Much Medicine Too Doctor

 It feels like we're aiming to break a world record over here. Four different medical things today. Two appointments. Two tests. Two medical campuses. In five hours, which isn't bad to be honest. I got lucky that the tests could be done at the same campus as one of the appointments and the waits were short.

I saw the rheum, who is being proactive. I have to say, the ageism in medicine at some point works for you instead of against you and I appear to be there. I didn't ask to be tested for RA. I don't think I have it, but they want to test to be sure. I've never had doctors who wanted to test to be sure of anything until the past year.  It's like opposite day.

Also, I'm hypermobile too. But like, normal hypermobile. It's not causing issues* like it does for the teen. Still...kind of interesting to be told that. I had no idea.

The rheum plan is once my foot surgery is over, I'll do PT and then we move on to injections. 

So blood work. X-rays. And two appointments.

Kiddo had a specialist follow up. Doc was super dismissive and rude and a poor listener. Akin to the doc who told me I had diarrhea and just didn't know it. Needlessly contentious. Unwilling to hear it. Denial of reality to the point where it's ridiculous. We're going to be switching to someone else. 

It wasn't a total bust. We got some things sorted and the treatment needed. They did their job, but it'd be nice to not be told that, essentially, everything we're telling them isn't true and that everything we do is wrong...when that's not what we said we did.

We have a day coming up with 3 appointments in 3 different cities. That's going to suck. Hubby has to  cover for me with the teen as I have my presurgery stuff for the neuroma.

I hope we're about done for the teen. I think we're zeroing in on some things that are working and that will, hopefully, keep working. In theory, we'll have a formal baseline established shortly that she can work off of to see what can be optimized and how she can work around her limitations. I hope. I mean, I can't see how much more we can do.

There is that one lingering issue that may require us to travel because it's a major quality of life issue. However, at the moment, medication #11 is apparently working. We are all holding our breath hoping this is THE ONE. 

*Per se. It's not helping me now, but has been largely a non issue aside from also being clumsy and prone to falls as a kid myself...which it all makes way more sense now that I have additional context. I just never had it to where it caused enough dysfunction to hold me back too much. I could control my body whereas the teen flails and has a lot more pain. Huh. 

But part of the reason I take the teen so seriously is I was breaking bones and dislocating joints at her age. My falls down stairs didn't end well. We're lucky she hasn't had those injuries yet, she bounces better than I did. 

But the knee I dislocated at 14 --doing something that typically doesn't cause dislocations-- is a huge PITA as I age. I expect I'll need a joint replacement or some kind of surgical intervention down the road. 

Sometimes I wonder why we aren't more interested in injury prevention. A lot of injuries have major impact on quality of life in our later years. Like, football as it's played now makes no sense to me. That's just asking to be disabled in your 40s in an era where you could, in theory, live to be a 100. Same goes for a lot of activities. We all ooo and ahh over Tom Brady's long career, but dude will have won the luck lottery if he doesn't have to fuse his spine together and replace half his joints before he's 60.

We don't need to wear bubble wrap, but we could do more to prevent injuries with a vicious long tail. Why we don't bother is weird to me.

My Sharona Neuroma

 It's a neuroma. Another growth. Morton's Neuroma. (What did I ever do to you, Morton?) Oh and another joint has some bursitis going.

I think this growth likely came from a PT related injury I sustained in my foot trying to deal with my hip and knee back when we didn't know I had a cyst compressing my spine. (Wow was that a mouthful. But that's what happened, when this all started.)

I don't know that this one is part of my broader pattern of growing all the things everywhere.

At the same time, I can tell there's one in my other foot. It's nowhere near as bad yet, but it's brewing and I'm not clear on why that one is happening.

Not sure what the deal is with the bursitis. I do have a hard push off that I've worked to soften. Or maybe it's from that original injury too.  Weirdly, between covid and the fact I can't walk without pain and severe, nigh intractable, charley horses in my foot, which is to say, I ain't walking much, it hasn't resolved. I thought rest was the cure with bursitis???

Anyway, my goal now is to get another cortisone shot or even actual treatment, as apparently there are maybe some non surgical options. (It would be amazing if I could avoid surgery OMG. I hope, hope, hope.) Depending on the plan, there's a chance I could actually be in a good place by the wedding. (!) Failing that, a cortisone shot will at least keep me comfortable and let me sleep until we can schedule whatever procedure.

Hopefully I can claw back some mobility for a few years before I get clobbered by the next thing.

It's frustrating. Zero stars.

PS: The MRI report is wild. Apparently I have cirrhosis, colorectal cancer, and need a CT and MRI. There's just a random rambling paragraph of nonsense in there that I can't even begin to figure out how to summarize here. I don't know who triggers that...radiology or podiatry? Was it something I said? I was pretty doped up on Benadryl and a metric ton of prednisone...in fact, I conked out and slept through most of the MRI. But yeesh. I'd think it wasn't my report except the doctor called me and confirmed the neuroma.

PPS: The doctor's office was SO nice and trying so hard to make sure I wasn't worried but I kind of figured it would be a Morton's neuroma so I'm in a place of AMPUTATE ALREADY MOTHERFUCKERS. I have no anxiety. No worry. I know it's not cancer. That I'm not going to die. Just kill the fucking thing already. But they were so careful with me, working so hard to ensure I wouldn't panic, and I was like, look, this is growth number 35 at this point. A foot nerve tumor thing can't scare me. You don't have to baby me. Fire up the napalm, bitches and SEND IT TO HELL. K? Thanks ever so much. ROLL TIDE.

Taking Bets

 

Had my foot MRI.

My system is still weird from Covid, and I discovered during the MRI, that my nerves are insanely hypersensitive right now. OMG did the IV sticks hurt. Like 8/9 level pain. Like obliterate thought pain. Like right up there with broken elbows and hepatic resections and imploding tumors pain. 

It was crazy. I almost yelled out motherfucker at one point, which I've never ever in my life been tempted to do for any kind of pain involving healthcare before. I didn't even swear at anyone during labor. Lectured them all about how they were counting wrong during the pushing phase, yes lol, but no swearing. 

Wow. Again...covid is a weird little fucknut of viral bullshit.

Anyway, either....

Nothing is wrong,

or I have a growth,

or joint issue,

or some combination thereof.

I'm leaning towards growth because of the way my toes have shifted out of place, but what the fuck do I know?

Motherfucker.

PS: The dresses for the wedding came and are lovely. I have my choice of a smidge too small or a smidge too big lol. We'll see if my weight shifts to help me out. I'll probably go with the slightly big one as it gives me nicer lines than the one that's straining a bit. But I'm covered no matter what my weight does.

And I scored them on Amazon for $60 each by way of China. I was sweating it because you never know what you're going to get from China, but I studied the size chart and the reviews (which were good) and made an educated guess to go up one size...which was just about perfect (a size down or up wouldn't fit right in either dress--likely I'm between sizes at the moment). 

The quality is excellent too. A nice, but unusual win in my experience.

I took the risk because the one department store dress I ordered was a hot mess of shoot me now lol and I didn't like any of the other designs in stock. So that expensive tragedy will be going back to the store.

Also, I like weddings and I'm excited and this is a big deal wedding for everyone...it's not some cousin fifty times removed or coworkers. So that's why it keeps coming up. In case that wasn't obvious.

Oh Yeah. I'm Uninsurable. You Didn't Know?

 One gap in medical care knowledge that I find interesting is how often geneticists tell me they don't know I'm uninsurable. I get the song and dance about how genetic testing can impact things like life insurance. Yadda yadda.

And I tell them, "No biggie. I'm already uninsurable."

They freeze, apparently gobsmacked. And then they say almost verbatim every time, "Oh we didn't know that. We're not taught that."

I shit you not. "We're not taught that." Really? I guess so based on my small sample size.

It just came up again with a pediatric geneticist.

So y'all...asthma makes you uninsurable by and large. You're not getting good life insurance or long term care insurance as things stand now. Add in issues with cholesterol or blood pressure or weight and you're never getting insurance. 

I do have some life insurance that we locked in when I was younger, but we've been unable to increase it (and I have some doubts on if it'll actually pay out). We also do the company insurance offered to employees as well because it has almost no barriers to entry.

So anyway, when the time comes, I told hubby to burn off my fingerprints*, drop my body in a ditch somewhere and let the state deal with it. Take the money and run, hon. Lol. Not really, but it's an option lol. I kid! The plan is actually cheap cremation. Ditch dumping is just our second funeral insurance policy. 

*I'm in the database because hubby is from Europe and you get fingerprinted because marrying someone from overseas is apparently crime or something.

 

My Dogs Got High Last Night

 

I've been delving into the world of CBD looking for something to help me deal with this latest round of covid firebombing all the things that are wrong with my nerves and joints.

The first place I tried also had dog treats, and since our doggos are getting older, and the fetch addict (I mean that literally) is getting stiff after her fix these days, I thought, why not?

I gave them their first CBD dog treat last night and OMG. 

When our doggos are high, they are filled with love. 

I got massive snuggles from the chocolate rescue, his tail windmilling faster than I've ever seen it spin. He then ended up splayed, belly up, on the couch. This was unusual as he's usually very guarded. It's taken him years to show us his belly and he is always careful to do it at a side angle so he can get away if he needs to. But not with CBD on board. With CBD, he lolled like he was doing a boudoir photo shoot.

The black doggo, the crazy one, the one who stalks and calculates and manipulates and steals, she just stared at me with all this love in her eyes and then crawled into my lap. Now, she isn't usually a snuggler. She wants to chase balls. 

Her behavior schematic is all about getting us to play fetch with her. Every interaction is an effort to get us to break out the balls to the point where we have to hide them because if she finds one she'll be insufferable until we cave. Fetch is her entire personality. If we didn't throw balls for her, she wouldn't give us the time of day and would happily leave us to die in a fire...that she probably would start out of spite. 

But CBD turned our fetch obsessed sociopath into a loopy love bug. Deep down she doesn't only love balls...

As for me and CBD...I got a menthol CBD cream and meh. I'd rather eat the dog treats lol. Yes, it worked, but not for long. I also seem to have more joint inflammation today--like maybe a rebound effect?-- and it seems to make me tired and groggy now that I'm awake. I feel hungover, which isn't supposed to happen so I'm not sure what's going on.

The dogs though, they are desperate to eat the cream which is a problem. I tested the cream on my foot first, knowing I could use my slippers to keep the dogs away, and that move turned out to be prescient. Once I got my slipper on, they pawed and licked it, trying to get inside. I had to keep telling them off and go to your bed. They were like sharks that had scented blood. I've never seen them like that.

Obv I don't want them licking this off me and it's not going to be safe if they're this intense about it. As a result, I've gone on to order some gummies and we'll see what those are like. 

I did feel like I slept pretty deeply from the cream, which I need. (I'm so sleep deprived from Covid eating me alive. I have a lot of catching up to do.) But again, I don't think the cream is known to make you sleepy, yet I felt a distinct cause and effect along those lines. I'm curious to see what gummies can do. If I can sleep through some of the pain that's been waking me up without a massive hangover, that would be a major improvement.

Meanwhile I'm starting up with the leg lifts and squats again. It's tricky because things are still flared enough that sometimes that hurts more than it helps, but I can only determine what the right choice was in hindsight. Every day is a gamble. Fun.

PS: In teen news...she applied for an advocacy non profit thing and was accepted. She'll do one week of training out of state and then an ongoing project in our local community and then a week in DC working on national advocacy. So we're very excited!

I will say homeschooling during a pandemic when the kid and the parent have health issues has made it tough to create a lot of opportunities for her to practice independence and interact with the world without us. I've had to really look for opportunities that would work for her.

She's been volunteering (and will soon qualify for the presidential service award), she has her little part-time job, and the co-op, which despite a tendency toward bigotry, has been a good social outlet, and while we don't like the bigotry, it's good practice in navigating groups of difficult people. (When I'm not wearing my momma bear pants on top of my extra tight cranky pants, I try to be philosophical about these things.)

When I saw this advocacy program, it seemed perfect. It gets her away from us in a productive way, it will work with her limitations, broaden her horizons, and give her more chances to test her mettle so she learns she can rely on herself--that's really important to learn at this age imo. It'll be a great learning experience. I'm so glad she was accepted.

So yay!

And then her English teacher* sent me a message about how smart and talented my kid is and offering to create a class for anything the teen was interested in. 

And then the co-op director told me my kid is so smart and so kind.

Clearly everyone got a memo. So today was A DAY with all the parenting wins at once lol.

*yup we homeschool but she still has an English teacher. With a PhD. We aren't perfect, far from it, but we do take education very seriously.

Urp

Accidentally ate gluten. Hubby gave me chocolate that's been gluten free in the past and I ate it assuming the crunchy bit was a nut. Nope. Pretzels. Surprise!

I've been sick all day as a result.

Always always check the label. Yeesh.

Tomorrow should be better. Just gotta get past the purge.

Joints and nerves are largely behaving now too. Thank God. That's been really unpleasant. 

Once I catch up on sleep (I've lost so much from the nerve and joint burning) I should be pretty much back to normal. I don't think I'll have a long tail with the fatigue, but we'll see.

I managed to do some gardening and my stamina was about what it was prior to this last round of covid. Which is to say, I eventually start panting like a dog and feel like I'm going to faint, but it takes more and more time to get to that point...which is still a covid legacy but it's an improvement over the long covid baseline. Does that even make sense? You know what I mean, right? Like, I'm not normal, but I've improved.

It is a little concerning that I'm almost at the year mark from the OG covid infection and still struggling with that, but I'm mostly just happy to have made any progress at all.

3am and Making Appointments Online

Pretty much the title.

Like, on the one hand, I'm trying hard to remember everything is awful because of Covid. That I was pretty much pain free up to this point. That my leg lifts and squats had been working their magic.

Yes, my nerves are angry and all the osteoarthritis in their path is glowering like Sauron's evil eye, but it's temporary.

On the other hand, it's spreading to more joints now.

And on the other other hand, the pain woke me at 3am and I hit a headspace of 'can osteoarthritis kill you???'

I mean, I remember pathophysiology class and it's not supposed to outright kill you but this FEELS like maybe science missed something here.

I figure by the time I'm wondering enough to start googling, a lookie-loo might be useful.

Oh fun fact...by some medical criteria, I'm already due for a hip replacement. I had no idea. (I'm really hoping that's just a weird internet blip and not really true.)

(Everyone likes to mock Dr. Google but no one talks about how our bodies drive us to it.)

So I find a doctor who can see me pretty quickly and I can schedule online which works because it's 3am, and then, since I'm up, I start googling the doc.

Just cuz.

And then it starts getting weird.

I find their Instagram which is fine even if it's all selfies in 2021 (which, by 2021 I think we all knew it's supposed to be more than selfies, but okay).

I can't figure out their medical training information. The databases are filled with bogus responses. 

Like...

University: Attended a university

Someone is clearly tinkering with the data inputs.

And apparently this doc is straddling practices located 2-3 hours apart across multiple states which seems hella weird. They've kind of been all over the place. Old locations now closed...that kind of thing.

And they have a very unique name (although surprisingly there are a few of 'em out there).

And then I find a person with their name getting an MBA and I'm like okay, what are the odds of the same name from the same country in the same geographic area as someone who is ping ponging back and forth between two cities in different states with this university in the middle?

Like, it's weird. I did eventually find their medical education information but it's still a strange digital footprint. One I don't typically see with doctors (look, you go to the doctor a lot, you get curious). I would guess coming to the US was hard for them--they're not from a country you see a lot in US medicine--and maybe that warped some of the inputs. 

And either they're really bored or hate themselves or love driving all the places all the time or one of their very unique name twins is somehow also in the same area. I don't know about you, but if I was a doctor commuting between two cities in different states, the last thing I'd do is enroll in college.

 

But anyway it's 3am and I'm up and my Google-woo is on fire same as my nerves and joints.

And no, technically osteoarthritis can't kill you outright--or so they say--but I'm pretty sure the sleep deprivation from the pain could.

PS: And then I went and learned all about their country. Because I'm up. Now I'm looking for ethnographies...

PPS: Covid does trigger arthritis it turns out. At least some science indicates that. Here I thought I was having some really unusual unheard of thing lol. It's weird. They're still saying there's no association with sleep apnea and covid, but the patients are giving a strong signal that actually there is, yet they figured out this arthritis thing, which isn't nearly as prevalent among patients who go online to complain.

PPPS: I guess I'll call the long covid clinic next as looping in with care providers who understand covid can do this is probably ideal. We'll see what this rheum says first though. Maybe they'll be awesome. After all, they attended a university.

The Body Is Lava

 Aaaand hello nerve firebombing.

OMG.

Stupid covid.

GO AWAY.

The Pacing of Covid Recovery

I'm annoyed that I'm so tired when covid itself was so mild. Bah humbug. 

I wake up in the mornings feeling as peppy as a popcorn kernel under a blowtorch, convinced I can rocket to the moon.

And then it all goes poof.

Boom.

Done.

Fin.

My big accomplishment was to schlepp the teen to her school stuff, run two loads of laundry, and do some work. I spent most of the day in bed.

Today I couldn't wake up. Although to be fair, I woke up super early, thought I was up for the day and instead dozed off again. I think it messed up my sleep cycle.

At least I know how to pace. So. For today, I have one cleaning project. I'm hoping to make dinner. I'm doing a little bit of work. And that'll be it.

That's the architecture I'm aiming for. One household task a day. What work I can manage (I'll note I'm too foggy to do a lot, I've ditched my core projects and am working on less finicky things until my brain brains properly again). And make dinner. I'm still feeling my way through, not sure I can handle it yet. 

I'm hoping this is more like the booster side effects, which were much more short lived than the fatigue I had from actual covid. 

Crossing fingers.

A Weird Kind of Better

I'm pretty much over it. Just waiting to see if the fatigue (definitely feeling mono-y) and brain cotton and nerve/joint fire are going away anytime soon or if I'm in for months of misery. I haven't tested my stamina too much yet so I'm not sure how impaired I'm going to be.

Right now I'm getting tired pretty quickly and not up for a normal routine so...we'll see where it goes next.

I have a bit of a cough. An eensy weensy smidge of lung stuff.  (The asthma is behaving even.)

Sense of smell and taste is dodgy. I keep looking for what's burning or rotting lol.

Oh, and I was, until recently, snoring and mouth breathing all night in a way that's abnormal for me. I think covid is doing something to people's sleep as I didn't have sinus congestion. As I mentioned earlier, patients see a correlation with covid and sleep apnea, but science doesn't have a lot to say about it yet. However, my sleep this time materially changed for the worse. I didn't really notice it the first time I had covid, despite being diagnosed with sleep apnea afterwards, but I can see it now.

My question is...do you go back to your baseline as you heal? Or do you just have sleep apnea from covid forever? What does it mean that it's happening now? I had gotten to where my energy was much more normal, back to where I have the energy to go all day. I didn't have sleep apnea symptoms outside of covid as far as I know. So what's the deal?

But overall it's been very mild. Nothing like it was before. If it could be like this all the time, we'd all be fine.

Getting There

Definitely not as sick as the last round of Covid.

I'm very tired and sleeping a lot right now.

Lost my appetite almost completely again. Doing my best to make myself eat because I really don't want to do the covid starvation thing again.

But the lungs are doing much better and so far, the joint/nerve inflammation hasn't been as bad. It's there but at like, 20% power compared to last time. 

That gives me a little hope. Maybe Covid's not going to be such a dire thing. Maybe my body is learning finally. Maybe it's more survivable than that first infection led me to believe.

And the teen isn't sick so far either, which is great news. Here's hoping...

Hanging In

 Covid is currently hitting my heart and at the moment I'm sprinting a marathon without moving. 

I've slept most the day.

If this stays true to pattern, I'll be past the worst of this phase soon.

Lungs are holding up. This is wild, but not bad. 

Covid is such a weird little fucker.

Huh

 So this seems to be a glancing blow of Covid. 

It's been really weird.

Going at warp speed.

Slammed my throat. 

Then onto my lungs for a solid day of wowza sharp hurting.

Then fogging me until I couldn't think straight.

Then into the nerves to burn me like a gender reveal gone wrong.

That was just the first 24 hours.

Now, I can tell I'm sick. I'm chesty. But I'm not super sick at all. Nowhere near as sick as I was with the first infection.

I have not started the Paxolvid yet. I'm going a little off the map here. I have time yet to start it. If the symptoms are going to be this light though, I'm not sure I need it.

That may be a mistake though. We'll see.

But when I started calling around begging for Paxlovid, I had no way of knowing covid would be this low key.

All right, next in geopolitics...

You do realize that global leadership is devolving to have more in common with the leaders of ISIS than it does with democratic principles, right? The media and think tanks don't put it so bluntly, but they've said as much.

But take it a bit further...

Global leadership is devolving to have more in common with the leaders of ISIS but with nukes than it does with democratic principles.

Given that, in the current world situation, at a minimum, I expect Putin to make a huge mess at one of Ukraine's nuclear power plants. That'll fit with Russia's M.O. of maintaining plausible deniability and it'll make building a consensus on the response from the West difficult and fraught...Putin will love the schadenfreude. (If it already happened and you're asking whaaat? I wrote this a while back and didn't get back in time to update it.)

And autocrats and dictators have violent life cycles. It doesn't matter who dies, so long as it's not them, and external conflict is one way they maintain control. Mix in Russia's rhetoric about limited nuclear use eroding the idea of mutual assured destruction. Combine that with aging autocratic brains amplifying any inherent narcissism or sociopathic traits (think of the most obnoxious entitled Boomer you know, now imagine if they had unlimited political power and nukes) and we should all be deeply concerned.

But hey, let's drag our feet on Ukraine...going back years, long before this war started. And Putin. And China. And India. Our own growing corruption doing its best to ISISify our leadership. Just slow roll it. It's no big deal, right?

I mentioned being called into the boardroom and being asked to fix their mess. There was no easy answer then and there isn't one now. There are just some things you can't fuck up and expect to get back. Geopolitics is one of those. Once it spins out of control, physics takes over. We're locked into the ride now, and the only way off may be after the whole thing derails, catches fire, and explodes.

Welp. Sorry. I wish I could be more positive. But the world, collectively, has made an absolute mess. We're not getting out of this without paying our pound of flesh. Each.

We will be very fortunate indeed if I'm wrong. I hope I'm stupid. I really do.