Good Moaning Healing Well V13

Hmmm, I haven't gotten updates in days.....either the threads I was on are through, or I forgot to check "notify me...."

Hope everyone is well....I have had a busy and trying month and haven't had much PC time - I'm doing my best to take care of myself as July/August is usually the beginnings of the "bad part of the year" for me. I've got some joints complaining, but I have to say, this is still the best July I've had in many many years. (knock knock) I just hope and pray this is a good sign and the rest of the year will go better as well compared to the last few 2nd halves of the year where I'm pretty much in tears and barely making it through the days from early July until December/February.

It has been soooo unbelievably hot and HUMID here in SD...it was 105 in the shade Saturday afternoon! We actually had lighting late Saturday night...but, still no relief on the humidity. Though the humidity is uncommon, this high heat is even early as well.

I hope everyone is feeling better......

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I've mentioned some things in passing to my 2 co-workers (one being my supervisor) in conversation, but no - I never brought it up in the interview, I considered putting it down on my application as "disabled" but decided against it not knowing if I needed an official 'label' from the government or something to say that. The boss, I don't think, has any idea. Working only 24 hours has been a big help in helping me take it easy when necessary (and working 30+ these last 3 - 4 weeks really gave me a good reminder WHY I want and NEED only 24!)

My husband is still waiting for me to get sick again and have to quite. He refuses to feel comfortable with my income and saying I work in fear as soon as he does, I'll be out. Though I understand where that is coming from, the negative energy isn't very helpful. He's got enough stresses w/his own health after the June 30th incident and the fact his work is so unstable these days....

How are you doing these days, Erin? You weren't sounding too good at the end of V12.

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Hi all,

Forgive me as I have only been on these boards a few months, but is this thread for general griping, letting off steam, venting about anything, etc?

If so, then I will be back to vent my frustrations.

I don't how much longer I can keep my sanity & humor. Long story short - aside from my lupus flares, 3 yrs ago I started getting back pain, which I never had before. Never thought much of it, but it was getting worse & worse. Sometime in January it all hit hard...a flare and excruciating, nauseating back pains. Finally found out this Feb I  I have DDD, Osteoarthritis, herniated discs, and severe lumbar spinal stenosis. I cant stand or walk for more than about 2 minutes and when I do walk I have to bend way forward at the waist. Have tried every treatment under the sun including Medrol dose pack & epi steroid injections, which only lasted a month. I still work full time, though don't ask me how with all this pain. Now from all this time walking funny, I am getting horrific spasms in my neck, shoulders, even throat and face. I had to stop taking the only med that helped my pain A LITTLE, Vicoprofen, due to developing severe bruising all over my body..so now I have nothing for pain, just my plaquenil for lupus. I already used up most of my alloted physical therapy b/c I had to do that first to see if it would help. Nothing helped & now I need surgery. Was finally ready to schedule surgery, then my Gyno herself calls me and says she's very concerned about my latest Pap and I have to have some colscopy (spelling) and probably biopsy. I cant even get the various gyno appts needed that quickly so I had to delay my spine surgery til late September. (oh, before this when I had my back MRI, they also found a ton of cysts in my ovaries which I still havent had a sonogram for)

Then last week a great friend (neighbor suddenly died of aggrssive kidney cancer). A few weeks ago my old car's blower fan & A/C stopped working;last week an axle broke off one of my wheels while driving and I almost smashed into a fence; I went to call triple A and found my cell phone dead.      Then earlier this week my windows became stuck closed!! THe past couple days I almost felt was going to pass out driving home from work sitting in a closed car that's about 120 degrees. Mind you, I desperately need a new car but cant go to look due to me not being able to walk or stand at all.....but i dont care anymore. Im gonna just have to bear it and look around for one this weekend. My appetite has been lost since mid June and I don't even get hunrgy at all....this is not on purpose, I get nauseous from pain and just have no appetite. And with this, ya'd think I might at least lose a few pounds, but NOOOOOOO.

ANd now my brain's all jumbled & cant remember what else I wanted to let fly <LOL>. Im not even sure if made any sense above. I just don't know how much longer I can stand all this  <screeeeeeaaaammmm>. Well, thats enough from me....at least I got most of it out.

Thanks for letting me get some of this off my chest.

Are you able to take any time off to get some rest, get out of the heat, stretch, and rest your body and mind?

Oh boy, I'm not even equipt to help with advice here - I've been there, though. It's a tough ride to get through. We're here for venting any time you need it!

Erin - so glad you got some rest!!! YEAH!!!

I'm hanging in there....hubby and I are doing okay right now....we'll see how long it lasts. I really don't know if some of our issues come about beause mentally I'm such a mess that I can't let certain things 'roll off my back' like I can do when I'm a little more stable. Who knows......

me? why yes, glad you asked. hehehehehe  i am meeting up with a bunch, 62 to be exact, of old friends tonight from my days as a boy scout.    Yes, boy scout, and no i have not had a sex change operation.    can yalinda be a boys name?  manly yes, but i like it too!  actually it was called explores.... we explored .... hehehehe   ok keep it G rated for general audiences right?

30 years ago marcia brady and i had a common quest and i succeeded!   i havent seen some of these guys in 30 years, crazy!  

 i am looking forward to it ~peps are coming from far and wide i think TX the lone star state might be the furthest? so anyway that is my exciting weekend and i have t minus 2 hours to get ready so tata for now.... tigger aka ~*yalinda  

ps hope everyone else has a good weekend?  i love art therapy

Well Marcia....I mean Yalinda.....ahem...   Have a GREAT time!

<knock on wood> I have been spared the power outage thus far.....we've had a slight break in the humidity....well, not break per se, but it's lightened up a tad.  Nonetheless, when it's over 80 degrees out before 9 a.m.  you KNOW it's going to be one icky day!

I heard St. Louis had/has been going through a 10 day outage? As well as other places around the country. I didn't realize how bad the heat and weather has been globally. WOW.

Erin, you mentioned you slept in a post somewhere.

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 lousy nite.  severe pain kept me up till the wee hours of the morning. ugh!

this is getting way too exhausting.

We went from extreme, out-of-the-ordinary heat and humidity to un-seasonal rain and funky weather. Of course, my joints have been complaining....I just can't win! First it's WAY too hot then it's too cold. Well, it's not exactly cold, but the weather is affecting me that's for sure.

Erin and Yalinda - feel better soon.

Dave, how ya feeling these days?

**

Well good moaning use gize :)

Marcia, those Friday night frolics are gonna get ya!

Erin I am worried about you, because I know you are very sick.

Docs are very powerful in our society. They won't diagnose anything, unless it jumps up and bites their a*ss. Anything they say can and will be used against/for you at some time later. They have to keep the workforce working, else their stock in the "Bunch of Hard Workers Inc." will fall. They are afraid that people will actually try to get SSDI! WHOA, can't have that. Need um working.

Listen to this; I had an infectious disease doctor that ordered a brain mri for me. The imaging place sent me the interpretation. The ID doc got me an appointment with a neurologist. I took the interpretation of the mri with me. The neuro explained all the findings (white matter disease, lesions from strokes. changes in my brain due to small vessel disease (SVD) and each sinus had a growth or something unidentifiable).

Ok, so this ID doc sends me a letter that says all was well regarding my mri, except that I needed to get my sinuses checked out....He didn't realize that the neuro had went over it with me. He also told me that having a chronic, active infection with the EB virus meant nothing, even though the diagnosis sheet said chronic fatigue and arthralgia. Every doc that I mention this ID doc to, says that the guy is the smartest man they have ever seen...He is just too smart to tell patients the truth. I have since found out that having a chronic, active EBV is very serious. It is associated with lots of crap.

What I am really po'ed about, is that I found out that I have had the he*ll irradiated out of me! I have received massive amounts of ionizing radiation (x-ray & Gamma ray) from 8 cardiac catheterizations and the big, big irradiator is the newest "64 slice Coronary Artery CT Scan" that I had in August of last year. This one test gave me 75% of the equivalent amount of radiation that a nuke power plant worker can receive in a YEAR! This is in accordance with the federal rules enforced by the NRC (nuclear regulatory Commission). I worked in this industry for over 20 years.

I read where a cardiac cath is the highest source of radiation a patient can receive, compared to all nuclear medical test. I think this was written before they came out with this "64 slice CT Scan", which is new.

I had 2 stents inserted into my coronary a's about a week after the scan. The more time you are on the cath table, the higher the dose. This is called fluoroscopy. The radiation is emitted from underneath you and a nuclear camera is above you. Basically the x-rays shoot through your body and this camera picks up the images, thus guiding the doc's probe.

I had a cath on a Thursday in one hospital, this March. They said I needed bypass surgery. I asked could it be stented at UAB hospital. They called and chatted with docs at UAB (U of Alabama in Birmingham), and said they could. My lad was 95% blocked and I was in very bad shape (not far from kicking the bucket). The next Tuesday, I spent 1.75 hours on the cath table while they performed rotoblational arthectomy in my left main and Lad. Part of the darn instrument came lose in my Lad!

I was totally conscious, but sedated with a tad of Valium and Versed, an amnesia drug that never works on me. I always remember the caths. So I received a massive dose during 1.75 hours on that table. They had a cath in my femoral artery, and a cath in my femoral vein simultaneously. They had hooked up a pacemaker inside the right part of my heart while working in the left side. Dang, if I had known all this, I would have had the bypass surgery...At UAB, you always have a student doing the work, overseen by an associate professor or professor. The professor told the student to get back from the controls and let him retrieve the lost part of the roto blade. He did and I am alive, I think.

I spent the whole day yesterday researching the radiation deal. I read of cases and saw pictures of what can happen to the skin, lungs and heart. Now I am wondering what this new pain in my chest is. Is it RA or something due to the radiation?

Who is watching over us? No one but ourselves.

I am sorry for this long, off topic rant, but I do feel better telling you my story.

Forgive me and all of you have a great day :)

Rj

P.S. I had another cath about 2 months ago due to chest pain. Nothing had changed...Take a look at these pictures...

http://heart.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/81/3/308

Post Edited (Aldo) : 8/1/2006 8:46:36 AM (GMT-6)

I can't imagine all the pain you guys have. I am ok compared to y'all. I just know that I don't have a long time to hang around. I have too many bad habits and fouled up arteries. That hain't no pity pot talk (it sure sounds like it). It's just statistics....I've already had one heart attack. The old classic kind where you meet your maker and have a lot of very strange pain in your chest, jaw and arm, and you really moan and writhe. It doesn't bother me though. I take one day at a time, like so many .

Rj

 moanin' el.  yeah, we're still alive. i guess i'm making the best of things?

hmmmm...Ducky? she may be in margaritaville. lol. lookin for er' lost shaker of salt.