Lady Sheherazahde's Journal

The tech guy came by and checked my machines. He says I should get new tubes every six months and I should also have gotten a new mask. I have had this machine for around 2 years and a tech guy has come by every six months, none of them have mentioned this before. *face palm*

In Other News: My sewing machine mysteriously started working again this morning. So, I finished my necktie skirt. I'm not as happy with how it looks as I thought I would be. Hmmmm.

Who Says College Doesn't Prepare You for the Real World?

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/016019.html

Frat boy: If you press your thumb hard in the middle of your forehead it stops your gag reflex for a minute.
Girl: Uhhh how do you know that?
Frat boy: I learned it at my frat, you can swallow a whole banana!

--Bryant Park

Overheard by: JC

I mention this because I have trouble swallowing my pills. I usually drink milk, or put them in yogurt or applesauce. But sometimes I just can't swallow my pills. I tried this thumb to the forehead trick this morning and it really did help.

my sore throat has turned into a cold. it doesn't hurt as much but I have a lot of nasal congestion.

I went grocery shopping and bought a lot of fresh fruit and juices.

I had my surgery follow up appointment today. I'm healing well, no infections or anything. But he didn't want to take out the stitches quite yet. I have to go back next Tuesday to have the stitches out. I asked about swimming and he said I should wait until the stitches were out.

I didn't mention before that one of the reasons they knocked me out was so they could shove a tube down my throat. So my throat is a bit raw, and I have a split lip.

I also have a yellow belly :-D. Really, they painted my whole belly yellow.

Today I have a lot of sore muscles, on my left side mostly for some reason. I think it is because I am using every muscle in my body except my belly to help me stand up and sit down. Standing up and siting down is accompanied by yelps and groans of pain right now. Laying still on my back is relatively painless. Siting up is only mildly uncomfortable. Changing from one position to another is where the real pain comes from.

My surgeon is a real joker. When he called for his follow up today I mentioned that I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach and he said "Oh, didn't we tell you that was what we were doing while you were unconscious?" :-D

I'm going into Cayuga Medical Hospital to have my Umbilical Hernia fixed at 8:45am tomorrow. If all goes well they expect to release me the same day (without a belly button). They have given me a prescription for Vicodin and told me to take the following week off.

I will probably be too spacey to keep in touch for a few days but Alex can probably handle any questions about my condition.

On the down side I've been feeling a bit depressed lately.

On the up side I had an appointment with my Dr today and I'm back on most of my medications.

I saw a surgeon today about my umbilical hernia. It was the same surgical practice I went to 3 years ago about the same problem, but a different doctor.

I told him I just want the hernia fixed quickly so it is scheduled for April 3rd. In the three years since I last tried to get this fixed it has developed a tendency to get infected so the surgeon wants to cut away the infected part. This means it will be less likely to get infected after the surgery but I won't have a belly button anymore.

It's the safest way to go. But I'm not really happy about it.

For the past couple days I have been in pain more than usual. Using the medical 10 point scale I would have to say it it varies from 3 to 4. But it is sort of an all-over muscle and joint ache. Last night it felt like every joint in my body hurt.

My tummy feels weird.

I don't know why.

Just to say:
Last Friday I did 4 miles in 1 hour on the recumbent stepper. Woo Hoo!
I appear to have lost at least 10 lb (according the scale at the gym and at the doctor although they both give different totals)
And my most recent  hemoglobin a1c test was 6.5 (Levels between 6% and 6.5% are acceptably normal.) If I keep this up technically I won't be diabetic anymore.

I had an Optometrist appointment today. I have always been near-sighted but lately I have had to hold things farther away to read. I figure I need bifocals.

Since I have diabetes they have to check me out and make sure I'm not going blind. That meant dilating eye drops and that annoying puff-of-air-in-the-eye test.

But, I'm just getting old (that's why my arms are getting shorter). And I do need bifocals.

After the appointment I bought a hot pretzel (since I was in the maul).

Isn't it interesting that Optometrists are the only medical professionals that operate out of retail stores for medical corrective devices? Orthopedic doctors don't work in shoe stores.

When I went out to my car I felt nauseous. I don't know if it was the pretzel, or the heat but I really didn't feel well. The only things I had eaten were: a chicken sandwich at 8:30, an apple at 10:00, and that pretzel at 1:30. Maybe I just thought myself sick. While I was eating the pretzel I was thinking about a story my dad told me. When he was in Southern Germany the people there wouldn't put salt on things because they thought it was poisonous. Well, salt is poisonous. If you eat enough of it, it will kill you. That is why it is a good preservative. But in Southern Germany they don't have much iodine in the soil, and without sea salt to supplement the iodine people get goiters. Which are not pretty! Then I felt sick.

I went home and took a nap until I felt well enough to go back to work. It was a long lunch. But I had told them I had an appointment, and I didn't want to throw-up at work.

The crick in my neck seems to be going away so I must have slept on it wrong. It is still giving me trouble but not as much.

On the other hand I think the chair at work is crippling me. I can barely stand. I will have to talk to them about options on Monday.

Other than that I'm enjoying this job. It's one of those cases where I'm concentrating intensely on the computer for a long time, then I start guiltily, as if I have been goofing off. But then I realize I have actually been working on what I was supposed to be working on. I was just really into it.

My Mom mentioned that recently, how I could always concentrate on what I was doing so much that I didn't notice anything else around me.

I am loving my BiPAP machine right now.

I'm having trouble breathing because of my cold and I happen to have a machine that forces moist oxygenated air into my lungs. Yay!

My cold is lifting, I feel like a human being again. Although I'm a human being who is currently coughing up her lungs, that is still better than yesterday or Tuesday.

I'm taking every cold remedy in the house. J bought me some special tea and oranges, and today he bought orange juice.

Today I felt well enough to go shopping myself, and take pictures of the Ithaca Festival Parade. I didn't stay for the whole thing. I left when the sky opened up and dumped buckets of water on us. You can see it get darker as the parade progresses. (For some reason it was totally dry up here on the heights.) Well, at least we didn't lose power this year.

I lent my rainbow umbrella to Velvet and Scott so they could get to their car relatively dry. I was parked a few feet from where we were sitting.

Mike Ludgate (of Ludgate Farms) also took pictures of the Parade, It looks like he was up in the set up area and got pictures of entries that hadn't gotten to me when the rain started. I'm glad to see that the He Man Marching Band was there this year, even if I didn't see them.

I had a doctor appointment today and I ended up volunteering to jab myself with a needle twice a day. (My anxiety levels are really down lately, I used to *hate* needles.)

I just started on Byetta The way my doctor explains it, it is supposed to replace some hormones my pancreas isn't producing and I should have more energy and lose weight. According to the literature in the package it slows the rate the stomach empties, so it's sort of like a chemical gastric bypass (i.e. you fill up faster and stay full longer).

Byetta is the commercial name of Exenatide "Historically, exenatide was discovered as a protein naturally secreted in the saliva and concentrated in the tail of the Gila monster...Given this history, exenatide is sometimes referred to as "lizard spit"."

Has it really been nearly a week since I last posted?
Sorry, I have been busy.
bloodsong1's baby shower on Saturday was fun. It was a Tea Party theme so we had homemade cucumber sandwiches and scones. rbdarkly came up for it. We got to show each other our tattoos and do the henna thing. I have pictures!

Afterward we out for Chinese Buffet.

On Sunday I rested.

Monday Best Neighbor Ever™ took me out for another Chinese Buffet (which was also excellent) And I finally did my taxes. I'm glad they finally got online because I am always waiting till the last minute to do my taxes even though I always get a refund.

Monday was the day of the Big Storm™. I should have taken pictures. It looked like a snow globe out here. At 8:30am I had trouble getting out of the driveway because it hadn't been plowed, but when I got back at 6pm the drive had been plowed but had the same amount of snow in it. At the same time the roads downtown (at the bottom of the hill) were clear.

Tuesday I went swimming and made dinner for kenshardik and soulspirals.

I made my new recipe for Fried Rice:
( Read more... )
Tonight I made my Chicken Fricassee with boiled potatoes
( Read more... )
But I think I'm coming down with something, my nose is running, my throat feels weird, and I feel like I have slight fever. I'm going to get some sleep and try to stay hydrated.

All day it has hurt just to stand. At first I thought I must have slept on it wrong. But I've been popping Aleve to no effect and my hands feel swollen, so I now think it is water retension.

I did have a fun moment with the nurse at my sleep-study follow-up this morning. I told her it hurt when I stretched out my leg "like this" and she said "Then stop doing that".

Friday I had blood drawn for tests. My favorite vampire, Robin, told me she is leaving that lab. I will miss her but they have a new guy who has lots of tattoos. I hope he is as good with a needle as Robin.

I saw Van Doren on Tuesday. My blood sugar is down to 6.5, that is good. My bad cholesterol is still high. But, and this is the point, it is lower than it was. So I'm doing well and he really encourages me to keep up the exercise.

But, he found an irregularity in my heart beat during my sleep study. So, more tests.

Today I had to be at Cortland Memorial Hospital at 7:45 am for a heart stress test. This is normally a treadmill test, but because I can't do that they injected me with drugs that create the stress of a fast treadmill walk. I've got a nasty bruise on my right arm from the needle. The test was 2 minutes of extreme discomfort, luckily Van Doren had warned me so I was expecting it.

Then they injected me with something radioactive and took pictures of my heart. That involved lying on a table with my legs propped on a pillow and my hands above my head grabbing a strap. I told the technician that it was like a "very polite torture chamber". He said no one had ever described it like that before.

I have to go back tomorrow for more radioactive pictures. This time without the stress test.

Well, at least I started reading "Anansi Boys".

Yesterday I did my 10 min on the recumbent stepper, but when I was halfway through my 36 laps in the pool I started feeling light-headed. I walked a bit farther, then decided I should really stop and talk to Libby before I fell down and hurt myself.

I went to Libby's office and told her I was feeling strange and she made me drink a juice box and take a few glucose tablets (they taste like giant Sweet Tarts BTW). She made me sit down for 10 minutes after that and followed me around while I changed clothes and walked to my car. I had a turkey sandwich in my bag, and I ate that too before I drove. It didn't feel like my usual sugar drop. I think it might have been dehydration. Libby lectured me about drinking more water while I exercise. (I really appriciate the care I recieve at IH&F.)

We had a nice dinner at B&K's. I made Apples Au Gratin and Peanut Butter cookies, Marilyn made pasta with Tzatziki, and B&K made salad.

Then I went directly to my C-PAP fitting. They did the whole electrodes in my hair thing again. I slept better and longer (although I had pains and cramps in my legs). We just tried the type of masks that go up your nose. My nostrils are still sore.

I had been warned that I would have to breath through my nose instead of my mouth with the C-PAP machine. I had tried doing that beforehand and I was worried that it might be a problem. But once I had the mask on it felt like I was suffocated every time I opened my mouth, so keeping my mouth closed was not a problem. I also slept on my back, I usually sleep on my stomach.

J said I would have to change how I sleep to use the C-PAP, but I think it is more accurate to say that how I sleep changed when I used the C-PAP.

Since they close the sleep study department at 6am they woke me around 5:30. I went out for breakfast and then right to the gym for my exercise. I brought a water bottle this time and had no problems.