RIP...And The Important Word Is PEACE

I read the obituaries every day. Actually, I read two sets of obits...the ones where I live now and the ones from my hometown. I have to read the ones from back home, as there is no one to let me know if anyone I am acquainted with has passed. Sadly, I fully expect to READ a relative's name before being TOLD by a family member, first. This is one of the first activities I do after turning on the computer every day.

When reading the obits, I focus on a couple of things: Age and cause of death. Obviously, as one gets older, the age someone dies becomes more relevant. And the cause of death hits close to home, especially after The Husband's passing. And this makes me ponder...

So many people die because of cancer. So many obits mention a person's 'courageous battle' against this horrible disease. And I really can't relate, as The Husband went so quickly after his diagnosis. There was nothing we could do to 'fight' the cancer...it was too far along and he had too many other health issues. And, God forgive me, I think I am grateful.

Before anyone thinks too poorly about me, let me explain. First, after his diagnosis, he was hospitalized rather quickly. He was coming up on the completion of his second year of dialysis and things were not going as well as they should have. His access sites were not cooperating...he was in and out of the hospital having his chest wall graft 'fixed' far too many times and he was trying to heal from having a perma-cath placed, once again. The last day of dialysis at the dialysis center, found him having to be sent to the hospital because his blood pressure had bottomed out, once again. This was an on-going problem for the last days of his life and he didn't get a full dialysis treatment for over a week before he passed. I do believe this hastened his death. How much the cancer had to do with any of this, who knows.

I know--to a certain degree--what some people go through while in cancer treatment. I cannot imagine how difficult life would have been for us if he had started chemo. With two very serious illnesses, one would constantly be interfering with the other. He would have had to do dialysis right before chemo so that the dialysis wouldn't clear all of the drugs from his system before they could actually DO anything for the cancer...and then he would have to go and have his blood 'cleaned,' again. So, there would have been no rest for him, at all, as he was having dialysis three times a week. The week he was home between the diagnosis and his being sent to the hospital, was extremely depressing for us both. He was used to being able to go out-and-about whenever he wanted and having the weakness that he did was very hard on him. I don't know how much he could have taken...or WOULD have. I think there would have been a time when he would have just stopped treatment altogether; I remember when he started dialysis and he talked about people who quit, and he said he understood.

I have to keep myself from feeling guilty...I know that I helped hasten his death with decisions I made. At the end, he was not coherent enough to make any medical decisions and I had to use my power of attorney to decide what was to be done. I finally had to say 'enough.' Just before he was sent to hospice care, his perma-cath was removed...this meant no more dialysis. This also meant only--at most--two more weeks of life. As he was so weak, he passed in less than 24 hours, peacefully. I HAVE to keep telling myself that I did what was best for him. Thankfully, The Daughters were on board with all decisions and we made them together.

We all make choices every day...some are easier than others. Not everyone has to decide when someone is to live or die, thankfully. It is something that isn't forgotten...

Doctors, Doctors, and More Doctors

As we age, we will all face the inevitable...having to find a new doctor. And it isn't fun...

The first doctor I lost was my GYN. He had delivered The Youngest and kept me as a patient until he retired. We were very close in age...he was a couple of years older than me...and we had a great rapport. I would go in for my annual physical and we'd sit and talk 'computers' for the first half of the visit and THEN get down to the nitty gritty. I STILL miss him and it's been well over 15 years.

The next doctor I had to replace was my primary care/internist. It took us a little while to 'get' each other, but after that, we had a wonderful relationship. I couldn't have asked for a better, kinder, more understanding doctor. He was about 5 years older than me and that helped our relationship, along with him being one of the best diagnosticians ever to wear a white coat! And over 10 years ago, he decided to become a hospitalist and left private practice. That day, I think I actually cried. Since then, I have gone through two more doctors (for primary care) and am now on my third...

I haven't yet seen my new doctor. She just took over my case when the last doctor left, earlier this month. I was happy to hear from other people that she is just great and couldn't wait until my October appointment to meet. That's pretty much been the way things have always happened with new doctors.

Now for a little segue...

I have thyroid issues...hypothyroidism, to be exact. This means my thyroid is underactive and I have been on meds for many years due to this. I regularly go for blood work to make sure everything is being regulated properly. When my 'numbers' are high, I need more meds...and when my numbers are low, the dosage needs to be lowered. Rarely do my numbers drop low enough to lower my dosage...except recently. For some reason, earlier this year, my numbers went WAY low, so I have had my dosage lowered three times in order to get myself back to where I should be. Last Friday it was time for more blood work, to see how I was doing. I was waiting to hear from the nurse at the doctor's office to tell me what my dosage will be for the near future and was anticipating having to make a call to the office to get the results, if they didn't come soon enough. And then I got a surprise...

Yesterday, late afternoon...5:30, to be exact...I got a phone call. It was my new doctor! She called me herself to give me the results* of my blood work and to discuss where we are going from here. She had my chart in front of her and we talked about what we'll need to discuss at my next appointment and what blood work I need to have done beforehand. I was absolutely gobsmacked! Rarely do doctors make their own calls, especially for something as routine as thyroid results, so I was very pleased. She was so very nice and pleasant...I think this is one doctor I will be able to work with! Fingers crossed... (She is young, so I hope she'll stay here for a good long while!)

*My numbers are still a little on the low end, so I need a bit of a lower dose. Instead of changing the dosage completely and dramatically, the doctor now has me on a full pill six days a week and a half pill one day. We'll make additional adjustments in October if there is a need...

Fatigue

When I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, it answered a lot of questions for me. Along with the psoriasis, the comorbidities certainly follow along with many of my health issues. While PsA shares a lot of the same symptoms as other forms of arthritis, one thing is more prevalent with PsA, and that's fatigue. Which I have...

I've suffered from different amounts of fatigue practically my entire life. My sleep habits have always been erratic...I never wanted to go to sleep and once I was sleeping, I never wanted to get up. This didn't work well when I was in school, or after having kids. So, fatigue was my constant companion.

It seems as if I 'do' resolutions several times a year. I vow to myself to get on the 'right' track and get better sleep/better nutrition/better exercise, etc. Once again, a few weeks ago I made my vow. While my nutrition didn't get THAT much better, I actually started to be a lot more active. I got my 'active minutes' done and got my 'daily steps' in for a couple of weeks. (Fitbit users will understand...😀) It felt good to have that accomplishment under my belt, but I found out that my knee joint wasn't too happy with me pushing things too far and too fast. It got to the point where I couldn't 'push through' the pain and I had to back things down. DAMN!!! Even my scheduled Cosentyx injection and the CBD oil weren't making things better, so I had to slow down the activity a lot. And I think I regressed...

For the past two weeks I have slowed down to a crawl, in terms of my activities. I do what I have to do, go where I have to go, and move from one room to the next, and that's about it. And the fatigue has set in with a vengeance. This past week, I have slept almost as much as I have been awake...and I still don't have trouble falling asleep when I get comfortable. UGH!

So, what has all of this done for me? Well, for one thing, most of the time I feel as if I'm in a sleep fog...my brain feels heavy, my eyes burn and don't 'feel right,' and my body is achier than usual. Fun times. I'm thinking I'm having a flare and this episode of extreme fatigue will pass, as has happened at other times. I have to believe.

Having health issues is one thing when you have someone with you at all times, but when you are alone, it can be very scary. I'm doing okay here by myself, but only because the house is on one level. I go into the basement when I need to and no more often than that. I had so many plans for the basement, but at this point, they are being put on hold. I wanted to put a sauna down there and set up a craft/sewing room and set up an exercise room, but that isn't happening any time soon. It's enough that my long-term pantry is down there and that the overflow from my kitchen cabinets is there...that is why I have to go down those steps as often as I do. But, I don't go down there voluntarily, as often I thought I was going to. And as the saying goes, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." And life goes on...

And This Will Pass...

The Husband is sick.  I don't know if I ever feel more helpless than when a loved one of mine is sick.  I never know what to do unless the person is undeniably sick or injured and HAS to be seen by a doctor.  Everything that is going on with him points to some sort of influenza or stomach/'flu'...he has the chills, nausea, a bit of a cough, fever.  Most of the time I wouldn't think twice about letting him 'ride it out,' but with his underlying kidney disease, I don't know if we are supposed to aggressively treat any illness.  Of all of the questions we have asked his health 'team,' we never asked about 'normal' illnesses and what he should do if he came down with one.  We will call his doctor's office in the morning and get through this mini crisis...and when we meet with his nephrologist next week, you can be sure we will be asking many questions.

Yes, I'm Still Alive

It has been a year and a half since I posted and quite a bit has happened.  I will try to be brief.  (HA!)

--The last day of January, a year ago, The Husband put in his retirement papers.  The first day of April, he was done.  He was going to keep working for another couple of years, but things at the power plant changed.  First, we weren't sure exactly how long the plant would stay open and it seemed as if the news was different every few weeks.  Instead of worrying continuously about when the work would end, he just decided to retire.  Also, his oldest niece--a couple of years younger than us--died on the day that he put in his papers.  This was a BIG influence in his decision...why put off til tomorrow, etc, etc, etc.

--No sooner had The Husband retired, we decided to build a new house.  The beginning of May we signed the papers and approved the plans for the house to be started.  We had our old house demolished the beginning of August and the new one was put in place about five weeks later.  (We had a custom-made modular built.)  We finally moved into the house the end of the first week in October.  It was quite interesting to try and pack up and move 38+ years worth of possessions, but we did it--with a LOT of help from our girls and their families.  While we are moved in and pretty well established, the basement is FILLED with boxes that still need to be unpacked.  I hope to live long enough to do the work.  ;)

--And the biggest news of all is that The Husband's health has deteriorated.  In 2006 he was diagnosed with IgA nephropathy and was stable until August.  He has been getting worsening blood test results and he is on the fast track for dialysis/kidney transplant.  We don't know when either will happen, but it looks as if he will begin dialysis probably before summer.  We are hoping to find a donor for a live-organ transplant, but don't know if that will happen...we are just beginning to get things started with the transplant team and aren't very far into the process.  I have been hopeful that I will be able to donate one of my kidneys, but with my own health issues, I don't know if I would be eligible.  We'll have to see what happens.

--Talking about my health:  The scare that I had about my heart a year and a half ago turned out to be nothing.  Things went from bad to worse and worser still before I finally got to see a cardiologist in person, which was about 6 weeks after I first was told there was a problem!  I went in for the appointment and the doctor told me that, after looking at all of my tests, he couldn't find anything wrong with me.  While I DO have some sort of anomaly with my heart rate, it doesn't seem to be anything to worry about and shouldn't cause me any problems.  Then he told me, "Basically, pretend none of this ever happened."  Okay, this was wonderful news, but I couldn't help but be pretty pissed off that I had to go through such stress over, basically, nothing.  However, I have moved on...

--The worse part of all of the health thing with me is the fact that I had to stop all exercising until I was given a cleanish bill of health.  With all of the stress I was under, I turned to my favorite coping method, eating.  That combined with no exercise did nasty things to me...namely weight gain...and got me completely back into old, bad habits.  Pretty much all of the great work and results from my time at the gym are gone.  I have no one to blame but myself, but it is a great disappointment.

--And finally, my Red Wings are doing okay.  They could be doing better and also could be doing a LOT worse.  We are on the downside of the season and just hope they will continue to do well and make it into the playoffs.  I'm really starting to dread the off season...there is no life without hockey.

Hey people, it looks as if I may be back!

Life Changes

I'm back because there are some big time changes going on in my life--and they very possibly will be permanent.  I really haven't been happy trying to come to grips with what has been happening and I think if I write everything down, it'll be easier for me.  So, here goes:

Earlier this year the internist I wound up with after my all-time favorite doctor left private practice, retired.  Of course, they never found a replacement for her and I was 'passed on' to another doctor in the practice until someone permanent could be found to take me on.  I saw the physician's assistant one time to discuss my thyroid--which has been wonky for almost a year--and was to see him again in September.  Before this appointment happened, I was passed-on to another doctor and saw her physician's assistant for a 'get to know you' appointment, along with a review of my labs.  And here is where my story really begins.

I was very impressed with the PA.  She spent an hour with me and she looked over my records for the past several years.  One thing she went over closely was the report that came from my wearing a Holter monitor a couple of years ago.  My heart rate was quite low, so in order to rule out 'whatever,' this test was done.  Nothing was found to be of concern and life went on.  Until last month.  The PA looked at the report and said she saw an anomaly on the EKG readings and wanted to investigate it further.  And so an appointment for a stress echo was set up.

I guess I have always been waiting for some form of heart problem to show up with me.  I have far too many risk factors:  I am overweight, lived most of my live in a pretty sedentary manner, don't eat the foods I should, was a smoker for 30 years, have relatives with heart problems, and am a Finn.  So this wasn't unexpected--I just was surprised that no one had thought it necessary for me to have a stress test before now.  Anyway, off I went to the hospital to have a look-see at my heart.

I was a bit nervous about doing a stress test.  I guess I thought that I was to practically run on a treadmill for quite a few minutes in order to get and keep my heart rate up to the 160-170 range.  As it turned out, they only needed the rate to be in the 130's, but it needed to be at that point while they did they ultrasound of my heart.  Because my heart rate recovers so quickly, I needed to walk the treadmill until my rate was about 160 and then everything happened very, very fast. By the time I got back on the table, my rate had gone so far down that they barely had time to get the pictures--but get them, they did.  Turns out, the pictures looked good, but the EKG showed quite a problem during the period of stress.  And this is where things started happening fast and furious.

I was put on a medication--a beta blocker--to keep my heart rate from going too high.  Also, my MD's office was making arrangements for me to have an appointment with a cardiologist.  Of course, all of this happened on a Friday, so nothing was going to be resolved until the following week.  It was recommended that I restrict my activities and try and go on with my life.  Easier said than done!  I started out as a fairly healthy person a couple of weeks earlier and now I was told that there was something pretty significant going on with my heart, but I was supposed to stay calm and act normally.  Right.

In the middle of all of this,I began to have stomach pains.  I ignored them as much as possible, but on the fourth of October, I couldn't anymore.  At 5:00 AM I found myself in the ER with what I thought were heart attack symptoms.  While everyone agreed that it was more than possible that I was having a heart attack, it turned out to not be one.  (For the rest of the weekend I was in bed, sick, with a fever, stomach pains, no appetite--all pointing to a stomach bug, NOT a heart problem.)  However, to be safe, the cardiologist on-call looked over my test results along with the results of my stress echo.  This brought on a whole other bunch of things for me to cope with.

Before I left the ER, I was put on ANOTHER medication, This time, a calcium channel blocker.  Again, they don't want my heart rate to go too high.  I also got some nitroglycerin pills, in case I should have chest pains.  Also, I was to have a coronary CT to see what was going on with my heart.  (Thankfully, this was instead of a cardiac catheterization, which they thought I needed in the first place.)  And I went home.

The following week found me back to the hospital for the CT and getting the report from all of the tests.  Right now, the diagnosis for me is printzmetal angina.  Yippee!  This is something that is quite uncommon and it seems as if I have very uncommon symptoms on top of everything else.  I won't be seeing the cardiologist until the 3rd of November, so I won't be able to find out how this conclusion was reached.  My internist's office seems to agree with the diagnosis, so until something different comes up when I see the cardiologist, I guess I have angina.

Of course, I wound up at my internist's office again this past week.  I have been having some side effects from the two new meds that I've been put on, so they had to be addressed.  One of the problems I've been having is swelling of my feet, ankles, and lower legs.  This is a common side effect of the calcium channel blocker, so I was put on a different medication in the hopes that I won't swell quite as badly.  And it hasn't helped--as a matter of fact, I seem to be worse than I was.  And all this leads to another call to the doctor's office tomorrow and, most likely, a different drug to try.  This all probably will change when I see the cardiologist.  I'm thinking he just might take me off of most--if not all--of what I'm on today and start from scratch.  I do believe I will be put back on a statin and I will be on one or more blood pressure meds when it is all said and done.  Other than that, I'm not sure what will happen.

All of this has my feeling a bit overwhelmed and slightly scared.  About the only thing I'm sure of is that I will be having regular visits with the cardiologist and my internist for the next 3-6 months until things are worked out to everyone's satisfaction.  I will wind up on some sort of drug cocktail and it will take time to tweak everything so that things will be fine.  At this point--and I realize it is just in the beginning stages--I am not happy with the way things are going.  I am not feeling well and the only thing I can point to are the meds that I'm on.  I can't live a good life if I am feeling like I do right now and the doctor has to realize this.  I don't think the solution to this is going to be easy OR quick.  And I'm not too happy with the journey I am about to embark on.