pleasantness and paranoia

In their records, the doctors
keep describing me as pleasant. 
I guess I'm glad.  I wonder
what they write when people
aren't pleasant?  Not that I'm being
paranoid.

Detox Day 6 Humor

I'm doing a 10 day detox plan that my doctor recommended, and this is day 6.  I'm not really hungry because I'm eating around 1500 calories a day (mostly in apples and pears and related juice along with the "medical food" for days 5-7).  I'm not hungry, and I love apples and pears, but I keep finding myself wanting certain foods.  And I found myself laughing at this fun bit from a recent post on the blog of an author I like.

Because I swear to God the entire week has gone like this:

Me (sitting down to keyboard): Okay! Time to write something interesting and amusing.

Brain: SHUT UP AND FEED ME.

Me: I totally just fed you fifteen minutes ago. We had a fruit snack.

Brain: FRUIT SNACK NOT REAL FOOD. IT’S HUMILIATED GELATIN.

Me: Look, Brain, I have work to do.

Brain: NO FOOD NO BRAIN.

- John Scalzi

 Humiliated gelatin.  Heehee.  I could really go for some pudding . . .

young and grey

I am moving much less
like a woman of 60
these days (except for
the left arm, hip, and
lower back), but the silver
is taking over my hair
that much faster.  An 

odd tradeoff, but not 

unwelcome, I suppose.

.

another chiropractic haiku

What do you say when
your chiropractor asks
if you do stand-up?

.

When the crooked become straight

I stumble more off-balance,
off-kilter because I have
been forced on-kilter for the first
time in years.  Because I've been
straightened, I feel more crooked
and uncomfortable like an amnesiac
trying to live a life I don't remember
as my own.

as long as you believe

chiropractor visit two resulted in
pain and less sleep as my body tried
to relax and curl up in its usual ways

and failed most miserably because bones
and joints were properly aligned for the first time

in years, but only once did I wake
in actual terrifying minor agony; after that,
I was on my back all night, twitching

or gasping myself awake when I did
fall asleep (I was recently tested
and found not to have the twitchy leg

thing or sleep apnea).  Pain today
like bands of fire and joints wrapped
in flaming compresses, headaches on

and off and on.  Still I choose to believe
this is pain like the pain of the caterpillar
turning to goop, so it can become

a butterfly, as Miles once said
--maybe in the Warrior's Apprentice, probably
when he was hustling a crowd of unbelievers--

or as I more practically phrased it
to the chiropractor in my head,

"As long as you believe
this will lead to healing,
I will believe in you."

like origami

My first chiropractor folds me
like origami, and my joints are
not his biggest fans.  He promised
not to turn me into a puddle, and he
is true to his word thus far, but
he says there should never be more
than mild discomfort, and this is a problem
because it's rare for there to be less
than mild discomfort at all times
even when he is not creasing me
into a crane.  Can the crane say to the folder,
"Why did you make me this way?"  Here's
hoping I don't need a thousand visits
to get my wish to come true.  I can't possibly
afford that. 

not mother's day

My sweet and amazing friend is pregnant
with a baby without a brain
that will die at birth or soon after.

"Although some individuals
with anencephaly may be born
with a main brain stem, the lack
of a functioning cerebrum
permanently rules out the possibility
of ever gaining consciousness."

I wrote the due date
in my calendar.
May 13th is
Mother's Day, and I
hate that this is so.  Why
couldn't the doctors know that
and pick some random other
not-Mother's Day day?  It's not
as if the exact date matters.  So
why that day of all days?

"There is no cure
or standard treatment
for anencephaly and
the prognosis for patients
is death."

They have decided to carry it to term
and they will love their little incomplete
baby until the day it dies.

"If the infant is not
stillborn, then he
or she will usually
die within a few hours
or days after birth
from cardiorespiratory arrest."

There will be a lot of
broken hearts over this.

"Reflex actions
such as breathing and
responses to sound or touch
occur."

I'm not sure if I wish
the child to be stillborn
to save them
from their little one
responding
brainlessly

to the sound of
mother's voice or the touch
of father's hand.

I'm not sure
they would want
to be saved
from that.




Fair warning I didn't get: the images are disturbing; quotes taken from here.

Hope sproinging eternal in rooms with perceived low ceilings

The sleep doctor has spoken.  I still have some work to do with being disciplined enough to get up when I'm supposed to no matter how tired I am (because I will always be tired, and lying in bed NOT sleeping for an extra half hour will not make me any less tired).  However, if I can't get this pain and nerve weirdness under control, it will keep waking me up a lot every night and interrupting what sleep I can get.

So I went to see a pain specialist.  He is very aggressive, has an idea for a diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome (TOC), which, like chronic pain, is kind of a divisive diagnosis in the medical community.  Some believe it's real; others don't.  Of course I couldn't have a single, definitive, concrete diagnosis!  What were you thinking, you silly person?

Next up is a fight with OWCP about another EMG.  EMGs are extremely unpleasant.  Seriously unpleasant.  And he wants me to have it done for both arms, something that should have been done the first time to establish a baseline.  (Now that my right hand is falling apart, it might actually show something worse than the left, so I think it will not be useful as a baseline.)  Oddly enough, the MRI was approved right away; it's kind of eerie, actually.  I'm not sure what to do with this unexpected lack of a predictable road block.  The new doc seems unfamiliar with OWCP, which could be a good thing.  He might not know what can and can't be done, so he might be able to accomplish impossible things through sheer force of will.  More power to him for having the forward momentum going! 

If it gets approved, I'll have to schedule it late in the day because I will not be able to go back to work after I have it done.  I won't even be able to drive myself back home to curl up into a twitching ball for the rest of the day. 

At least my arms are in really bad shape right now.  (Your prayers for the bad spell's continuation until after the test would be appreciated, oddly enough . . .)  If something's torn or whatever in the nerves, it might be more likely to show up now, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for the simple result.  If it's not TOC, I'm sure this doctor will keep looking.  He wants a real, solid diagnosis; he seems to think I really want one, too.  Sometimes I think it would be good to have one: when someone asks, I could tell them something more concrete than "chronic pain and probably something tiny and irreparable torn in my wrist."  Maybe I would care more about a diagnosis if I expected it to be something curable, but I don't.    The good thing about low expectations is that you often get pleasant surprises . . .

I also don't expect OWCP to accept any new diagnosis without a fight.  The good news is that, as I mentioned earlier, this new doctor seems like he'd be willing to wade into the fray and give them a fight.

Messing with My Head

We are trying to fool my brain here, so shhhhhh; don't tell it.  While we do that, we have a lot more time not spent in bed being annoyed about not being asleep, and we can write more.  Hooray!

The plan is that, since I get 6 hours of sleep or less on average, we will only let me be in bed for 6 hours.  This will make my brain know we mean business, and it will have to get really efficient to get close to 6 hours if I'm only in bed for 6 hours.  Then, once it learns to, you know, sleep while in bed, we can increase the time I spend in bed and also increase my amount of sleep. 

This is the theory. 

Let's see how stubborn and ornery my brain is in practice . . .

A not-unpleasant visit to a doctor (it happens sometimes)

I went to see an ENT, and he was one of the best doctors I've ever encountered.

• He actually read the forms I filled out.  Seriously.  I didn't slave away on useless paperwork I've already filled out a million times only to have it not even looked at.
• He asked a lot of questions.  And listened to the answers.  However, I think I've learned that if he asks the same question more than once, it means I'm giving the wrong answer.  It was kind of like those online applications that ask the same questions to try to trick you into being inconsistent, so they don't actually have to spend human time screening applicants.  Only not.  So, yes, apparently, I strain when I talk and sing.
• He did not immediately prescribe expensive medication.  Any time I can walk out of a doctor's office with instructions to drink more water and sometimes Gatorade and use a nasal saline rinse (recipe provided with an emphasis on the need to use pickling salt instead of table salt), I feel I have not been ripped off.
• He pointed out that I had a big gob of lotion on my face.  He said, "Oh, and I guess my nurse was too much of a coward to mention this, but you have a big blob of lotion on your face."  He also wiped it off.  Mortification . . . 
• He did not act like he knew everything after our 45 minutes together.  When I asked him if he thought all these other problems meant that at least I didn't have acid reflux, he said, "I have no idea.  You have so many other symptoms, we'll have to try to clear them up before we can even figure that out."
• He gave a follow-up time frame.  He said, "Try these simple things.  Come back in three months, and we'll see if we're on the right track.  Then we can talk about whether or not you have other problems."
• He hates my voice recognition software.  We sat in companionable silence as he typed up his notes right then and there after talking about how frustrating it can be to use the Dragon voice recognition software later.  It's bad for his blood pressure, too.  I can see why since he does not have a calm, even, boring NPR announcer voice with no emotion or inflection.

If all doctors were as helpful, compassionate, and competent as him, I think people wouldn't hate going to the doctor.  They would feel like they had an ally interested only in helping them heal.  Whoa.

Have you ever seen a doctor that restored your faith in the medical/healing professional?