health – Page 8 – Wrekehavoc.com

Category: health

radioactive

Posted on October 22, 2007 by wrekehavoc

…and this time, with no apologies to jimmy page whatsoever. (although you friends from miami are probably smirking at me right now. you can apologize for your smirks any time you want 😉

i’m currently radioactive. see, i had a HIDA Scan. the gastroenterologist is trying to figure out why the hell my abdomen hurts after certain things. like exercise. or eating certain things. and he doesn’t think the teeny tiny gallstone is to blame. i swear, i am going to change my middle name to no food or drink for X hours before the procedure.

(for those of you in the viewing audience keeping track, this will make five, count ’em, five IVs necessary within one month. that’s a personal best:

1) IV for endoscopy

2) IV for IVIG

3) IV for CT scan plus contrast

4) IV for HIDA Scan

and

5) IV for IVIG all over again!

woo hoo! all this scarring, and no IV drugs to show for it. life is unfair 🙁

anyhow, it took nearly two hours to do this one. the last time, the phlebotomist gave up after two tries and brought in another guy to do it. a saint of a guy. and after two tries, he got it in. this time, i told them up front that my veins suck. they brought in the phlebotomist they bring in when they’ve tough veins to tackle — and it happened to be the initial phlebotomist from my previous adventure. she saw the marks, still on my arm, from her adventures two weeks prior. i nearly burst into tears when i heard she was coming. but she just went straight for my hand. and, while it hurt like a mofo, it worked. unfortunately, they had the wrong type of plastic thingy (that would be the technical term) for the IV. she ran to find a good plastic thingy while my blood oozed on my hand. “don’t look at your hand!” she told me before she ran off to find the right thing. and she did. and i lived.

and then i had to basically lie on a table flat for 90 minutes. at one point, the nuclear med guy injected me with stuff that made my stomach feel just awful. parting words: make sure you drink a lot. you’ll be radioactive for a day.

hell. i’m from new jersey. i’m probably radioactive for life.

i saw my regular, normal, everyday primary care doctor last week. i love the guy. he has seen me through shingles, he has seen me through ITP, he has seen me through two successful pregnancies, he has seen me through basically everything over the past 11 or so years. i get a gazillion infections, and i try reallyreally hard not to go on antibiotics because the day may come when they won’t work. and i’ll be VERY screwed, to put it mildly. but i needed to get looked at because i just wasn’t fighting my latest infection too well. he always has such a wonderful sense of humor. i was complaining to him.

doc, i said, i see doctors so often, i feel like i must be one of those munchausen people. a professional patient.

he laughed and patted my arm. nope, he said, you aren’t. the difference, unfortunately, is that you really have the things you have.

shit. i’d rather get attention by winning the nobel prize or something. but no.

i’m just radioactive.

better health through pat diNizio

Posted on October 17, 2007 by wrekehavoc

okay, okay. pat diNizio has not, in fact, become my workout buddy (though if you’re out there, pat, c’mon by. we’ll swap some of that nasty exercise drink crap for something more motivational. like a mojito.) its just that this morning, i had a minor revelation, and it happened while working out and listening to the smithereens on my mp3 player.

see, yesterday wasn’t the best day ever. yes, i spent the day with jools, which always ends up being fun in a mommy gets to hang out with her little boy and do things she didn’t always get to do when SHE was 4-sort of day. other than a big bottle of gold glitter glue developing a HUGE hole on the side (i was so sleepy that i watched the glue ooze, caterpillar-slow, into a blob that ended up all over my hand. i didn’t mind having a sparkly hand for most of the day.), it wasn’t too eventful until the evening, when i went alone to mason’s viewing.

mason looked beautiful and serene, surrounded by things he loved and people who cherished him. he and his family have made a definite impact on our community, incredible considering they’ve been here for about a year and a half. i never know the right things to say in these situations; i only know too well that there really never are right words. words can’t reach into the places where you want to be, places that somehow make the pain a little less stinging, hollows where people’s hearts seem to have deflated. and you just want to give them air, and light, and love.

but the things that come out my mouth are so limited and pathetic. i just wish i could do and say more. give like he gave me. see, as i started my treatments, i would look at this child, this incredibly intrepid being, and realize — he’s going through something 100 times tougher. if he can be strong, i surely can be strong. and every time i saw him, my little superhero, i quietly cheered for us both. i remember how elated i felt when his eyebrows started growing back, gentle peach fuzz.

i’ve been struggling with this.

and so, this morning, i decided i need to do something. i need to get strong. really, really strong. see, there’s this drug-resistant staph out there, thanks to all those people insisting on using antibacterial everything coupled with purell and antibiotic abuse. (i wonder if we could start a campaign to get those things off the shelves?) and that’s especially scary news to people like me, who have compromised immune systems at the get-go. i wash my hands aplenty (howard hughes would approve), and i try to teach my kids decent health habits. i’m on antibiotics again thanks to another infection, and it scares me to think that a day could come when that won’t work.

so i’m determined to do what i can since there is so much in the world that i simply cannot control, cannot contain. i’m working out.

and there i was, on the elliptical, when the smithereens came on my mp3 player, which i let chug along at random. alone at midnight. and it all came together in my head. the epiphany. i need to do this. i need to do this. i can’t control the fact that i’ve CVID, but i can control my weight, my food, my health to some extent.

and i’ve got to. too many people depend on me.

i may never be as strong as a certain special little boy, but i’ll honor his memory by trying to be.

smart and smarter

Posted on October 11, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i luvz me some smart boyz…especially john cusack when he’s interviewing naomi klein. damn, i think he even took his own notes!!! stick it to halliburton, dobler!

(seriously, these two are people i would love to have beers with and chat about stuff. yes. that highly technical term. i iz a prowd produckt of the NJ educashun sistim. kindergarten thru grajuit skool, man.)

but seriously, you know, i used to think me some deep thoughts before i had kids. and i still am willing to go a little beyond the usual soundbyte. i sure am glad i spent plenty of hours in graduate school studying public policy and politics and Things That Matter. and i still do care. i really do. and when i watch interviews like this, i wonder whether my brain will ever return, whether anything i do on a daily basis means anything to the world.

i know, i know: i’m raising children, so i must inherently believe that the world will continue and that i am doing my best to help to steer future folks on a decent, kind, and intelligent path. (case in point: i’ve been working really hard to teach my children that it’s ok to not agree with the President. in fact, it’s a patriotic thing, dang it. anyway, BC one day yelled at me when i said the word republican. mama, she hissed, don’t say that word– it’s a BAAAD word! and no, i am not making this up.)

but then, i see people like naomi klein and think my GAWD, i’m doing nothing except writing novels; raising children; supporting my local farmers as much as i can; driving a hybrid; blasting the beatles, the clash, and other assorted music from my car; dealing with a house that is just loaded with things to handle; and keeping myself from barking in the streets every time the effing secret service cars come by with dignitaries.

yep. i do a lot for the world. don’t i 🙁

sometimes, i listen to across the universe and contemplate what john lennon meant by the phrase: nothin’s gonna change my world. was he giving up and relinquishing his power in despair? or was he insisting that his personal status quo was some sort of nirvana, and nothing, by G-d, would alter it? i’d like to think that he wrote it in some sort of blissful state, a time when he found some personal peace. i like to cocoon myself from time to time and think how perfect my life is. i’m fed. i’m clothed. i’ve a home. i’ve a wonderful family. and while i have a health condition that requires diligent attention, i have access to high quality health care. nothin’s gonna change my world.

but see, there are so many people who are missing one or more of those things. and then some. so something’s gotta change my world. and it probably ought to be me.

where to start?

taking the cupcakes

Posted on September 25, 2007 by wrekehavoc

BC recently started life at our neighborhood school. soon thereafter, everyone received a note about school snacks. as the third graders have the latest lunch at school (lunch begins — wait for it — at 12:50), they are allowed to bring in an extra snack to eat mid-morning. the snack, however, is supposed to be a healthy snack — and apparently, if you send your child in with something like, oh, i dunno, HoHos, the HoHos will be taken (or put away) and your child will either be hungry or, if your child has a nice teacher like BC does, your child will probably get some graham crackers or animal crackers to tide her over.

ok, so i get the whole healthy snack thing. no one wants to have to teach sugar-hopped kids all day. after lunch is enough to have to deal with that. but wait — there’s more.

on birthdays, one is not supposed to bring in cupcakes. one is, instead, supposed to bring in something healthy if one is so inclined. one example i read was a popcorn ball. (aren’t those things put together with corn syrup? tell me how corn syrup is better than sugar!)

c’mon. it’s a freaking birthday! what on earth is problematic about a kid having a birthday with cupcakes? so now, i will probably bake muffins with chocolate chips in them and pretend they are cupcakes. i’m so stealthy and subversive, you know.

apparently, i’m not the only one irritated by this.

oscopies, oscopies: who's got the oscopies?

Posted on September 21, 2007 by wrekehavoc

hope you enjoyed yesterday’s science projects 🙂

as far as yesterday’s oscopies are concerned: the prep was awful (per usual). i was frightened (per usual). the anesthesiologist couldn’t get me hooked up on my right side because my veins are apparently too tiny and uncooperative (not to mention i’m sure i was dehydrated), but he hooked me up just great on my left arm (though it’s in my wrist, so i now have a bandage around my wrist which, once again, makes me look like i tried to end it all by slitting my wrist). i never saw my doctor afterwards (apparently, he was knee deep in someone’s ass), though the little paper said that my colonoscopy was fine and that he removed a polyp from my stomach. i don’t know what to make of the polyp thing; it could be a big nothing. i just don’t know since this is all really a new body part thing for me. he also sent some stuff from my stomach out for study since there are certain bacteria that present that could be a precursor for stomach cancer, apparently. but i woke up beautifully and quickly (i metabolize very quickly) and ate a zillion graham crackers and cranberry juice. the nurses couldn’t have been nicer (although someone put me down originally for just a colonoscopy, not that AND an endoscopy) and they nearly forgot to get blood from me in the a.m.) but it’s done. for now.

and BS was a champ 🙂 he shuttled children all over the tri-state area AND dealt with a pretty tired wife. i looked at him last night and quoted from an old paul mccartney ditty that i love :

you gave me the answer to love eternally.

i love you, and you, you seem to like me.

okay. he probably does a bit more than like me in spite of the fact that i’m a major pain in the patoot 😉 so today, after many tears, i was able to get tickets for him (and me!) to see bruce springsteen. we’re sitting up with G-d, but who cares. we’re going. the damn things sold out in 4 minutes, and i was typing as fast as my little fingers could type. in the first minute, all i could get were nosebleeds. something’s just not right about that, as if all the good seats were already sold to someone somewhere.

but i’ve got too much to do to investigate that little annoyance. we’re going. i’m eating solid food. the kids are relatively happy. all’s right with the world.

this minute.

people on 'ludes should not drive

Posted on September 19, 2007 by wrekehavoc

…and people who are on a 24-hour liquid diet pre-general anesthesia should not go food shopping. which i did, ‘cos i’m the most super brilliant mom alive. i walked in for bananas and walked out with $100 worth of groceries, very little of which i can eat today except for:

peach jello
peach jello
chicken soup (clear, nothing in it)
coffee
pineapple jello
orange jello; and
popsicles.

now, this regimen, sans the soup and coffee (in which i can’t put milk today, so why bother?), might seem like nirvana to BC. but the natural fact here is that i cannot eat anything red. no red popsicles. no red jello. no red nuthin’ (unless i want my gastroenterologist to die of fright thinking i’m hemorrhaging inside.) this, of course, causes a problem because red is my favorite flavor. (i’m pretty indiscriminate when it comes to red. i don’t really care if it means cherry, strawberry, raspberry, razzleberry… ha! caught you there. 😉

fortunately, it appears that my friends at jello have branched out a little and added peach and pineapple to their non-red jello repertoire. thank G-d, too, because the only way i’m having green or lemon jello is if someone makes them into shooters. you should know that i don’t really like jello all that much, but today, it is officially dubbed food of the gods!

on the bright side, my fingernails will grow strong.

now, because i am extra brilliant, i failed to consult the calendar back in may when i made this appointment. and guess what else is tonight? yup. Back to School Night. back to school night falls squarely in my domain; while BS is an involved and caring dad, i know probably leaps and bounds more about BC’s daily existence than he does. but i have a feeling that i will be feeling about as pleasant as old garbage tonight. so i will stay home with both kids (yay! fighting over the toilet with jools will be something to look forward to!) while BS goes through the hallowed halls of a school he has not yet entered. i think. (honey: make a right when you walk in the front door and just keep walking until the school ends. that’s her classroom.) it’s probably a good thing, i’m sure. he’ll meet BC’s teacher (who i see every morning when i’m dragged down the hall), see the locker she never uses, and enjoy the fact that there are no reports of girlfriend tearing the place down.

that, my friend, will not happen until the day jools enters school.

don’t worry. i’ll be sure to schedule something a little more lasting for that day. like a medically-induced coma.

professional patient

Posted on September 17, 2007 by wrekehavoc

another day, another scan. i can safely say that if someone clever at washington radiology had a little too much to drink and perhaps a little more time on his hands, he could have fun piecing together various body parts of mine which have been scanned over the past year and a half, thanks to my illness. i suspect that one night, BS will wake up and see my body, bright in the darkness, beside him. i suppose it would be a way to earn extra money (come see the freaky-ass mom who glows in the dark!) and hell, it will make it easy for the cars to see me and my kids come halloween night!

last week’s scan of my abdomen showed i have either a little gallstone or a polyp. joy. my doctor isn’t convinced that something that small is causing my discomfort — he’s wondering if something else is causing me pain. (like i even want to find out.) today, i had to get a scan of my chest (no, not a mammogram — although that’s overdue for this year, too) to see whether those fun little nodules i have in my lungs stayed put, or whether they’ve decided to do something crazy (like form a third political party).

it was one of the radiology tech’s first day at work today, so i had to explain why i was getting today’s CT chest scan. how people with CVID often get infections and fun things show up on chest and sinus scans because of it. its the same reason, essentially, why i get to have my very first endoscopy later this week. (can you say higher incidence of stomach cancer?) boy, there’s nothing more fun than having a tube down your throat. oh, wait. there is. having an endoscopy AND a colonoscopy at the same time. now THAT’S got to be more fun than humans ought to be allowed to have.

i can’t wait for september to be over. i scheduled all my fun things — plus some more IVIG goodness next week — this month. next month, i want a new challenge. something really scary, not like this life-threatening illness crap.

i think i’ll take up skydiving, though photocopying my ass seems equally dangerous and more in order.

my brave boy

Posted on September 11, 2007 by wrekehavoc

we all know that officials from the district of columbia move in mysterious ways. very little can explain things like this, for example. hell, very little can explain how marion barry continues to have a career in politics. but that’s the beauty and wonder of DC.

so it should come as no surprise to anyone that the licensure people from the district came to my son’s school the other day. for years and years, no one from DC licensing cared when kids’ lead tests were done. and here in VA, no one really cares after the 1st necessary one at a few months old.

surprise!

now they do. and if all of us folks don’t get lead tests on our kids by early october, well, there will be fines. inadvertent preschool dropouts. cats and dogs. living together. mass hysteria. you get the picture.

so today, instead of having a special day with jools, i had a morning of nooooooooooooo, mommy. i don’t want to have a blood test!
noooooooooooooooo!

now, i can’t blame the kid. of course, i get poked or jabbed at least once a month these days (and yesterday, i had a whopper of a shot in my knee, so believe me, i am empathetic). but when its a rare thing, like it is (thankfully) for poor jools, well, damn, it’s hard to explain. so you do what any sane parent does. you employ the most important survival tactic known to parents everywhere.

you bribe your child.

let’s see: the kid got a lollipop (before lunch! he gleefully told anyone within earshot! yep. a day without mama the hardass.) the kid got to eat chips from taco hell. and when we visited the library, the kid got to spend 30 minutes on the kids computer. 30. whole. minutes. and i neglected to find a book to read before that. so i sat and enjoyed the silent screen version of bailey’s bookhouse. for. 30. whole. minutes.

[somebody please help me. i’m melting.]

but you know what? the dude earned it. we sat there, with gospel music blaring from the phlebotemist’s radio, and the dude barely even whimpered. he even thanked the lady for the bugs bunny band aid. maybe it was the gospel stuff. who the hell knows.

all i know is that i can hardly wait for flu shots…

all i want is everything

Posted on September 7, 2007 by wrekehavoc

with sincerest apologies to southside johnny and the asbury jukes…

i feel good today. r e a l l y good. don’t know how long the feeling will last, and nevermind the fact that i have to go get a CT scan of my chest and an U/S of my abdomen. (bahaha. i want a doctor to take your picture so i can look at you from inside as well.) i. feel. good. (dagnabit.) when i feel good, i feel like i can think about the future. cos when i feel good, i feel like i’ll be around a loooooong time into the future.

so, i was mentally cataloging things this morning while waiting in the hematologist’s office (platelets=190~ IVIG is my friend!). things i want.

1) eight consecutive hours of uninterrupted sleep.

2) well-adjusted kids who seem relatively happy doing what they’re doing.

3) a rest for my BS who could definitely do with one.

4) plenty of time to play.

5) plenty of time to write.

6) plenty of time.

7) an opportunity to see family and friends who i don’t get to see all that often.

8) an opportunity to apologize to people i was horrid to when i was a teen (i have been reading my journals from high school, and there are a few people i inadvertantly messed about a little. not intentionally, of course — i was a mixed-up kid, just like the next one. i just didn’t see the view from 40,000 feet like i do now.)

9) time to be what i always wanted to be as a grownup.

10) repeat.

i feel good. so i sort of have everything. already.

phone call never made.

Posted on September 4, 2007 by wrekehavoc

one time — BC couldn’t have been more than 3, for i know i had not yet gotten pregnant with jools — BC and i took a walk through our neighborhood. we walked often before dinner; i loved to take her around our block to admire the colonel’s wife’s flowers, miss maxine’s flag, step up miss jeannie’s steep steps, and end up with miss hattie and maybe mr. bob out on his back swing. this time, though, we went a little further afield and walked around to the next street.

while we were walking, we came upon a woman and her two little girls, one the same age as BC and i think the other was slightly younger, though i don’t recall. we stopped and BC played on the lawn with the girls, rosemary and anne marie. i really enjoyed talking with the mom, and we exchanged phone numbers, hoping to start up a little playdate fun.

unfortunately, i worked, and i suspect she did, too. and as all well-intentioned folks can foresee, we never got together. i held onto the slip of paper for a few years, and finally, one day, i tossed it, figuring that they would not remember us.

fast forward to now.

anne marie is in BC’s class. BC said she’s such a nice girl. and anne marie told BC that she remembered her from all those years ago. sadly, though, her mother died last year, so the family will be moving back to presumably where more family lives.

i guess i couldn’t do anything to stop certain events from happening. but i cannot help feeling a sense of loss over a person i never really got to know.