Yesterday,
Thursday, we had wet snow and a lot of it. Most places measured 4 inches but
everything was, and had been, so warm when it started a bunch melted. On the
backyard glass table I got a 7 inch measurement and still think more than that
fell because it was almost 40 F when the snow started. Too much for the rain
gauge to keep up with so I don't have a clue to the rain equivalent. A lot
melted today so now it will be slick tonight and expecting more rain/snow
tomorrow. Making up for the drought of last season.
My
new glasses are great but I do not like the bifocal line; I have yet to decide
if it will cause any real problem as there have been other things going on but
it has been nice to be able to see clearly again even if I do have to look
around a line. It does bother my neck a bit because I have to use it more where
I would just move my eyes but now get the line or the wrong lens. Funny, I did
not realize how much I do that.
I
do not recall, nor am I going to look back in my blogs, how much I have
mentioned my eating problems of late. I love food plus am the main food
preparer for a household that has no microwave and uses almost no pre-processed
foods. So, I think about food in one way or another for the majority of my
waking day. It has been making me sick. Yes, even thinking about food in most
cases nauseates me anymore. If I can get past that, I have really bad teeth
since my cancer treatments and it can hurt to chew. Then it goes to the stomach
that really doesn't want it but cares less which way it sends it. If it sends
the food further down, my small intestine seems to like things to hang around
until it builds up enough to force it through my ileum which has seemed to have
turned into some kind of goalie and tries to keep stuff from passing through
without giving it it's painful all. If I don't eat enough food to force more
through it starts to ferment, I assume, and develop a bit of gas which will
push the last bits out if I do not eat more; this can take days. There really
is already "too much information" and what happens when food gets to
the remnants of my large intestine gets graphic but, trust me, it is not
comfortable in any way, nor slow like the small intestine. So from start to
finish, eating has mostly been not worth it. Enough to stay alive is pretty
much all I have been eating; I can't ever remember being weaker in my life.
Then
on Saturday March 9th I couldn't even keep down water. It was time to do
something, I went to the ER in Mountain View. It is a nice place, small hospital, they told me it
would be kind of a long wait. It wasn't that long after they realized I could not sit up for long. I
got a saline drip for dehydration, they discovered I had bottomed out on my
potassium so they gave me some of that.
And they gave me something that made my tummy stop turning; that was
heaven. The blood work also showed something rather humorous if it hadn't meant
I had to go to the West Plains ER to have an ultrasound for something I told
them from the start was NOT the problem. I had a possible positive pregnancy
test. They would do nothing else, and no one else would either, until it was
proven, by visuals, that I was not pregnant. There was no way I could have
been, for three reasons, shy of parthenogenesis and I do not believe it is possible in humans. Okay, so shy of walking out against medical
advice, which certainly would not help my case, I was stuck going to West
Plains (I won't get into West Plains hospital but it is scary). Rather than go
by ambulance, I had Ron come to get me, I had sent him and the kids home hours
before. On the way to get me some idiot dumps a dog on the highway right as Ron
is coming over a hill. They pull off, the dog tries to follow them but… Ron
stops, opens the door, he said the dog looked after the other car as it pulled
over the hill and then jumped in. He is
about 7 months and just got neutered today. Morrigan named him Fire Cloud. He
is going to be a big dog. I curse those people with nightmares. Ron is a sucker
and I told him so; he also knows I would have done the exact same thing he did.
So We travel with the dog to West Plains where it was supposed to take less
than two hours but actually took about five to find out that indeed I was not
PG. Finally, home again and with enough anti nausea stuff that I can drink and
try solids in a few days. Follow up with regular physician.
I saw a doc on Monday, not my regular but at
regular clinic. He took blood. He also mentioned that two of my liver enzymes
were way out of whack in the blood draw at the ER. He prescribed some potassium
and more stuff for my upset tummy and then called in a couple days to tell me
that my liver enzymes were even further out of whack. By this time I was able
too see the test results myself and out of whack was putting it mildly. It was
scary. Since I am sending this to my brother, like I usually do my dad, I will
put in the numbers because my BIL is a doctor.
ALT:
norm 15-37, 1st draw 197, 2nd draw 252;
AST:
norm 30-65, 1st draw 251, 2nd draw 447
Anyone
can see this is a little scary. So they wanted me to have another ultrasound
but this time of some other organs besides my uterus. They saw something and
didn't tell me. I think they should have. In interest of knowing oneself, I
should have been told about this thing they saw--apparently I should have been
told in 2008 when they first found it then told again when they saw it in the
ultrasound and I could have put their fears to rest. I was told about it today
after a CT scan, even though the ultrasound was close to a week ago. I can't
remember what she called it, hema-something, which by the sound of it sounded
like Latin for blood-filled-sack, and the doc told me I was almost spot on. I
have a blood-filled-bubble? attached to my liver, doc says from birth, that
straddles the two lobes of my liver. It is under two inches and they seldom do
anything with them unless they get to be bigger than four inches. I should have
known about this and they should have looked deeper into my gut files but…this
thing has nothing to do with the liver enzymes. My last blood draw, Monday,
showed My ALT at 126 and my AST at 74; not normal but way more normal than it
had been. So, since the "tumor" they thought they had turned out to
not be my rectal cancer spreading to my liver, they figure I must have passed a
gallstone into my liver that blocked things up but then passed out of the liver
by the time they saw it in the ultrasound and CT. I am on for dealing with the
gallstones they also found in the second ultrasound. That seems to be a major
part of the problems I have been having for the last few years that had just
been passed off as remnants of my cancer treatments. On top of that, I have a
hernia at my belly button that is affecting my small intestine and I have been
complaining about pain there for a while now. I am scheduled for surgery on
April 1st; it seems fitting. I could have gotten it done this next week but we
just shot the bull and he is hanging. Next week we need to be cutting and wrapping.
I can't lift but I can cut and wrap.
Well,
that is about it.
