Tag: health

  • bet my back is more messed up than yours

    I referred to it a little on the 12th but last week, on the 12th, I had a check-up with my orthopedic PA.

    I’m not really sure why I even go. It’s not like there’s more surgery I will ever let them do to me, even if my neck discs are seriously degenerating.

    The photo above is my back as it looked on x-ray on Wednesday, November 12. 

    It’s pretty crazy. 

    And that whole top curve wasn’t there when I was a teenager or young adult. I assume that is what 4 pregnancies (yes, there were 4 even though there are only 3 boys) and years upon years of laying-in-the-bed-depressed depression will do to me with my brand of scoliosis.

    The only real comment the orthopedic PA made was that indeed, there is significant degeneration in the discs in my neck. Such that actually, there was a blank space where there should have been a disc at the base of my neck in front, actually. 

    That’s probably why my neck hurts when I transition from standing or sitting to lying down in the bed. 

    And maybe I should feign terror at the utter basic breakdown that is my spine, that is my body.

    But to be honest, it’s just my normal. I’ve dealt with this since I was 6 years old, way back in the back brace days.

    At least I’ve spent the vast majority of my life without the large lumbar hump that was on the left side of my back as a kid.

    My orthopedic PA says she doesn’t measure degrees. She says she’ll know when she should refer me to her surgeon, and he’ll measure degrees then. She knows– rightly– that people obsess over degrees of curvature when– also rightly– degrees don’t necessarily mean a damn thing, especially when there’s rotation or some other such craziness going on.

    She didn’t say this time, though, that she’d never see me needing surgery again.

    Not sure I would do it though. I’d have to be in an awful– a very awful– amount of pain to agree to give up the mobility I have in my upper back and neck, and that’s what would happen with more fusions.

    I’ve had probably 2% of progression in the last two years. She says that’s pretty stable for my particular situation. So much so, that she won’t worry about x-rays when I come back next year.

    I did get another referral for physical therapy. I still know a lot of the exercises I was taught last year but I haven’t been super reliable about it since I got depressed and had very bad mental health in the Spring and summer. And of course, I did have a whole hysterectomy in May.

    All you people with normal bodies, it must be nice.

    When I look at this photo of my x-ray though, it makes complete sense as to why I have mental health issues AND why I have been the object of not-nice men.

    Easy to prey on the already weakened.

    As my oldest would say, “It is what it is.”

  • the parking validation

    So I draft this from a small Winship Emory Midtown waiting room. I have my coffee from home, my phone, a white robe that has no tie at the waist like it should, and a bag with my tops inside. Jared is waiting in the main lobby. The diagnostic mammogram is done. 

    But at the end… The tech told me she was going to give me validation for my parking.

    I do not know what that meant…. but it does not bode good things.

    I have delivered two children at Emory Midtown — I have probably been here over 50 times in the last 18 years — and they never validated my parking before. 

    I know the ultrasound was an optional follow-up and the tech made out like I’d be having the ultrasound but then she backtracked and said it was pending the doctor looking at the images…

    And now, wistfully, I wait.

    ————————

    And the tech came back for me. We repeated the images, for “spot checks,” on the concerning side.

    I am pretty sure I know what is coming.

    ————————

    I sit and wait. At least six people have come and gone back and left. I texted with Jared a little, telling him I was sure I have breast cancer. Jared says to wait and see what the doctor says. 

    I waited over a month for this diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound. I panicked when the date was so far out and scheduled one at Tanner for October 15, but I ended up having a late-scheduled tele-health appointment with my endocrinologist on the 15th and had to cancel the Tanner appointment. 

    It meant waiting, but honestly if I have to deal with medical complications I am grateful to be dealing with Emory, not Tanner.

    ————————

    The wait on the ultrasound table for the radiologist, after the tech did the ultrasound, was the longest ever.

    Turns out, I am fine. No breast cancer, no problems under my arm at all. They were very thorough. The radiologist herself came in to explain the mammogram was clear, the ultrasound was clear. 

    I probably have a fungal rash (I have been telling Jared since my appointment last week that it is probably ringworm) like the dermatologist thought it might be. The spot is fading with the creams she gave me. I didn’t tell them that this morning though. 

    I still have zero idea why they validated my parking, though. Or why they repeated the mammogram on the concerning spots. At all. Oh well. 

  • (sort of) falling apart

    I have been quiet about this, only telling really family and my ladies’ group at church…

    But I have to have a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound next week. I’ve known about it for over a month but the appointment was this far out.

    I have a weird skin spot. And I had a dermatologist appointment yesterday and she confirmed that the spot is concerning. It is possible it is just a rash and she gave me some creams to try for a month for that. If the creams don’t work, depending on what the diagnostic mammogram shows, I am to come back to the dermatologist in a month for a biopsy.

    But the dermatologist was glad I have the diagnostic mammogram scheduled.

    Also: I have reason to believe that a pilonidal cyst I had 25 years ago is coming back. *sigh* I never had it excised 25 years ago because at the time, I was coincidentally on Accutane for severe cystic acne and the Accutane dried up the pilonidal cyst. The dermatologist gave me something for that, too, and told me to seek out a colorectal surgeon if what she gave me doesn’t clear the problem up.

    I’m a little worried the other spot is inflammatory breast cancer.

    Most people I’ve told have been supportive. One, predictably. said, “Wanna show me?” I should have known better than to tell that particular individual. *double sigh* At least I know that distancing myself from that particular individual has been the right decision.

    So yeah. That’s what’s going on in these parts.

    Nobody would give me Accutane these days. 25 years ago I was not under any form of psychiatric care.

    Incidentally, in addition to the acne, and the pilonidal cyst, the Accutane was also apparently responsible for the disappearance of at least 5 lumps in my breasts at the time, too.

    I never had them checked, they’d been found in a gyno exam, and mysteriously at the next exam they were gone, a year later.

    I’m trying not to be afraid. But I won’t lie: I am.

    I am more afraid of having to have a potential cyst excised than I am about cancer though, whether I should be or not.

  • baby steps

    My eating has been trash lately.

    Last night, for example: lots of shredded cheese, some shredded cheese melted on top of Cheez-its. A can of Sprite for the first time in years.

    Night before last: a container of Rebel ice cream.

    For three days in a row, the last night ending with the ice cream night: Beecher’s Mac and Cheese from Costco…. the package said it served 6-9. I ate it in three equal portions over three nights.

    Sometime in that mix, I ate hearty portions of the sour gummies Oliver wanted at Trader Joe’s.

    The days start out okay. Most mornings lately I have been having walnuts and almond flour crackers for breakfast. Occasionally I have a protein bar with them; I am trying to cut back on the protein bars.

    About midday I make my Dunkin’ Decaf coffee, and put in my Anthony’s Marine Collagen in it. And I nurse it for the rest of the day in a Thermos tumbler.

    I had tried to cut out cheese and most processed foods except for the almond flour crackers.

    However, bananas apparently make me sick — I am repeatedly nauseous when adding a banana to my banana/ wild blueberries/ spinach/ almond milk smoothie.

    And so I gave up on the smoothies for several days. I will probably try one again today.

    And I haven’t made egg whites as a meal in several days, either.

    But, despite last night’s junk food, I woke up ready to face the day today.

    I didn’t make it to my church ladies’ group because Liam had a haircut in Sandy Springs with Finch at Aura Salon and I let Jared take him, and stayed home with Oliver instead. While Oliver can stay home for short periods on his own, leaving town with neither of us in town is not a good idea, obviously. Even if I could have called Mama and Daddy to be on standby.

    And honestly, I also needed to sleep in. I slept until 10:39 this morning.

    We’ve got projects I’d intended to get done around the house for Fall Break.

    The bushes need trimming back dramatically, and I have film to coat the windows in to provide more insulation, and I have 4 more sets of sheers to iron and put up because we really need one more panel on each of the 8 windows around the house.

    And we bought an actual old-school mop at Walmart this past weekend, intending to actually clean the floors really, really well since dog pee and poop has become a regular thing (it’s not their fault we can’t keep up since they are getting older, and sometimes they miss the puppy pads).

    But I have been in avoidance mode for reasons I’m not yet ready to talk about. Maybe next week.

    I’ve let the stress of anticipation get in the way of self-care, and all that.

    But today: Today it is 1:44 PM as I write this and I have done my light therapy. I made my gratitude list. I listened to this week’s “The Next Right Thing” with Emily P. Freeman as I did two of my physical therapy exercises.

    I did two of my physical therapy exercises for the first time in weeks.

    Jared wants to go on a walk.

    And my only house goal today is to iron those sheers and get them up. That is not a hard task.

    Baby steps.

    You can read more about me here.