope the doctors can diagnose and treat something soon so you can get some relief.

   Helly  on  01/25  at  10:09 AM

4. Shit…  so sorry to hear about your kitten.  That sucks.  And that is a lot of water for an iffy bladder…  It was like the time my OBGYN said for me to come in for an ultrasound at something like 7 months, and drink water before.  Are they serious with that?  Do they want their patients to pee all over their waiting room? 
   Anyway, I REALLY hope you feel better soon.  Truly.  The crap that you have been going through HAS to be getting old as hell…

   Kristine  on  01/30  at  05:08 PM

5. You should try eating some sage- try at least 3 leaves a day. You’d probably need to grow it yourself. I’ve had tremendous results with sage in overcoming headaches and migraines. Put it on bread and butter or whatever you’re eating.
   It also aids the memory- check out the research on the web.

   Horseradish and garlic are good for the sinuses. With sudafed the symptoms sometimes come back with a vengeance- they have with me anyway.

   Part of your fatigue could be because you aren’t breathing well in your sleep.

   Bruce  on  03/21  at  06:19 PM

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