disconnect

Maybe you have noticed, maybe not, but I am not feeling like the blogger I used to be. Maybe I am enjoying life too much, or it's just too full to find the time to sit and chat. Maybe not. I am busy, and every moment is full of teaching, sewing, knitting, making rosaries, cooking, almost never reading real books but definitely reading blogs {wink}, and trying not to drive any more than necessary to get the two youngest kids where they need to be.

I often feel that if this was a handwritten journal, I would use it more, but even though my Mac Mini and keyboard are rather small, they don't fit in my lap, no matter how hard I want them too. The monitor definitely doesn't. And the Kindle just doesn't cut it for blogging. On the Kindle, I have to type in html version, and I refuse to write code to blog.

I don't plan to stop writing for good, but the bottom line is, I guess, the computer is hard for me to sit at for very long. I mentioned a while back that I have an achy tailbone, and nothing has changed, though I am still searching for some answers to some health questions.

Last week was an interesting one. I saw two doctors I had been waiting quite a while to see. The first was a rheumatologist. My family doctor had run some blood work (which revealed hypothyroidism) and I had a positive test result which had her sending me to a rheumatologist. I am grateful that he found nothing to be concerned about, and after "donating" ten or more tubes of blood, he saw nothing in the blood work to be concerned about. He thinks the positive ANA test (the one my family doctor ran) and symptoms are all due to the thyroid levels being low. The synthetic thyroid hormone is slowly bringing my levels back to normal. My doctor just increased my dosage and hopefully within another month or so they will be back to normal. Then I'll have to wait and see if the achy joints go away. Maybe that's why my tailbone aches, maybe not.

The other doctor was a uro/gyn. Four years ago, a different uro/gyn operated on me to remove my prolapsed uterus, and put all the parts that had moved back in place (that was really unscientific, but that is what he did). I can't see the same doc because of insurance changes, but the doc I did see is in very high demand and I can see why. She is the first doctor who has ever said "I won't treat you unless I know what you have and why." Most doctors just want to throw a drug at you and hope your symptoms go away. It's only when drugs don't work, that they dig deeper and look for a cause.

The first thing she did, after looking at my history, the records from the other doctor, and asking me a few questions, was to tell me she doesn't think I have IC. For two years, I have believed I had IC and that was what was causing my pain, so I was very shocked to hear she doesn't think that is the root of it. We talked about the nerve pain in my leg (diagnosed as meralgia paresthetica by a neurologist) which I had during my last pregnancy and then right after my surgery four years ago. After a recent adjustment of my lower back and hips, my leg flared up and has been ten times more painful than ever before. So there has to be a connection, but what? She also asked me about the statin drugs I have been on for several years. I told her I went off of them briefly because I thought the nerve pain might be connected, but she said I need to be off much longer than a couple weeks. She is also sending me for an MRI of my back and hips. She feels sure there is a connection there. She feels the urinary pain is being caused by pelvic floor muscle spasms.

So more questions, and few answers. The hope is that after the MRI results show what is causing the pain, physical therapy will help.

In the meantime I am unlearning all those things I learned when I thought I had IC, like no tomatoes, orange juice, more than a cup and half of coffee a day. I'll be curious to see if adding some long-avoided foods back makes any difference in how I feel.

My family doctor, upon hearing the uro/gyn wants me off statin drugs asked me to try another non-statin medication to control hereditary high cholesterol. I picked up samples on Friday and tried it for the first time Friday night. I woke up with stomach pain, but it wasn't much and I went back to sleep. Saturday I took it and woke up an hour later with my heart pounding. It felt like it was going to pound out of my chest. I thought maybe I had a bad dream but didn't remember it so, I prayed some Hail Marys and went back to sleep. I woke up 15 minutes later and it was still pounding, so I took my pulse (thank goodness iPhones have stopwatches) and it was around 90. Not normal sleeping pulse, but not off the charts either. So I went back to sleep and woke up about 15 times through the night with a pounding heart. I almost had my husband take me to the ER but he had just come home at 1:30 a.m. from being at the ER with his dad. And I had this feeling that it was the new medicine. I'll never take it again and it (and my father-in-law's episode in the ER) renews my belief that medications are not the answer for most maladies. We are a culture that is medicating ourselves to death.

So (short story long), even if I am not here, in this virtual space, my friends, know that I am here, in this real space, and I'll occasionally try to share some bits and pieces of our ups and downs.

A baby quilt that went to this little man. 

Oh my gosh, he is so cute.