Bleepin' Stones

We arrived at the ER, and the triage nurse took a blood pressure reading of 189/110. "That can't be right," was her only response.

Well, guess what. It WAS right. We took him back, they drew blood and took special xrays. The lab work came back normal for someone with a raging bladder infection. The main problem was that I know my son and this most definitely was farther reaching than a simple bladder infection. I could tell this by the mere fact that he'd been trying to throw up 4-5 times a day and he was constantly moaning.

I have never felt such condescension from a medical professional--and that's saying something considering the many I've dealt with over the years--in fact, he wouldn't even look at me and only addressed Mr. O. Mr. O kept deferring to me since I'm the one who tackles everything medically related for each of our kids. Any time I would ask "Dr. Grumpy Bedside Manner" a question, everyone in the room could sense his exasperation and practically feel his eyes rolling.

Finally, I asked him about the puffiness in Ty's abdomen (which just happened to be in the same location as his former tumor), and the doctor just shrugged me off, saying there was nothing on the labs to indicate a problem there. Maddening!

I suggested that just as a precaution, we should run a CT scan to rule out the possibility that his tumor was back. His response? "You do realize that one CT scan is the same amount of radiation as exposing your son to over 150 chest x-rays? I mean, do you really want to put him through that?"

Blink, blink.

I felt like being snappish right back and telling him that yes, I'd like to expose my son to as much radiation as possible. Anyway, the important thing is that he finally listened to me.

I knew something was up when they ran him through the CT three separate times, and I'll tell you what...Dr. "God" sure changed his bedside manner toward me after he saw the results.

It turned out that Ty has a 22 mm kidney stone completely blocking his right ureter. In case you have no idea, that's HUGE. He also has a 14 mm stone trapped in his kidney (as well as several others)  and a "smaller stone in his left kidney.
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The ER doctor was actually nice to me afterwards. He would say things like "That's a good question," whenever I asked him something. Can you believe they had been going to send us home?

Instead they rushed him right back to Angio and placed a Nephrostomy tube into his kidney. The idea is that now the urine can come directly out of the kidney, through the tube, and into a drainage bag. Eventually the kidney swelling will go down and he can have surgery to remove the stones.

While he was in the hospital, he received two antibiotics via IV. And he never threw up once he got some relief. Since he's been home he's only run a low-grade fever once, thrown up about 4 times, and (on the upside) has developed a taste for chocolate milk and is enjoying his old standby - Dr. Pepper.

All told, we spent five days in the hospital and Urology completely dropped the ball on us. Good thing we have an appointment to see the Dr. on Monday.

It's called "Bleep Year" right?

So anyway, long time no hear. I'm sorry about that. Life has been quite eventful around here.

I finally felt like I had my life back--I was getting projects done (four pretty amazing quilts to be exact),  Lucky did the prairie points on this quilt for our friend Holly's baby. I love how happy and cheerful this quilt is!

Family chores had been reinstated, and each of the kids had one night a week to prepare a dinner of their choice--we had routine back, and it couldn't have been better. Except...that Tyler has been, well, not himself since about Thanksgiving. It started off as congestion, and that resulted in his major surgery being postponed.

Things just weren't right. Ty would go to school Monday and seem to have a great day, then a couple hours into his school day on Tuesday, he'd begin violently trembling. By Wednesday, he was having severe anxiety when we'd tell him it was time to get in his wheelchair to get on the bus. It was almost like a panic attack.

Something you should know about Ty is that he loves school. He loves the kids, the teachers, the classes, and it was so unlike him to protest and want to stay home. During this time, Ty's need for pain medication had drastically increased.We have a family friend who is a Physician's Assistant, and he made a house call.

Our friend discovered that Ty had a raging bladder infection. We tried one course of antibiotics, and he still had an infection. Ty's regular doctor decided to put him on a new antibiotic, and still his symptoms persisted. Finally, a cultures and sensitivities was run. Mysteriously enough, the antibiotics he'd been on should have done the trick. We tried a third antibiotic, and then Ty started throwing up. Like several times a day. And he started moaning.

Let me explain something. If Ty cries, we go to the Emergency Room, because that is just how tough he is. At this time he also started fevering. His normal body temperature is 96.9--nearly two degrees lower than the average person's. He was running the equivalent temp of 104.5, and it wasn't responding to Advil or Tylenol. I took him in for an office visit.

The doctor was perplexed, and thought that maybe his nausea was an allergic reaction to the new antibiotic. It was decided to give him Rocephin shots and to switch him back to one of the other antibiotics.

I realize this is long and boring, but bear with me.

Then Ty stopped having bowel movements. Imagine if you went three days without, well, "going". Imagine that this happens over a three-day weekend, and that you start vomiting 4-5 times a day. And that you start moaning and pain medicine seems to have no effect.

Emergency Room, here we come.

At this point, I was convinced that he had a bowel obstruction or intussusception.  I was wrong.

Note to Future Self

It's no secret.

I could really have done without last year and nearly everything that happened in it. Health problems rained down, pain moved in, and then I made some bad decisions. Some of those bad decisions included absurd amounts of pretzel M&Ms and Dr. Pepper.

Recap:
January: Recovering from hysterectomy, bladder spams
March: Herniated disks in my neck freaked the frak out, injured foot
April: Lost sensation in my right hand due to neck injury, steroid shots
August: The ear pain begins and my herniated disks freak out again, more shots
September: Shots didn't work, so more, different shots
December: Finally get relief from acupuncture for ear pain (due to TMJ) only to have it come back over Christmas break.

And now, finally my ear has responded again to acupuncture and I am off the muscle relaxers, pain meds, and nerve meds. I actually never went back on the pain stuff when the pain came back over Christmas - I just can't trust myself to come back from that deep, dark place - but I did end up taking a lot of nerve meds to try and compensate for it. It left me wiped out. Also, fat. The nerve meds kill/numb my taste buds (impaired my judgement) and pretty much the only thing I could still taste was chocolate.

So I ate a lot of it. And it cost me about 25 pounds.

It wasn't until my daughter tried on a dress I bought two summers ago and it looked great on her, that I realized how far I'd come from there. How far I'd come from feeling the best I ever have to the exact opposite.

Even just this past June I was still in okay shape--not that shape means everything. Mentally, though, I am not the same. I have been the Whipping Boy for Pain for the past five months and I let it get the best of me. And you want to know something? Even with all those medicines in my system, I still felt awful.

Given the choice between hurting or feeling crappy and not giving a damn about pretty much anything, Self, next time do us all a favor and just deal with the pain.

RESOLVED: Get in the best shape of my life again and this time really enjoy it.

Is anyone still out there? What do you resolve?

New Year's Eve

I adore her voice, and she looks ready to ring in the new year with that tiara. Enjoy!

My Acupuncturist

Nina runs Healing Points Acupuncture and Neuro Feedback. She is one of the most compassionate, intuitive people I know, and she is very good at what she does. Your insurance might even cover acupuncture; call and find out.

I have been free from my ear pain for two weeks now. A few weeks ago, I felt like it would never end (four months is a very long time to hurt). Today she treated my lower back, and it feels so much better. Don't be afraid of the needles; they are just tiny little things.

She has performed western and traditional acupuncture on me. My favorite (and probably most painful/effective) treatment was for headaches. It only hurt for a moment, and my headache was gone by the time I got home. 

Note to self: call Nina first next time. I'm spreading the gospel of Nina and her acupuncture. If you try it, please let me know how it worked for you. You can schedule your own appointment by calling her office at 801 376-4527

Acupuncture for TMJ and NAET allergy treatment - It's a Christmas Miracle

I don't know why I don't pull out alternative medicine as a front line approach, especially considering the luck I've had with it.

One of my friends has a Master's in Chinese Medicine and happens to live a few neighboring towns over. When my ear was still giving me grief, but before I resorted to going back on pain medication, I called her up and asked her if she'd treated TMJ.

She had and said so far she'd had 100% success in relieving the pain and ringing associated with TMJ. That was all I needed to hear, and even though I remain the biggest skeptic of all, she'd offered me hope. After the very first treatment, the pressure and pain in my face felt intense, but by that evening I was almost pain-free without medication of any kind.

That was 10 days ago. I still have occasional stabbing pain in my ear, but it is amazing what a break from constant pain can do. I feel almost human again. The popping and fullness in my ears is nearly gone. She is also treating me for nerve pain in the tooth next my oral surgery site (it would be nice to avoid and root canal and stop funding the private islands of dentists). I have been able to go grocery and Christmas shopping, go on dates with Mr. O and even (gasp!) cook.

I wish I'd thought of seeing her back in August when this whole thing started. Who knows, maybe we'd have saved enough to take the whole family to Hawaii instead of pouring money into the pit that is my mouth.

Anyway, Nina is wonderful and intuitive and I highly recommend her acupuncture clinic. I'm happy to give you her contact info if you'd like to see her.

She is also treating Nicole and I for allergies via the NAET protocol.

I know.

I'm an even bigger skeptic when it comes to this treatment, but I've read up on it. Even though my brain says there's no way it should work, I've already seen how it does. Have you heard of NAET? Would you consider trying it? Would you use alternative medicine?

For your listening enjoyment (different, but lovely):

Sideways Bottom

I haven't just hit bottom with all this ear pain, I've hit sideways bottom. As in my lower-half (bottom) is getting more and more sideways. I've decided that the only thing worse than feeling the pain is to feel all tired and muffiny on top of everything. Or muffin-toppy. So I'm quitting my medicinal helpers and getting back down to the business of being fit and healthy. Join me, won't you?

This rice bag and I are the best of friends these days. I heat it up, put it on my pillow, make a little hollowed-out spot for my ear to rest in and then...I lay down and the spikes coming out of my eyeball recede ever so slightly.

My friend and doula made it for me as a gift when I had Ellie. Who knew that six years (and a few mended rips) later it would still bring me comfort?

In the garden, there's a row of peppers still waiting to be yanked out by their stems. I've resisted pulling them out so that I can photograph their hunched-over spines. I'm sympathetic to these peppers. I know how they feel, and somehow pulling them out after they're all used up seems to hit too close to home. I feel like a bit of traitor using them like that. We won't talk about me putting them in salsa to swim with mangoes...that's entirely different.

I have enough photos for my month of sunsets, but I don't want to post them as that will feel like a sunset on my sunset photos. It's a conundrum, I tell you.