I'm Dying

(My apologies to folks who read part of this story already when it was up at this site. Just consider this a recap)

I'm all kinds of dramatic. I know this about myself. What's funny is that I tend to be like most people and will go crazy over a stubbed toe that is clearly an indicator my complete lack of balance and potential inner ear disorder. Yet, it took me 6 weeks to actually go to a doctor for a dry mouth. Mostly because, seriously, who goes to the doctor for a dry mouth? So if we back up from the time that I wrote that post, I have been having problems with my mouth since July 1st or so.

August: I pay $20 to see my old primary care physician, who looked at the whiteness in my mouth and on my tongue and said, "Why yes. I know what it is. It doesn't look exactly like thrush, but thrush it could be. Take this horrible oral anti-fungal medication four times a day for 14 days." Me: "Uh...ok. I guess I have been on a lot of antibiotics for a while now". The only problem is that anti-fungal medication didn't cure the problem. I called and asked for a refill and took all 192 doses of the next round. Guess what didn't happen? Yep, it didn't clear anything up. I still had a dry mouth and whiteness. It felt/feels like I'm constantly sucking on something sour, only drinking water doesn't make it any better.

September 21st: I pay $20 to see my new doctor at the very large, very prestigious medical school clinic in Houston. She looked at my mouth and said (no, I'm not kidding): "It's not thrush. You have a white film on your tongue and throat that goes away when I scrape it. You have an oral disturbance. I will prescribe an anti-fungal, but it probably won't work". Me: "Uh...what do you mean it won't work?" Her: "It's not thrush, but you can try this. It's a very good anti-fungal, but if it doesn't work, it's because I don't know what you have." Me: "Oh well then" (and like an idiot walked out of her office without asking her to 1)culture my throat or 2)address the back pain that I went into the office for. I will give her credit for one thing, it wasn't thrush and the medication didn't work. I guess I was hoping for some kind of miracle cure.

October 20th: I saw my Ob-Gyn, also at the very large, very prestigious medical college clinic. Since I paid a $45 co-pay to see her for my annual checkup, I ask her to look at my mouth. I figured she'd be swabbing things anyway. She looks at me and says, "Well, I don't see too many mouths in my line of work, but sure, I'll take a look". Then I fell in love with her. We are moving to California after the holidays to raise baby llamas together. But seriously, she cultured my mouth. Three days later she sent me an e-mail (can you see why I love her?) that she FOLLOWED UP with a personal phone call. It's like I've died and gone to Ob-Gyn heaven. Unfortunately, that culture showed yeast, but then again, I asked an Ob-Gyn to look at my mouth. Of course she saw yeast. She's a veritable yeast whisperer. I go back on anti-fungal (the same one as in August) and think, "Maybe, just maybe this magical woman has it in her powers to cure me." Well, she didn't, but she at least referred me to an ENT. Would you believe that insurance companies don't accept referrals from Ob-Gyns for ENTs? The nerve. I had to call my primary physician (the new one) back and ask very nicely for a referral without another office visit.

November 3rd: I see the referred ENT and she's lovely, even if she's not located in the same office building that all the other doctors are in and I have to pay a $45 co-pay to see her. My throat has started to hurt fiercely and there are strange things coming from my nose. I'm pretty sure I'm dying a slow, dry death. She cultures both my nose AND my throat after looking at them both extensively and proclaiming, "My word! Your lymphatic system is completely inflamed. Have you been feeling run down? You look like you'd be feeling run down". To which I answered, "Well, I have this thing...with my throat....and now my nose....and how about you fix it, mkay?" She agreed to my conditions and had her nurse come in to give me instructions. The nurse comes in with a water bottle and a sheet for mixing baking soda and salt in equal quantities to gargle and brush with. The water bottle is supposed to go up my nose where I would squirt 4oz of water and solution into each nasal cavity while repeating, "Kitty, kitty, kitty" over and over so it wouldn't go down my throat. I just sat there staring at the nurse going, "Oh yeah. I bet you love your job". They sent me down five floors to drop off my culture samples in a very large, non-profit hospital in the middle of a damn medical center of office buildings. I confuse easily. I blame my inner ear disorder.

November 6th: ENT nurse calls me and says, "So...it turns out that you don't have an oral yeast infection. You have MULTIPLE EXOTIC STRAINS OF BACTERIA" (direct quote). Me: "What the hell??" Her: "I'm calling in an antibiotic to your pharmacy. Take it for 14 days and call us back." Me: "Wait, I thought this problem started from being on antibiotics." Her: "Umm...I don't know. Just don't call before you finish the prescription"

Today: Day 3 of very-expensive-antibiotic-that-had-no-generic-equivalent. My mouth is worse than ever. Very, very dry and all white. I want to go home and take a nap, but I know that if I do I'll wake up and my mouth will still have bacteria (and not the good kind) growing in it.

Now you have the story about how I'm dying and why I'm completely broke from office visit and prescription co-pays. Moral of the story: ask for cultures the first time, don't see general practioners when a specialist is more qualified, then make sure you see the right specialist, and once you are at said specialist, for the love of God, make sure you confirm that the medication they put you on will have a generic. The end.

New Post

New post up at The Writing Spot.

Not Fun

I decided last night that I'm not fun enough for Carlo. We broke up on the phone during a break from his EMT class. I felt bad that it had to happen then, especially when he was tired from trying to put out a burning building then sitting in class for several hours, but it had been building for a little while.

Here's evidence of why I'm not fun:

1) I'm a single Mom. Raising Zac is one of my first priorities. If you want to get to know me, you are going to have to get to know him. I don't want someone to be a Daddy, or even play Daddy, but they are going to have to spend time with Zac when he's around and awake. He is my the biggest part of my life.

2) I'm getting my MBA. I often have to do homework instead of cuddling on the couch watching a football game that I don't care about. If I am doing that, I'm usually trying to figure out how I can fall asleep and still seem interested.

3) I'm often tired. See reasons 1-2.

4) I'm a baby when I'm sick. I'll still come over and I'll even offer to go out after I've thrown up. I don't want someone to look disappointed - like I haven't given enough. In fact, when I'm sick, I like it when people take care of me and bring me saltines and Sprite and rub my back. I'm the least fun person ever when I'm sick. I admit this.

5) One word: FOB. I'm thinking about filing a law suit against the FOB and wondering where I'm going to get the money for the lawyer's fees and getting the information together for the lawyer.

6) I like being in a relationship. Dating multiple people doesn't really interest me. I'm in fact, a horrible dater because I just want to get to know someone and find out if we are compatible. If I'm dating someone for more than a month or so, I don't want to worry if I use a term of endearment or call them my boyfriend. This also includes saying not hiding my relationship from anyone, on or off the Internet.

I just couldn't be the happy-go-lucky, fun woman that Carlo wanted. I have too much on my mind to try and pretend that I don't and that what's going on in my life affects me. My fun nights are on Saturdays when Zac is at my parents and I'm finished with school for the week. Most weeknights I'll be in bed by 10pm reading a novel and listening to the sound of the rain on CD.

I am kind, caring, supportive, hard-working, and determined, but very decidedly, not fun.

The Halloween Edition

I don't post many pictures of Zac anymore, which is a shame. People who have read me from pregnancy on-ward might think that Zac is permanently stuck as an 18-month old covered in spaghetti. Now he's a growing four year-old that still likes to cover himself with spaghetti.

I think I stopped posting as many pictures when I moved out of my parents' house a year ago and couldn't use their digital camera for everyday shots. Fortunately, I did manage to get a shot of Zac in his Halloween costume on Saturday. He decided to go as a firefighter, which was a change from his initial idea of being Spiderman. The only Spiderman costume that I could find was a cheap polyester that looked like it might suffocate him if it was over his face.




So, fireman it was. Uncle Kevin provided a hat from his crew in New Hampshire when Zac went up to visit Aunt Jen with my parents. Notice the handy plastic axe in his hand, in case he needs to break through any cellophane to rescue a burning stuffed animal. Zac is nothing if not caring, and now apparently well-prepared. Carlo is also a fireman. That means that I have more fireman in my life than most people have hands. It's a little odd, I'll admit.



Last year he went as a cowboy. He still has the hat and he likes to wear it on special occasions. The weekend before Halloween we went to one of his classmate's birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese. Zac decided that he wanted to wear his "handsome" clothes and top it off with his cowboy hat.

He got so very upset when the giant rat, also known as Chuckie, took his hat and wouldn't give it back to him. The poor kid just broke down in sobs and clung to my leg until the rat gave it back and tried to hug him. Meanwhile, I was in the middle of having an anxiety attack. All 150-200 kids in the place sounded like they were being attacked. These were not joyous yelps I was hearing. It sounded like kids were being mutilated and killed. All of the muscles in my body tensed up and I immediately started hurting. Girl Gone South told me that she thought Chuck-e-Cheese was an excellent form of birthcontrol. She might be on to something.

I Just Can't

I can't live like this anymore. I thought it would slow down after the Montessori event (which raised $11,000 - hell ya!), but it didn't. It hasn't slowed down at work or at school. Immediately following the event on Friday I had to finish up the final summary paper for my communications class, prepare and practice for a six minute presentation, and study for a cumulative final in macroeconomics. I can't even really tell you how stressed I was - how stressed I continue to be.

I was up two nights ago until 11:30pm working two grants for Hurricane Ike recovery. They were due at 12pm on Wednesday. Each grant had a complex, 13-page budget and required proposal narrative. They weren't so much grants as works of art, if art had annotated attachments and tax-exempt quotes for building repairs. At the end of a very long day I was hungry and tired. Zac was at my parents' house for what felt like the fiftieth time in two months and I sat eating a bowl of cereal. I went to twitter and just realized that I can't live like this anymore. The constant stress, the comfort food I seek in food as I turn to it over and over, the loneliness and guilt from missing my son, the inability to ever really relax.

The most noticeable effect from alll of this is in my body. I've gained 20lbs since June. When Dew came to take me out to lunch the other day, I had to tell him not to mention how fat I've gotten because I'm a little sensitive about it. I wake up in the middle of the night and find myself eating peanut butter straight from the jar or pourning sugar onto a bowl of already sweetened cereal. I eat without even realizing that I'm eating. Sometimes I don't even remember it until the next morning when I see what's left on the counter or in the sink. I worked hard to lose 30lbs a year ago, and now it seems like nothing I did really mattered. My life is out of my control and there is no greater manifestation of that than eating while asleep.

The only thing that I know is that I can't keep doing this to myself and to my family. I want Zac to know that he doesn't have to say my name over and over just to reassure himself that I'm still there. I want to be there. I want to go on a date and not think about the homework that I should be doing or the grant that needs to be written.

I want me back, and also, I miss her: http://treesandcrackers.blogspot.com/. She left today to go back to Iowa and imagining making it through a day at work just got a little harder.

Oh Thank God

Where was I? When I last posted, I had just sent out 775 invitations to a Montessori event to raise money for my mandatory volunteering gig. A couple RSVPs were coming in a day, but nothing that was blowing me out of the water. I got nervous that we weren't going to have enough people were going to be at the fundraiser so I decided that we'd send out informational packets about our school and the event to parents at other public Montessori schools. Unfortunately, I only had two days to print and staple everything together for 700 packets. Oh, and I've been trying to write and edit grants and occasionally see my son. I'll just say that I haven't been successful at doing everything at once.

At least the event is over. 122 people came and ate donated food and drank purchased alcohol. They listened to speeches and saw Zac and 9 of his classmates performed six songs in English and Spanish. I stepped in the auditorium to hear him perform, only to have him shout, "MAMA!" as soon as he saw me. He started pointing at the pictures showing on the screens behind him and waving to me some more. I left after three songs and missed when he stole the show by taking the microphone from his teacher and asking: "What should I say again?" right into the mic. I'm pretty sure that while he was doing that I was trying to dump water out of the catering trays to take down the buffet. I can't emphasize enough how glad I am that it's over. I feel like I can get my life back to the just mildly crazy schedule, rather than the full-blown, "Holy shit. I need to stop working 13 hours a day."

New Perspective

I finally have the results from my blood test. It took 2 1/2 weeks because the Doctor wouldn't review and release the results. Everything was absolutely and completely normal. I don't have lupus or rheumotoid arthritis. I'm not anemic. When the nurse told me that over the phone that everything looked great, I was disappointed. "Now what should I do?" I asked her, "I'm still in pain". She seemed genuinely surprised about the request. "Hold on," she said, "I'll go ask the doctor". Five minutes later she came with news that my doctor at the time wanted me to go see a rheumatologist, who in the words of Wikipedia we trust, quote: "Rheumatologists deal mainly with clinical problems involving joints, soft tissues, and the allied conditions of connective tissues." I don't even know what the phrase, "allied conditions of connective tissues" means, other than it sounds like the connective tissues of my body got together to unionize to collectively bargain for better working conditions and an increase in pay.

I said no thank you to the rheumatologist, although I'm sure they are very nice people. I instead made one of the biggest switches of my medical journey as a patient: I left Kelsey-Seybold. I've been a Kelsey patient since I moved to Texas. My Ob-Gyn that was there at Zac's birth was a Kelsey doc. My primary care doctor, orthopedist, and dermatologist all work for Kelsey.

I saw a primary care physician at a big name clinic in the Medical Center. After some serious drama that involved me sobbing in the waiting room and begging the receptionist to ask the nurse to reconsider seeing me, I finally saw the doctor. She was nice and very thorough, although ultimately unhelpful. She did a full physical exam and ruled out fibromyalgia because I don't have the classic tender spots that are sensitive to touch. She referred me to an ortho-spinal specialist, possibly for a MRI, but most likely for a "here are some more exercises that you can do to strengthen your core and minimize your muscular-skeletal pain" exam. The referral is being sent to me by mail and will include the name of the doctor that I'm allowed to see. Then I'm supposed to call the doctor's office and make an appointment. God help me if I really was in serious pain. Then what would they do? The new doc didn't give me anything to manage the pain and I didn't ask about it. I did leave with another prescription for the oral fungal infection that has resisted two rounds of treatment with nystatin so far. I'm on week 9 of dealing with a dry, irritated mouth. What to guess how much that sucks? At least it's starting to get a little better.

So, I haven't made any decisions yet about anything. I looked into the possibility of slowing down my graduate degree and only taking one class at a time. Turns out that I'll only be able to do that every other module. I still have the option of taking a module off if the ortho-spinal doc recommends physical therapy or, worse case scenario, surgery. I'm still in the midst of mandatory volunteering and feeling better after sending out 775 invitations to a Montessori event on October 15th. Now I'm just tracking RSVPs and sending out thank you letters. Work is crazy, as always. Zac is good, just a little confused I think about everything that has gone on. I'm still dating Carlo and I'm enjoying spending time with him, even if he likes to pick up weekend, overnight shifts. I'm adjusting to his football rules..slowly. More about that another time.

Right now, I'm moving on and feeling pretty good.