Chaos and Conundrums of Health Kerfuffles

It's been a bit since I have updated so some things have changed. On August 7th, I went for my reevaluation with the family doctor. We realized that my dizziness is coming from two different avenues.  The wavy dizziness is coming from my neck and the spinning dizzy is coming from my blood pressure being out of control. Dr. Sandy increased my blood pressure medication to get the blood pressure under control and put me off work longer until I can be reevaluated on 8/16/19 and that will allow the medication to take effect and for me to go to two more PT appointments. After the doctor appointment I had to stop and get my blood drawn for my kidney doctor and a urine test. The urine test showed that I have a kidney infection which is not good with the kidney issues I have. I started taking antibiotics. The blood tests showed that my parathyroid hormone level should be between 15 - 65 pg/mL and its actually at 108.5.  The nephrologist called me and I have to stop taking certain med...

Steve drove me to physical therapy today and the new therapist is about 90% sure that I do not have vertigo and is in agreement with the other therapist that it is my neck and most likely from computer work. I have been given therapy exercises to do at home 5 to 6 times a day at least 10 times each and I will see my new therapist next Monday and Wednesday.  I will not be released back to work on Wednesday as I was hoping. While I am upset about missing all of this work, I am seeing it in a positive light at this point. Perhaps, it happened for the right reasons. I was being told to slow down, adjust to my new lifestyle, learn about my kidney disease, learn how to eat correct, and focus on myself and my family. Nothing like the scare of a stroke to change one's thinking.

I've been avoiding this, not because I don't care, but because I'm not sure of what to say. Patti has been a rock through all of this. Don't let her claim otherwise. I've always had a different approach to crisis. When everything is in good hands, my attention does not need to be there anymore, it needs to be on the mundane everyday things that go on in the background. One example of this from years ago... an ambulance was called for someone that lived with me. My attention was on them until the paramedics arrived. Then my focus shifted to making sure the cat didn't escape through the front door and that the paramedics had a clear and unobstructed path. Priorities, people! As I'm overwhelmed with all the new information (and it changing almost daily), I tend to handle what I can. I make sure the animals get fed. I make sure the grandson gets to bed properly most nights. I cook most days, clean some days. I find time to try to excel at work and climb my w...

Steve and I met the nurse to discuss my diet.  I am down another TWO pounds.. read it again TWO pounds in three days. That is a total of over NINE pounds in a little more than a week. She was proud of me when she looked at my food journal. So she specializes in diabetic diets and I have a special diet due to my kidney, I am low protein, low phosphorus and low sodium. When I say low protein, we are speaking three ounces of protein a day and almost everything has phosphorus so its been a struggle. People have been extremely helpful but it's a hard diet to understand, I can't switch to whole grain bread or brown rice because those are actually bad for me. Eating more chicken, again bad for me. Certain fruits and vegetables, bad for me. Chocolate and nuts, horrible for me (Don't worry, I figured out a cheat for my mother in law's chocolate torte! There is nothing that will keep me away from that!) Meal planning has been a pain in the ass, eating out horrendous, and I eve...

I have to say there is a positive in here... while being petty and pissy about everything else, I did start changing my diet and I checked my weight when I dropped off my FMLA paperwork at the doctor and from 7/22/19 to 7/29/19 I lost 7.25 pounds so there is a positive.  I know that some of you might be like, "Patti, that is a very small, almost minuscule change... why you celebrating?" Sis, let me tell you, in this turbulent journey, we are celebrating any success that is coming this family's way. 💓💓 Also at this time, I scheduled an appointment to meet with one of the nurse's to discuss the dietary changes that I need to make since I don't meet the dietician until October 1st. I see her on August 1st. I am really looking forward to that appointment. 

Physical therapy at 7:45am on a Tuesday morning and I was up, ready and raring to go. I wanted to do everything that needed to be done. I checked in and met this very upbeat young lady that was going to do my evaluation.  I began my testing and had a few dizzy episodes and she told me that she felt that I didn't have vertigo and that she was going to talk to another physical therapist because in her opinion, it was something to do with my spine and my neck. She felt a lot of inflammation in my neck.She was concerned because vertigo would not give me symptoms such as facial twitching and arm tingling and numbness as well. She also questioned if I had fallen or had been in an accident. She asked if I had been sick in the past few weeks. All the answers to these questions were a big fat no. So now we wait until a new physical therapist can be brought onto the scene and a diagnosis for my dizziness can be found. I have to thank my family for being extremely patient with me and drivi...

I am so excited to see Dr. Sandy. Today is the day that she is going to release me back to work. I am going to work and I am going to drive my car! We get to the appointment and I introduce her to Steve. We talk about my BP, it's getting lower and she is happy about that. She is content with my blood sugar. I am borderline but she tells me to keep eating healthy and I should be okay. She doesn't think that my Anemia is from my kidney disease so she did an blood test for my iron. (She is right by the way, I am taking iron supplements). We get to the reason for the visit and I am excited.. until she tells me that I have to go to physical therapy and she cannot release me back to work until after I do some therapy. She put me off work until 8/7 and she will reevaluate me at that time and oh, I also can't drive... are you kidding me? Yep, sure as shit is serious as all get out. I am off work and going crazy. I am dizzy, can't drive, cooped up in the house, making everyone...

Who knew what could cause my vertigo to act up? Well I was about to find out. I thought they were being a bit melodramatic when they put me off work for the rest of the week and told me that I couldn't drive. On Wednesday after being release from the ER, Steve had to drive me to Walgreen's to get my Meclizine for the Vertigo. On the way to the pharmacy, he had to stop fast and that flung me forward a bit in my seat. Let me tell you, that causes a bout of vertigo. I was grateful to be getting the Meclizine. We got to the pharmacy and I was never more grateful in my life to take medication. It helped and gave me so much relief. I didn't have another issue until the next day. Tyler was napping and I thought I would get a nap in at the same time so I curled up to catch some Z's. I rolled over and bam.. another episode of vertigo. I was laying there like I was on a rolling wave and my ship was going down and he was waving at me from the other room in his crib. All I could ...

Monday morning, I am feeling good and it's a new week. I hit the ground running. I go see the GYN and he is awesome! He tells me that the cysts on my cervix do not look like cancer but he is going to do a pap and an internal ultrasound on 8/21 to be sure but not to work. Great doctor's appointment, I am happy and feeling good and head to my office. I have supervision and then begin typing case notes. Bang, all of a sudden I am dizzy, feeling like I am going to pass out, pain in my chest, my arms are tingling and numb, facial twitching. Amazing Stacy comes to sit with me and she can't find my pulse right away (lol great I died!). I really think it's time to go to the ER. I am not taking the BP meds so we can't blame them anymore. My boss is amazing and drives me to Borgess where Danni is the first to arrive to meet us and Steve soon after. The hospital begin running test on my end organs because of my blood pressure. They are worried that I have end organ damage wh...

July 18th.. a typical Thursday? Not in our lives. Today I had an ultrasound scheduled at the hospital for 9:00am and then a 10:00am appointment with the nephrologist (that is the coolest sounding word.. it should be a different doctor though..more fun than kidney). I arrive at the hospital on time and decide I can get all my blood work as well since I will have time and I am already there. I check in at the outpatient kiosk. It was a pretty cool experience however, I am a bit salty because I really think we are taking people's jobs away and it takes away the customer service. After checking in on time, they made me report to registration and hand in all my insurance information again where they detain me for 25 minutes. Finally at 9:25am, they send me to my ultrasound where the check in lady is upset that I am arriving late. I am flabbergasted because I was on time but detained! I go back for my ultrasound and she can only complete half of the test because I have to get to the ne...

So at the doctor visit on June 28th, my fabulous Dr. Sandy prescribed me the almighty blood pressure medication called Amlodipine. I took that for several days before I started noticing tingling in my hands and feet and then my feet and ankles began swelling. I have never had a reaction to a medication before but this was crazy. We called the doctor and they switched me to Lisinopril. 

So the bad news is over and I am relaxing again.. getting used to the news that I have one good kidney. Okay, so I am not getting used to the news but I am kinda dealing with it, you know, crying off and on. It's a Friday morning and I have a visit with the family doctor for a minor issue that is NOT kidney or thyroid related. I wasn't going to share but well screw it.. this is so trivial at this point but important I suppose. I got a plantar wart from a hotel pool when I had been traveling for work. I had tried OTC remedies and I couldn't get rid of it, it just kept coming back. Well, if you ever hit your deductible and it's only June.. yep you guessed it.. you get everything possible taken care of medically. I check in with my new family doctor that I never met before. Steve and I had just transferred to the practice in February. I go into the room and my vitals are taken, I explain why I am there and they get the doctor. The doctor starts freezing the wart (for any...

Fast forward to the present... In October 2018 I was in a car accident and shortly afterwards I moved some furniture. I started having some lower back pain on the left side. Steve and I thought that I might have pulled something in my back. I couldn't take the pain any longer and went to get checked out. I was diagnosed with a kidney infection but I was referred to a urologist. This was confusing and concerning since if it was just an infection. I thought that I'd get antibiotics and be on my merry way. To say that I was scared would be an understatement. Steve and I went to see the doctor in early December. At this point we found out that my test results showed thinning in the ureter and they wanted to see how much function I had in the kidneys. The thinning could be from a stone that they couldn't see, scar tissue, or other reasons. Also the scan showed some other information, and depending on the functioning level, they would decide if the kidney would ...

 ** Disclaimer - This blog is not for us to get sympathy or pity.  Please know that we are always looking for positive feedback and suggestions along the way. However, the journey is confusing and we cannot promise that we can follow all of the suggestions given to us. This is more of a place where Steve and I can put our thoughts down so we can process what we are going through individually and as a couple. This is the first post and it will probably come out like verbal vomit because I have been holding so much inside. I have not wanted to burden many people with my medical problems so I have not shared a lot. The past..  I got my first kidney stone in 1991. I honestly didn't know what it was but it hurt badly. From 1991 until 1997, I suffered so many kidney stones that we stopped counting. There were times that I even had multiple stones in one month. I had stents put in, I had stents removed, I had pain meds.. it was horrible. I even went to Northwest Communit...