deus ex mama
apparently, crocs might be hazardous to your health.
[note to self: should i end up back in the hospital, i should write a note that indicates that a) i am allergic to most antibiotics, b) i wear contacts, and c) for G-d’s sake, someone needs to remove my daughter’s footwear.]
knee surgery. ah, the fun. it’s astonishing, really, that after a whole day ordeal, i am left with three bandaids. no lie. three. little. bandaids. they had to do general anesthesia on me (a first for me) because they didn’t have an up-to-date platelet count and the gas-passer didn’t want a bleeder on his hands should he have chosen a spinal instead. i woke up poorly from general, very cold and thrashing about. the nurse said she was trying to understand what i was saying; i’m grateful she could not or else they probably would have put some ivory soap in my mouth. i was quite hungry, so i had some crackers and cranberry juice, which now leads me to another first that day: throwing up on my front lawn. thank goodness it was undigested stuff. maybe it will help the plants.
ah, the glamor of being so dependent. i hate it.
i also have the pic-a-nic basket of fun, AKA my magical cooler that keeps my knee from hurting. see, you fill it up with ice and water, wrap the pad around your knee, and VOILA! joy reigneth. skwigg put it best: you feel like a (non)walking aquarium. jools wanted to fill it up with food and toys. that would have been an experience, though while on percocet, i probably wouldn’t have cared. much. (unfortunately, no one checked to see that it was actually ON when they put it on my knee after surgery. i asked BS, “why doesn’t it feel cold?” he said, “well, maybe you’re numb?” three hours later, when they were letting me out, i asked the nurse the same question. she said, “oh, no, it hasn’t been ON?” yep. i missed three hours of chilling goodness post surgery. oh well. spilled milk.
anyway, i can put some weight on my foot now. i am working on bending my knee and not screaming simultaneously. today, i am going to try two very exciting things. one is a shower. (i have not showered since tuesday morning, and, in short, i smell like a bus.) the next thing i’m going to try are STAIRS. yes. i want to see my room, my bathroom, my clean clothes for the first time in days. i can’t wait.
because i believe in maximizing my angst, i visited the hematologist as well as the physical therapist yesterday. my platelets are down a little (185) but not in a scary place. the problem is, now that i need IVIG, they can’t seem to find any. if anyone out there knows where i might start scoring some IVIG, let me know. apparently, area hospitals have none 🙁
the physical therapist is a hoot. she put me in something called GAME READY that essentially squeezed the living shit out of my entire leg while cooling it down. the PT told me that it was a very expensive treatment. i wonder if they have these sorts of things in S&M parlors. i like the fact that there’s a version for horses as well, although it does seem crueler than just shooting the nags. nay.
anyway, thanks for the well wishes, the cookies, the flowers, the fruit, and all the kindness. i appreciate it more than my percocet-addled mind can express.
(and today — i am off percocet. really.)
just a note to anyone out there in tv-land. on tuesday, i am having knee surgery, so i probably won’t have the ability to write much. (well, i’m SURE i’ll have the ability to write plenty, but considering i will probably be a bit medicated, i think it’d be safer if i self-censor. otherwise, i’m liable to say things far grosser or scarier or more incriminating than usual.)
thanks for all the kind wishes out there. this isn’t a major surgery; but considering the conditions i have, i am a bit terrified about little things, like infections, that can really cause me some problems.
of course, when i’m nervous, i self-medicate eat. fortunately, my buddy maren sent me an edible fruit basket, (i would have taken a picture of it before i tore it apart, but the battery on my camera went completely kaput.) so at least i have some healthy things to inhale. [thanks, m2k!]
anyway, hopefully, we’ll catch up real soon.
peace, love, and donny osmond,
wreke
xoxo
last week, my hero, keith richards, the man who can survive tours with mick jagger, nuclear holocausts, and falls out of tropical foliage, noted that he had snorted his dad’s ashes up with some blow. now, he is noting that this was, in fact a joke: according to his website, he planted his dad’s ashes with a “sturdy oak.”
apparently, keith’s mum is battling cancer and didn’t appreciate the thought of her departed former husband going up her son’s nose.
i find it encouraging that there is at least one person on the planet who might make keith shit himself publicly. but, as sean lennon once said, “when you die, you become a part of everything.”
and i sure as hell still believe that mr. richards senior is probably part of his son’s bloodstream.
in a word, ewww.
…is this.
seriously, in two weeks, i’m going for arthroscopic surgery. while ice skating last week, i fell and managed to tear my meniscus AND my PCL. apparently, 90% of people tear their ACL; i managed to be in that great 10% for the PCL, which the dr. said takes a little longer for surgery and for repair. of course. so i don’t want to hear anyone talking about how i step in shit and up comes a daisy (and you two know who you are). i step in shit and a few thousand dollars later, i am the semi-bionic woman 😉
it’s outpatient, no big deal, at least from the surgical perspective.
i am the very model of a modern medical miracle.
in case anyone ever wonders why i can’t lapse too long into self-pity, it’s because of this little dude. mason is the son of my friend danielle, and he is one of the toughest people i have ever met. to be 4 and to have been battling brain cancer for a long time, well, i can’t even begin to say i would handle it well. but mason is a cool little dude. i’m so excited to see his peach fuzz hair and lashes growing in. he has an MRI tomorrow. i know i’m throwing him in my prayers tonight. i hope everyone else sends good vibes or prayers out there for him as well.
i heard from my doctor in philly yesterday. she can’t say definitively yet — she wants to wait for my post-test, and she also wants to consult with some colleagues — but the signs are pointing toward treatment. apparently, my sinus scan showed i am quite the veteran with sinusitis (i wonder how they can tell that!), and only 3 out of 14 pneumococcal IGG Types were in the protective range (they usually hope for 7 or 8). my chest scan showed little thingies (yes, a medical term) lymph nodes, but as they are smaller than (i think she said) 4 cm, they aren’t considered significant. people with CVID usually show definite signs of never-ending sinusitis and/or some broncheo-something. (basically, lots of bronchial issues/pneumonia/that sort of thing. sorry. my brother could probably speak about this in more intelligent terms since he is both a doctor and a person with CVID.) i have been congested so long in my life, i don’t even realize i have sinus issues. so it looks like i’ll be hooked up to an IV every 4 weeks for the “foreseeable future” (which must be the euphemism doctors use instead of saying “for the rest of your life.”)
it sucks, but there’s a treatment, so it’s not as bad as something without a treatment. i’m not thrilled with the treatment, as it is expensive, has some risks, and is not the sort of thing i want to have to do every 4 weeks. but you gotta do what you gotta do, and i’m thankful i have health insurance and the ability to get treatment, as there are probably zillions of people who aren’t as fortunate.
still, i’m bummed.
many people are pissed that i haven’t actually written about my trip to philly to seek a second opinion. i’ll start to remedy that here.
i met with my brother’s immunologist in philly early in feb, and i’ll see her again in early apr. i really, really like her. she, of course, is also a researcher as well as an MD, so she has a very curious interest in the freakshow that is my brother and i. and she already is very familiar with his case since she’s his doctor, so i finally don’t have to explain everything 🙂 i get the feeling that there are two schools of thought vis a vis my treatment. the dr. in bethesda is from the cautious school — he wants me to go on IVIG already because while i am currently not in much danger, he’s afraid that down the road, i will get an infection and it will throw me for a huge loop (especially since i am allergic to several antibiotics). so he’s in the preventive camp. dr. philly, i am sensing, is not as impressed with my numbers (my IGA is in the toilet, but my IGG is merely low) and may just have my immunoglobulins monitored every 3 months or so to see whether i am going south, so to speak. of course, she had me take another HibB immunization so that we could see whether my antibodies rally; i have to go take the post-test on wednesday and we’ll see how i did. i am probably the best immunized grownup in the DC metro area. she’s checking my t-cells, my immunoglobulins, and all sorts of stuff. on the bright side, my platelets seem to still rock 😉
the thing that bothers me more than it bothers my brother is that if this freakshow is genetic (and it appears to be so), then i wonder what this means for my kids and his. i am interested in looking at our genes; my brother feels that if it would impact my treatment, he would go down that path. but if it won’t make a difference, he just doesn’t want to go there. i figure i am fucked as far as health insurance goes, anyway, should i ever switch policies, since i already have a diagnosis of common variable immunodeficiency, so why not check it out. we’ll see what hilarity ensues.
in the meantime, dr. philly told my brother that if i can drag my ass up from DC to see her in PA, the least he can do is drag his ass to PA to take me to lunch after my appts 😉 gotta love this chick. her office staff is screwy, though. they literally moved offices last week, so my reports all went to some place in the sky. i’ve been having stuff re-sent like there’s no tomorrow. i have to prove to the blood folks (quest) that i really am me and really want this stuff to go to my doc’s. sheesh.
so cheer on my antibodies, y’all; last time, they did a little something, though not what a normal (ha!) person’s antibodies would do. i imagine that if we really looked at them, we’d see that they’re probably napping or eating chocolate.
BC came home from school today complaining of stomachache, pains in her leg, a headache, and other assorted maladies. jools was home with me because i wanted to give sleep-deprived BS a break (though i am just as sleep-deprived as he is. but somehow, i’m the mom so i have to stay sane. he’ll probably get to sleep in the basement; i’ll get my bed but also the kids who moan in the night. i don’t think this deal is very fair, but there it is.)
so now, i have the two of them in the basement playing with the bazillion fisher price little people we have amassed over the year: the little people zoo, the little people house, the little people garage, the little people amusement parks (plural because we somehow have two), the little people doctor’s office, well, i could continue, but you get the picture. peace generally reigneth except for every five minutes, i hear one of my own personal little people shriek:
“MAMA, THERE’S A LADYBUG!”
probably due to the world-wide freakshow known as global warming, we have amassed a collection of dead ladybugs in our basement. for some reason, BC thought she’d share her fear of dead or live bugs with her brother. so now, they want me to pick up and remove aforementioned dead bugs every time they find one. which is, apparently, every five minutes according to my watch. i’m about to lose my mind.