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Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Wayback activated

I don't think I ever wrote about that awful day back in August 2014, when my (worst? hard to say, other issues might be more dreadful) nightmare was confirmed.  For two years & maybe a few months more prior to Aug 2014, I had been complaining to my primary care physician of a severe pain in my ribs, which kept me from being able to go to sleep in spite of excess use of over the counter pain meds.  I was still working, trying to go to bed about 9 pm 'coz I had to get up at 4:30 am.   I'd climb into bed, tired & wanting to sleep, and most nights wound up crying myself to sleep at about 11 pm.  I was hurting bad.  I think exhaustion carried me off most nights.  The pain med would kick in (finally!) and I'd sleep for a bit.  Most nights I woke up again in pain by about 1:30 - 2:00 am, and just try to lay there with my eyes closed until the alarm sounded.  This occurred about 5 days a week, whether I was working the next day or not.  Every time I saw my doctor I had this complaint, and it progressed from just a few ribs in my upper left chest, to the left shoulder and back, and even into the right ribs.  This quack doctor of mine heard these complaints from her patient that had had a left mastectomy due to cancer, for two goddamn years, and never ordered any imaging or blood tests that might have given her a clue.  She tried to tell me it was costochondritis, an inflammation of the tissues between the ribs.  She tried to say it was arthritis, which I do have a touch of in some of my joints, but never have I had it hurt as much as this unnamed condition.  Then I started having a good bit of fatigue.  June 2014 I would often come home from work and go straight to bed until suppertime.  On June 10, I was soundly asleep (blessed sleep!) when the bedroom ceiling collapsed onto me.  Our crappy little house attacked me.  Water had come in a gap in the facing, and collected in the attic until it soaked through the ceiling.  I woke up screaming and thrashing, thinking I was being attacked (yep), the family came crashing thru the door to rescue me.  I had the lamp on by this time, and could not figure out why I was all wet.  I don't recall who told me to look up, but there was a huge hole and water pouring out of it.  Fortunately, there were enough covers on the bed to keep the mattress from being soaked, but we had to tarp it and the Plaidman & I had to go sleep in a motel that night.  I did not think I was actually hurt, but later developed some pain and stiffness in my neck which took me to Dr. Clueless' office on the 13th.  I did not even see the doctor, but her PA examined me by putting her hand around the back of my neck--no imaging.  She diagnosed a slipped disc, gave me a script for steroids and a muscle relaxant.  I was advised to follow up if I wasn't better in 10 days or so; I called on the 10th day and requested (by voicemail) a referral to an orthopedic physician.  I got a call back stating that the doctor would authorize some physical therapy for me, but she didn't think I needed to see a specialist.  OK..I went to the therapist, whose first question was "How did the doctor determine that you had a slipped disc?"  I said the PA diagnosed me by feeling the back of my neck.  He looked at me like I was crazy.  "No imaging of any kind?", he asked.  I had to say nope, no imaging at all.  Then he had to call the doctor's office to verify that.  I did get some physical therapy, but it didn't help me much.  Meantime, I'm still going to work, still not sleeping much, still getting more and more fatigued.  Two weeks and about 5 therapy sessions later, I just could not do another session.  Because it was a Friday, I felt that I had to stay at work for the whole day.  I was pretty wiped out by the hour-long commute home, and went to bed (we'd done some work to keep the attic from dropping down for a visit).  I woke up needing the toilet, got out of bed and as far (all of 2') as the doorway, and was holding onto the doorframe when I felt something POP and a severe pain in the middle of my back.  If I hadn't been holding onto the doorframe I would have fallen.  I give a shout and Disco comes running; I asked her for my cane.  When she brought that to me, I had her hold up the other side of me while I tried to get into the bathroom.  After sitting there a few minutes, the pain diminished somewhat.  Plaidman was out getting some takeout dinner for us, and when he got back I ate (KFC).  Then I had a very hard time getting off the couch, and the pain became worse again.  The two of them practically carried me to the car, and we went to the hospital in Springfield.  They did a CT scan of my abdomen.  Two doctors came to the exam room to give me the findings.  There was no sign they could detect of abdominal injury, but there were masses along most of my ribs.  They reviewed my history, told me they could not diagnose from the info they had, but that I should contact my oncologist at the earliest opportunity.  I thanked them, and they left.  I took off my glasses, laid them on my chest, put my hands over my face and just bawled.  Why, Lord?  Why again?  Disco practically teleported herself around the gurney to hold onto my arm and tell me that I'd beaten this before, and could do it again.  A nurse came in, with a prescription for pain med of the opiate variety, and told us where there would be a pharmacy open at that time (it's about 11 pm).  The family got me into the car again, we found the pharmacy open, I got a soft drink and a pill before we took off for home.  The next day I had a call from the ER, saying that the Imaging dept Director had reviewed the CT scan, and wanted to get an MRI.  So we go back, and try to go thru Admissions, but they have no record of any order for imaging.  We go home.  We got a call, saying no, you must come thru the ER for the dept head's ordered MRI.  We go back to the hospital, and I relate the story of my neck pain and the fact that no imaging was done.  SO, now I'm to have a very long MRI session to examine the middle of my spinal column, and my cervical vertebra.  The findings are pathological fractures of C7 and T7.  I have lost an inch of height.  Fortunately, both fractures are stable (despite the physical therapy for my neck!), and I don't need to be hospitalized.  My doctor called me sometime Friday and left a voicemail to tell me I had an appointment with an orthopedic specialist later in the week, which I kept even though by that time my problem was a whole lot worse than just a stiff neck.  After hearing about the hospital visit, and getting the MRI report, this doctor ordered a whole body Xray to look for other masses.  And found them, all up & down my spine, in one hip and femur, all over my ribs and both shoulder blades--just in bone, not in soft tissue.  It was all bad news.  I carried all the reports to the oncologist, who ordered a bone biopsy of a mass in my hip (easiest one to reach), and we got good news/bad news.  The good news: I did not have multiple myeloma.  The bad news: Yes, it is cancer, but it's metastatic breast cancer, which is by definition Stage 4 (incurable, terminal).  However, there's treatment available that can extend my life (how long?  maybe 10-12 years).  I have to have surgery on my leg, to insert a titanium rod inside my femur--the tumor there is palm-size and wraps 3/4 of the way around that big bone.  Or, it was that big; it's completely gone now.  Just over a week after surgery, I saw my PCP for the last time, and I fired her with extreme fury, told her she was a quack and that I'd give her a bad review everywhere I could, so other folks wouldn't have to go to someone else to get bad news.  I have never despised someone more than I did that clueless quack.  Let me suffer for two years without so much as an Xray!  Then had the nerve to say insurance won't pay for screenings; hello!  cancer history and extreme pain should have been enough to classify imaging as diagnostic.  She would have let me die rather than order a test.  She would have let me die rather than find out what was wrong.

Thank you for reading this, I had been thinking about that awful day for the past week, and now maybe it'll stop being such a ...brainworm?  Kinda like an earworm, only not a song just bad thoughts that you want to purge.  The holiday's coming, and I'd like to be able to be cheerful for a while.

Knitting Knews:  not much knitting being done, but I did a flurry of buying patterns off Ravelry, and have been thinking of giving Knit Picks some business.  This has helped the mood.

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