Yesterday was BAD. I mean to the max terrible. I ended up in the ER because I seriously thought my body was going to explode. And of course they just thought I was a drug user. *sigh*
I woke up with a headache and feeling dizzy yesterday. That's pretty normal lately. Usually it goes away after I've been up for about an hour. But it didn't. In fact it just kept getting worse. Around 9:30am I caved and took one of my Tramadol. Didn't do anything to help. But, I continued on with my cleaning, just kept it light. No heavy lifting, didn't do much for bending, etc.
I was cleaning up Josie's room (it's still full of Brandyn's stuff). That's when I had one of those terrible spasms up my back. And after that, things went bad. My headache intensified to a level I've never felt before. Now let me just say, I've had bad migraines before. But never anything that felt like that one. My whole body began to feel weak. I just wanted to lay on the floor. I made my way to the bathroom, was going to get a cool washcloth for my head. And then wanted to scream...
The left side of my face was scary. It was starting to droop. My eye was barely open. Looked like I was frowning on that side of my mouth. I could still feel my face, but it was not sitting the way it should. I quickly called my husband. By this time it was around 11:45am. Sadly he was in a meeting, but I left a message for him to call me back, it was an emergency. It only took him another 10 minutes to call me. And by that point, things went from bad to worse.
I could barely speak. I could form the words and thoughts in my head. But it was a struggle to actually say the words. When I did, I just sounded like a slurring stuttering fool. I gave up trying to explain what was wrong. I just told him "home now emergency". Even that was hard to spit out. I never felt so terrified in my life.
Thankfully a friend showed up. She was stopping by to pick up the twins' old playpen, but still it was nice to see her. I must have looked bad because she started to freak out. She ushered me to the couch and took a look around my house, asking where Miles was (since Emmit was in the chair). I stammered out he was in bed and then she looked even more scared. She started asking me several questions, but did her best to fill in the blanks for me. Guess she could tell it was a real struggle to talk.
And I can't explain that part. It was like, every time I tried to say a word, it hurt. Not my mouth, but my head. The whole thinking process made me want to scream. I could speak clearly in my head, but the words wouldn't come out my mouth. Which only made things worse. Not being able to speak clearly made me want to cry.
Anyway, James made it home. Sheli offered to stay with the boys while James and I headed to the hospital. She's never babysat them before, but she has been around them before. So they all knew each other. No argument there, we just left. We arrived at the hospital around 12:40pm. And I wanted to hurt some people.
Why is it when you go to the ER for pain they think you're a drug user? The doctor kept asking me what I took. And I kept repeating--big coffee, donut stick, (1) Tramadol 50mg. She wasn't believing me though. Asked if someone maybe slipped me something. Let me tell ya, it was hard to talk but I did my best to say "well let me ask my 2 year old twin boys, one of them may have slipped me a blueberry or grape into my coffee when I wasn't looking"! More questions, more stuttering around. Thank God I had James there. After a while I made him answer for me. The more talking I did, the more it hurt. I also made sure he made it clear that my face doesn't usually droop, I don't normal shake and I'm not a slurring-stuttering freak (no offense to anyone honestly, I only mean this about myself. I would never make fun of someone with a speech problem).
It was about 2:30pm when they finally started giving me pain meds. First they gave me Adivant. Which I know is an anxiety medicine. They done thought I was a crazy person! An hour later and no changes. So they gave me Zolfram (since I was starting to vomit in the room) and morphine. Things finally started to calm down. And I finally just caved and fell asleep (I was afraid to sleep. Afraid I wouldn't wake up again).
By the time I left the pain in my head was sitting at a level 8, but they weren't giving me anymore pain meds. Not even to take orally. No script to take home. Nothing. I threw up on their floor one more time for good measure lol. Through all this, they could tell me nothing. I left with a droopy face, major headache and vomiting. All while carrying a piece of paper that claimed my problem was "atypical headache".
Reminds me of the time I went into the ER back in June. Whole body was in pain, I couldn't even move myself. Vomiting all over, temp was 105.3. When I left 3 days later (still feeling miserable) the best they could tell me was I *might* have HAD strep throat.
I just love my local Emergency Room. They take such great care of me...
Signed,
Super Mom
November 30, 2011
November 29, 2011
Bawling Like a Baby
I really should stop this crying. It's only making my headache worse. But I can't help it. I'm terrified. Scared of the pain that is to come.
I'm finally out of all pain medicine. I worked up enough courage to call the spine surgeon. What a waste. I explained my situation and it did no good.
I asked if the doctor could call in a refill for my Ultram. I explained that they are 1.5 hours away, so making an appointment just for a refill wasn't ideal. It would cost me $30 in gas, another $35 for the copay and then $10 for the medicine. I had hoped that since it's been a few months that there wouldn't be any problems. But I was wrong. They told me I have to go to a primary care doctor.
There's a couple problems with that. One being I don't have a primary care doctor. Not since moving to this town. Why go to a regular everyday doctor for leg spasms when you know they'll just send you on to a specialist? And then the past, I've had a hard time with getting a primary care doctor to treat me for something I've been seeing a specialist for. They always tell me I have to talk to the specialist. So I just go in circles.
My pain levels don't go below a 6 after pain meds. I know that isn't too bad. It's manageable. And I've suffered through one day of the terrible level 10 pain. But it was only one day. How am I going to live everyday stuck on that level?
I think I'm ready to hide now.
Signed,
Super Mom
I'm finally out of all pain medicine. I worked up enough courage to call the spine surgeon. What a waste. I explained my situation and it did no good.
I asked if the doctor could call in a refill for my Ultram. I explained that they are 1.5 hours away, so making an appointment just for a refill wasn't ideal. It would cost me $30 in gas, another $35 for the copay and then $10 for the medicine. I had hoped that since it's been a few months that there wouldn't be any problems. But I was wrong. They told me I have to go to a primary care doctor.
There's a couple problems with that. One being I don't have a primary care doctor. Not since moving to this town. Why go to a regular everyday doctor for leg spasms when you know they'll just send you on to a specialist? And then the past, I've had a hard time with getting a primary care doctor to treat me for something I've been seeing a specialist for. They always tell me I have to talk to the specialist. So I just go in circles.
My pain levels don't go below a 6 after pain meds. I know that isn't too bad. It's manageable. And I've suffered through one day of the terrible level 10 pain. But it was only one day. How am I going to live everyday stuck on that level?
I think I'm ready to hide now.
Signed,
Super Mom
November 28, 2011
Just No Winning
So a couple months ago I started a new birth control--Seasonique (well, the generic version). It had promises of getting my periods under control. Supposed to just have 4 a year. I like that idea. Having endometriosis and PCOS, I want as few periods as possible.
Month one went great. My period ended the day after taking the first pill. Which was nice because I was only on day 3 when I started the new birth control. Oh it was nice to have those terrible cramps and back aches go away (ok still had back pain, but it lessened).
Then came month 2. Still went great. In fact, it made me paranoid. I had to take 3 pregnancy tests. I'm used to having a period every 2 weeks. So when it didn't show up I was scared. Wasn't sure if it was a sign the birth control was working properly or if I some how ended up pregnant. After those tests I was relieved to see it was just the birth control doing it's job.
And then comes month 3. I'm hating it. Day one of the 3rd month I start my period. And man it hit me hard. Come on flood gates! I figure maybe it's just break through bleeding. But nope it's not. It's full fledged. Yesterday was the start of week 3 of my period. I'll be honest, I did have a 4 day break in there. But still, it's just not fair! I'm not supposed to have a period for another 2 weeks from now.
The pain is worse then I remember having it. Maybe mother nature is making up for the lost month. Who knows. But today I had to cave and take the stashed Percocet. I try so hard to stay away from that stuff. It helps to take the edge off the pain, but never gets rid of the pain completely. If I'm taking Percocet, then you know things are bad.
Speaking of pain....
My on going sinus infection is kicking my ass. It's always there, never leaves. I've taken antibiotics for it before, but it either didn't clear it up or it just came right back. I can deal with the stuffiness, the headache and all the other cold like stuff. But what I can't handle is the tooth and jaw pain that comes with it. And oddly enough the only thing that HELPS with that pain is some sort of over the counter sinus or cold medicine. I've been given morphine for it before and it didn't help. But give me some OTC severe cold meds and it takes the edge off. Makes no sense to me.
Ok wow. It has taken me over an hour to write this. That's bad haha. Just got too distracted. Kids running around. Had to get them tucked in, read stories, get clothes set out blah blah blah. Then season my pot of ham & beans. Blah blah blah again. I'm going to just end this post. Nothing fun anyway, just rambling about being in pain. I'll post something else later. Thinking it'll probably just be me rambling, something I need to do, get out of my system.
Toodles for now! (too much Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!)
Signed,
Super Mom
Month one went great. My period ended the day after taking the first pill. Which was nice because I was only on day 3 when I started the new birth control. Oh it was nice to have those terrible cramps and back aches go away (ok still had back pain, but it lessened).
Then came month 2. Still went great. In fact, it made me paranoid. I had to take 3 pregnancy tests. I'm used to having a period every 2 weeks. So when it didn't show up I was scared. Wasn't sure if it was a sign the birth control was working properly or if I some how ended up pregnant. After those tests I was relieved to see it was just the birth control doing it's job.
And then comes month 3. I'm hating it. Day one of the 3rd month I start my period. And man it hit me hard. Come on flood gates! I figure maybe it's just break through bleeding. But nope it's not. It's full fledged. Yesterday was the start of week 3 of my period. I'll be honest, I did have a 4 day break in there. But still, it's just not fair! I'm not supposed to have a period for another 2 weeks from now.
The pain is worse then I remember having it. Maybe mother nature is making up for the lost month. Who knows. But today I had to cave and take the stashed Percocet. I try so hard to stay away from that stuff. It helps to take the edge off the pain, but never gets rid of the pain completely. If I'm taking Percocet, then you know things are bad.
Speaking of pain....
My on going sinus infection is kicking my ass. It's always there, never leaves. I've taken antibiotics for it before, but it either didn't clear it up or it just came right back. I can deal with the stuffiness, the headache and all the other cold like stuff. But what I can't handle is the tooth and jaw pain that comes with it. And oddly enough the only thing that HELPS with that pain is some sort of over the counter sinus or cold medicine. I've been given morphine for it before and it didn't help. But give me some OTC severe cold meds and it takes the edge off. Makes no sense to me.
Ok wow. It has taken me over an hour to write this. That's bad haha. Just got too distracted. Kids running around. Had to get them tucked in, read stories, get clothes set out blah blah blah. Then season my pot of ham & beans. Blah blah blah again. I'm going to just end this post. Nothing fun anyway, just rambling about being in pain. I'll post something else later. Thinking it'll probably just be me rambling, something I need to do, get out of my system.
Toodles for now! (too much Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!)
Signed,
Super Mom
November 4, 2011
New Symptoms
Oh the joys of having no clue what's wrong with you. As you know, I'm still having issues with my back. I'm now getting those terribly painful spasms. Well, now I noticed that shortly after that happens I get a huge headache and feel very nauseated. It sucks.
Still haven't called the doctor about it. But it's not easy to do that. Making an appointment with him is hard, on my end. No long waiting list with them. But when I go to make an appointment I confuse them. I always have to tell them "I can't do it on these dates, can't do it on this day of the week no matter the date, can't be any earlier then 10am, but no later then 1pm". Not easy. It's a 1.5 hour drive to the office. So I have to wait until after kids have left for school. If I wanted to be home by the time they get off the bus I have to LEAVE the doctor's office no later then 1:30pm.
Oh and still having issues with my ankle. It's hard to explain the pain. If you start at one side of the ankle, go across the front and then stop at the other side (so from ball bone to ball bone), that's where the pain is at. It's mostly in the center of that general area. When the pain intensifies it goes UP my leg, the shin, the front. There is zero pain in the foot anywhere. Zero pain at the back of the leg/ankle.
I did see a doctor for that. He told me I have tendonitis. I'm not sure if I believe that or not. The ankle pain is actually what caused us to discover that I have a back problem. So you can image how frustrating it is to go through a promising back surgery only to discover the ankle problem wasn't related (as they thought).
The pain started 2 years ago. I didn't hit it. Wasn't injured. Nothing. I was putting Miles (oldest and tiniest of the twins--he wasn't even a full month old yet) into bed when the pain hit my ankle so bad I nearly dropped him. Never had any bruises around. No rash, or swelling. Nothing visibly wrong. When I seen the doctor for my ankle (as mentioned above--the one after the back surgery), I had some high hopes. But those were dashed. He was quick to claim it was tendinitis. That's fine, that wasn't a problem for me. The problem was that he wants me to do physical therapy. I just can't.
He wanted 6 months of PT, and to do it 3 times a week. To start, that's more visits then my insurance will cover. I'm only allowed 25 visits per year. And I had already used up 8 visits when doing PT for my back. So that left 16 visits. Just a little over a month's worth of ankle PT available. Well, that isn't the only problem. The PT for my back cost me way too much. I don't know how they figured out the price, but for those 8 visits, I owed them $400. That comes out to be $50 a visit after insurance. If insurance even covered all the visits.
Now let's do some math here for the 6 months of ankle PT--
One month--4 weeks--3x week--
So..one week of PT--$50(per visit) x 3(visits per week) = $150
Since there's 4 weeks to a month--$150(weekly cost) x 4(weeks in one month) = $600
That's just one month. For one month of the prescribed ankle PT it would cost me $600!! Which means to do the entire 6 months, it would cost $3600. Hell, my back surgery cost less then that ($75). See why I don't jump to do the PT? I can't even afford one week worth of it.
He also gave me some other medicine to take in combination. I did take that daily as prescribed. It was a different type of NSAID. You would think if it was just tendonitis, things would be normal by now. I have it in my knees and those are just fine.
Another thing that's troubling about my ankle is nothing takes the pain away. Nothing even takes the edge off. Not even a tiny bit. I know this because I'm taking pain medicine and muscle relaxers throughout the day for my back. Right now it's Tramadol on most occasions, sometimes the pain is so bad I take a Percocet. I don't remember the name of the muscle relaxer. I want to say it's Flexeril. Yep it is, just Google searched it to be sure I had the name right. Anyway...Taking those daily, it does nothing for my ankle.
My ankle hurts more when standing or walking. I can't balance on that side. I can't shift all my weight to that ankle (as you do sometimes when standing for long periods, generally people will shift their weight to one side). I can only shift it to my left side.
Ugh I just want these pains to go away! Heck, I'd be happy just to know what's causing it.
Signed,
Super Mom
Still haven't called the doctor about it. But it's not easy to do that. Making an appointment with him is hard, on my end. No long waiting list with them. But when I go to make an appointment I confuse them. I always have to tell them "I can't do it on these dates, can't do it on this day of the week no matter the date, can't be any earlier then 10am, but no later then 1pm". Not easy. It's a 1.5 hour drive to the office. So I have to wait until after kids have left for school. If I wanted to be home by the time they get off the bus I have to LEAVE the doctor's office no later then 1:30pm.
Oh and still having issues with my ankle. It's hard to explain the pain. If you start at one side of the ankle, go across the front and then stop at the other side (so from ball bone to ball bone), that's where the pain is at. It's mostly in the center of that general area. When the pain intensifies it goes UP my leg, the shin, the front. There is zero pain in the foot anywhere. Zero pain at the back of the leg/ankle.
I did see a doctor for that. He told me I have tendonitis. I'm not sure if I believe that or not. The ankle pain is actually what caused us to discover that I have a back problem. So you can image how frustrating it is to go through a promising back surgery only to discover the ankle problem wasn't related (as they thought).
The pain started 2 years ago. I didn't hit it. Wasn't injured. Nothing. I was putting Miles (oldest and tiniest of the twins--he wasn't even a full month old yet) into bed when the pain hit my ankle so bad I nearly dropped him. Never had any bruises around. No rash, or swelling. Nothing visibly wrong. When I seen the doctor for my ankle (as mentioned above--the one after the back surgery), I had some high hopes. But those were dashed. He was quick to claim it was tendinitis. That's fine, that wasn't a problem for me. The problem was that he wants me to do physical therapy. I just can't.
He wanted 6 months of PT, and to do it 3 times a week. To start, that's more visits then my insurance will cover. I'm only allowed 25 visits per year. And I had already used up 8 visits when doing PT for my back. So that left 16 visits. Just a little over a month's worth of ankle PT available. Well, that isn't the only problem. The PT for my back cost me way too much. I don't know how they figured out the price, but for those 8 visits, I owed them $400. That comes out to be $50 a visit after insurance. If insurance even covered all the visits.
Now let's do some math here for the 6 months of ankle PT--
One month--4 weeks--3x week--
So..one week of PT--$50(per visit) x 3(visits per week) = $150
Since there's 4 weeks to a month--$150(weekly cost) x 4(weeks in one month) = $600
That's just one month. For one month of the prescribed ankle PT it would cost me $600!! Which means to do the entire 6 months, it would cost $3600. Hell, my back surgery cost less then that ($75). See why I don't jump to do the PT? I can't even afford one week worth of it.
He also gave me some other medicine to take in combination. I did take that daily as prescribed. It was a different type of NSAID. You would think if it was just tendonitis, things would be normal by now. I have it in my knees and those are just fine.
Another thing that's troubling about my ankle is nothing takes the pain away. Nothing even takes the edge off. Not even a tiny bit. I know this because I'm taking pain medicine and muscle relaxers throughout the day for my back. Right now it's Tramadol on most occasions, sometimes the pain is so bad I take a Percocet. I don't remember the name of the muscle relaxer. I want to say it's Flexeril. Yep it is, just Google searched it to be sure I had the name right. Anyway...Taking those daily, it does nothing for my ankle.
My ankle hurts more when standing or walking. I can't balance on that side. I can't shift all my weight to that ankle (as you do sometimes when standing for long periods, generally people will shift their weight to one side). I can only shift it to my left side.
Ugh I just want these pains to go away! Heck, I'd be happy just to know what's causing it.
Signed,
Super Mom
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