Conn Logic

Before I get into what I actually came here to bitch about today, I'd like to document some of the latest fuckery my body has produced.

I couldn't sleep on Friday night. My brain was overwhelmed with data and too busy making connections and synthesizing information to let me sleep. I also learned about the possibility of ending up at NIH late in the evening, which pretty much obliterated any melatonin my brain managed to make.

Too much to chew on.

Saturday we were due to attend an event at a local university about an hour away. I'd been prescient and arranged to have a friend join us and drive us down. So I didn't have to worry about driving, which was good because I was barely functional.

I almost canceled.

For all that I feel like shit the vast majority of the time, I mostly meet all my commitments. I mostly don't flake. However, I reached a point this weekend where I ran out of 'suck up' and had to cave.

Saturday though, I pushed myself to keep going. I tried to set myself up for success and took some prednisone, hoping it would kick me into normal like it did on our trip to Chicago.

We arrived at the event and I was just falling apart. Chest pain, weakness, profound fatigue, my brain wasn't working well, my stomach felt like all the tumors in there were swelling in unison. I was not making it.

Now, I'm used to my body's voodoo, so I did not immediately run to the ER, but I thought about it, and I knew the fact that I was thinking about it meant shit was real.

What can I do? What can I do? The thought raced through my mind as I drifted through the event in a fog known as WTF is wrong now?

I'd brought some granola bars so I tried that. Then tea. Then water. More water. Nothing helped.

I then decided to go for salt just because it felt so much like adrenal insufficiency and I figured my blood pressure was low. A bag of chips I didn't even like was the best I could do. I forced them down.

Voila! About twenty minutes later, huge improvement.

Since it was behaving so much like a weird adrenal thing, I added in sugar too.

Suddenly I felt human. Amazing.

I continued with my day, which was quite busy. The kiddo did her STEM career day thing at the university and then we hustled to her home school band concert. After that we went out for dinner where, scanning through my phone while waiting for our food, I realized, I was scheduled to teach Sunday School the next day.

I started the process of mentally preparing myself to slog through that. I was starting to wilt again and just felt off in general. The last thing I wanted to do was anything at all, but I'd made a commitment.

It was the hubby who gave me a reality check. "You don't feel good. Why are you going? Tell them you're sick."

A light dawned. Yes. I could call in sick. It hadn't even occurred to me. I've managed to avoid it so far, but maybe this one time I could give myself a break. So that's what I did.

Which was good, because I don't feel all that much better today. I woke up with huge, swollen Dumbo-esque eye lids, I assume from yesterday's salt and my energy is in the toilet. My brain is struggling. I set off a family panic that had us all looking for my phone when it was in my pocket. I've missed little details that caused little accidents. It's just not a good time to try and make me go forth in the world and function.

I hope I'm making sense so far actually.

So that's been the weekend. I hope tomorrow is better because I need to drive to a doctor's appointment.

I will also be calling the NIH. Thank god for patients who blaze a trail and leave sign posts. There's a big study for primary hyperaldosteronism, and if I qualify, that's where I'll be as things stand now.

Further, I'll be calling to ask to be added to the next endo's wait list as I think sooner is better. And calling the primary doc to set up an appt there for anything I need to do for NIH if I can't get into the endo faster. I'm going to do a basic blitz of doc appts to try and hack the process and get 'r done.

My blood pressure went high in 2010, but my HPA axis quickly suppressed and I didn't need bp meds for a while. Once my system was working-ish again around 2013, I went back on meds and it looks like in 2017 I started spironolactone.

Sooooo here's the deal...

Usually, if your hyperaldosteronism wasn't properly managed past a certain amount of time, you're kind of SOL and they won't do surgery (at least based on my reading). On paper, I had improperly managed hypertension for around 7 years, but if you dig deeper, the secondary adrenal insufficiency changes things. Predinsone is anti aldosterone and therapeutic so hopefully, that will help me qualify for surgery (if I opt for an adrenalectomy).

Either way, I'm so dang symptomatic of *something* being way off that I hope there will be serious consideration given to removing the tumor.