Feeling Better

I am finally home-and feeling better.

The plane was a never ending adventure yesterday as it was delayed so long that we had a 30 minute connection in Seattle. We made it-the last flight out of Seattle to Portland where I had to wait around for my husband to fly in from Phoenix (despite the airport signs and not a employee in sight saying that the flight had already arrived) and home. I planned on waiting to take my pill until evening as I read a website that said taking it in the evening would help the nausea but of course-by the time I got home at 1am I was way to tired to dig the darn things out of my suitcase. I skipped it. I had a couple of dreams in the middle of the night that the faucets had started up again but phew-i was safe and everything was fine. I lazed in a bit today reading a book I started on the planes. My house is Clean as my 18 year old kept it up while I was gone. The yard is weed free (a garden guy came while I was gone) and the weather is one of those perfect Spring days. LIFE IS GOOD!

So you may wonder? is she bipolar? the last post was the crazy lady from hell! Well I am still on the pill but i skipped one yesterday. I did take it again this morning and so far fingers crossed no nausea.

I cancelled my lapband surgery---well actually i attempted to postpone it but the scheduler from hell only let me cancel, requesting that I get my files sent over for the surgeon to have a look at. Ill keep you posted....

so onto the next adventures...

my DH will be gone to Belgium, France, Dublin, Denver, Japan and China in the next three months---Any votes as to which I should attempt to go to? I would like to go to them all but Im not sure if we can afford summer airfare!

Its Not Cancer But I'm Postponing The Band

So I was correct I found out on Monday about the blood tests and even biopsy. Even though I have to say she was obviously worried about me because i found a message from Saturday. She called to check on me and see how I was doing! On a weekend! OMG that is unheard of as far as I am concerned!

Anyway back to the blood test---

I am down 100 iron tablets (the Gyno's words not mine). I am supposed to stay on the pill for two months (with a 1 week break), and empty a bottle of iron. I have to say although I am happy that faucet has turned off I HATE THE PILL and I HATE TAKING IRON

1. I am a bitch-no other way to slice it. I hate my 6 year old, I hate my life, I hate my job...I am angry I want to commit violence. As we speak I am in a hotel room in Alaska next to my 6 year old. She wont go to sleep and it is 11pm. I need to be alone and she wont go to sleep and I am about to start crying....methinks it is the hormones talking or I need some serious mental medication.

2. I have morning sickness from the damn pills. I dont actually barf but I have been sick to my stomach for 4 days. All the time (I am losing weight-but dont really care)

3. I am constipated from the darned iron tablets-its green and I feel like a horse if you catch my innuendo.

4. I have so much work to do and I cannot get caught up. I have another trip to take and people demanding that I read documents, do observations, get ready for my older daughters high school graduation, write two papers, correct assignments, complete reports, attend meetings, find a new job, apply for conferences.......I do not have time to take another two weeks off from work.

My blood work is crap, No one knows why I was bleeding, I'm on the pill for two months, Im tired, and I have too much work. Soooo...I am rescheduling the band for summer. My husband thinks I should still try but (im crying again)...I can't (not usually a word in my vocabulary).

So there you go a self-inflicted (sort of) set back.

Now I have to go write some papers! but joy of all joys-at 11:05 she fell asleep. Exactly the same time as she has done for the past 4 days. She wanted to sleep on time so we could go down for breakfast tomorrow. There is no way in hell I am waking her up! soooo tomorrow is cereal in our room.

**disclaimer-despite my post stating a desire to commit violence I am not actually doing so-I just want to!!

Girly troubles-EEK!

So I hope all of you readers are female-if not WARNING as this is going to involve all things feminine-periods, blood, cramps, sanitary napkins, specula? or is that speculums?. If you have already had creepy shudders just from reading this list STOP READING NOW and COME BACK FOR ANOTHER POST!

So I have tried to retain this blog for mostly lapband topics but this one is definitely encroaching on my lapband (or as I fear maybe postponing it!). A few short weeks ago right about the Suckier post I noticed that I had not had a period in quite a while. I don't really worry about being preggers as I had my tubes tied when I had my youngest daughter 6 years ago. Well....So I missed my period. When it stretched to two months I went into the doctor for a consult. Although I had never missed a period before. I am a regular (very regular) person-so this was very odd. I was frankly looking forward to no more periods so was hoping for Menopause. The doctor figured I would catch up next month. She was correct and while in Spain I "got the visit". It lasted for 3 WEEKS! I went back into the doctors. She sent me in for an ultrasound (Wow the internal ones are indignant!!). So not to worried at this point until two days later when whammo--the "the red cloud descended in force!" I was changing overflowing pads every 15 minutes for three days. I called the doctor and was quickly sent to a gyno. She decided that a uterine biopsy was required (YEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWCHHHHH)-then a blood test for blood counts and a bunch of stuff to figure out what is going on. She put me on the pill (Im really crazy hormonal on the pill).

So here is how it stands:

1. I am on the pill and things have almost stopped (sigh of relief)
2. I am cramping like crazy
3. I might have a thyroid condition, cancer, a polyp, hormonal issues etc.
4. I'm not sure that I will be allowed to have surgery on the 15th
5. I am kinda crazy-already-very short tempered. I am not looking forward to playing grandma for 10 days. I just want to stay home and sleep.

So....more later. The blood work said stat. I will call on Monday to see what the results were and get back to you.

The pre-op office visit and I'm a grandma

so as of yesterday at 6:15 a.m. Pacific Time I became a grandma. My oldest daughter had a little boy. The poor guy had to have the toilet plunger treatment to get out and today is sporting a cone head, and bruises. His cord was wrapped around his neck four times. He seems to be ok-as per phone calls from to them but next week I will get to see for myself when my youngest daughter and I fly up for a couple of weeks to do the grandma baby-sitting gig. I have never been to Alaska so it should be an adventure.

Last Monday I went into the surgeons office to do all of the pre-op check in stuff. I started the day with an appointment with my surgeon-He was very my three sons dad (If you are too young to remember this check on the web). He gave me a hard time stating that i was too thin to need this surgery (geez the only place in the world where someone has said that!). He also had it written in his records that I like to read research so he gave me the low down on the effectiveness knowledge of weight loss surgeries. Basically the news is that they are all about the same in effectiveness (but he thinks rny is a bit better). He said that 1/3 of lapband patients will have some complication that requires their removal-1/3 have great success and 1/3 have less than satisfactory success. If this is true than my assumption is that the 1/3 who have to have their bands removed were not part of the 10 year study released in Europe a few years ago that said that the weight loss was slightly better than other kinds of surgery and that an average of 60% of desired weight loss was achieved over this period. he did say most of his research came from Australia and New Zealand and that he was trained by them. Anyway-he then went on to say that right now no ones knows how to know if one method will work any better than another an that they leave it up to patients. an finally right before i was ready to leave he said-well since you have had so many abdominal surgeries (4 c sections, a gallbladder and hernia repair) he said that lapband was probably the best choice for me!! soooo lap band it is!

After that I went in for pre-op testing. I had an ekg, conversation about my allergies and medical history, and finally a blood draw-3 pokes later sporting a bruise the size of a coffee cup I was 5 minutes late for my next appt. upstairs.

I ran upstairs for a required seminar on weight loss surgery. The main speaker was not very comfortable or skilled at the job but went through instructions on how to check in for surgery, where to park (bad directions that we will not use!) and retold us all the stuff we already were presented at the pre-appt. seminar. They spent most of the time talking about rny and then gave me a folder with info about labpand (Im not sure why i couldnt have been let off and given the packet without the talk).

They tried to get me to sign up for various research projects except that by the time I showed up to hear about these projects the person was missing and never came back. I went to lunch, waited around for like 15 minutes but she never did show up so I left. I was going to let them use me as a subject because i remember how hard it was to find people when i was doing research but I wasnt going to wait around forever!

Sooo april and may are gong to be busy busy busy. I go to alaska for two weeks, i have to get my supervisory jobs done first, travel come back do some more observations, have surgery, three days later help to move my daughter back to her university town after she comes back from Spain, go to one of my work conferences 8 days after surgery, get ready for my younger daughters high school graduation (and the party i must host) 17 days after surgery. Keep your fingers crossed that I heal quick!

I Have A Date!

So there has been some movement in things during the last two weeks. When I got bak from Spain (it was a great vacation by the way) I hoped for a phone message but instead I got an approval letter from my insurance company. Again true to form the records person at the doctors office was flakey- I called them to tell them I had an approval letter and her reply was "you do?"

I said "yes and it says on the letter than you do to. You received a cc."

Doctors office person said, "Well I don't have it. Perhaps it is floating around on the doctor's desk. We often don't get some of these thing."

Comforting Eh? Really boosts your confidence in their abilities to function-and say not amputate my leg instead of the asked for surgery!

Anyway I was asked to fax her the insurance letter. I did so then waited for two days. I called back and was told that the letter did not come with a billing number and that she had left two message (something I highly doubt) but that the insurance company had not called back.

I asked her what specific number is she looking for (she reiterated a billing number). I called the insurance company's customer service and had a number in about 5 minutes (I know that these companies answer the calls from doctors much faster than they do for patients! thus putting into doubt her story of two messages.

The next day while I was running around dong student teacher observations I got a message to call the office and tadahhhhh drum roll pleaase! They gave me a doctors appointment, assigned me a doctor and gave me a surgery date. Now don't get me wrong I'm really happy to have all of these dates. I'm just freaked that I have not even met this surgeon, nor been given any indication or information about the test results I have been sending in one after another. Shouldn't a patient meet their surgeon before they commit to a surgery date? Its just doesn't feel right. Now of course im not going to cancel any of them-nor am I going to raise too much of a stink about the whole idea.

I know those of you in the UK will read this and probably say-yep thats how it works here. You wait around until they call you and hope that it is sooner than 5 years. If you are lucky enough to get a surgeon you go with him sight unseen but here in our land of commercial for profit medicine I would have hoped for some kick butt customer service don't you?

So in a nut shell-I will have a day long doctors appointment on Monday for pre-op tests and my surgery is scheduled for May 15. Keep your fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong!

The Doctors Office just got suckier!!!!!!

yes i know that suckier is not a word! but I finally got a call back from the nurse practitioner who could not remember why she called. While I had her on the phone I asked if she could check on the status of things. She pulled up my record and GUESS WHAT--no REALLY GUESS WHAT!!! SHE SAID TO ME-WE DO NOT HAVE YOUR PSYCH EVAL....ok I lost it on the phone. crying yelling..I am not really a yeller (I am a bit of a crier) but this is just the stupidest most incompetent thing they have done yet. I called for 3 months checking on the damned psych evaluation. At first is was at the bottom of the pile for a month, then it was all with the nurse practitioner waiting to be approved and sent on to insurance. Well apparently that was all a LIE. If I had a spare minute in my day I would call around to another doctor and see if I can transfer offices with my records in tact---and boy oh boy i want an evaluation form to turn in! The nurse practitioner, to giver her credit, did jump quickly after this. She asked me to emil her directly from now on, and give her the phychs name and number. She apparently her to fix the problem. She called me back tonight with news but i didnt get to the phone on time. Who knows how much longer of a set back I am going to get now!! if it isnt sorted i will damn well change doctors. At the rate they are going im going to need new blood work drawn because the results in my file sat there and expired!!! like a can of year old diet coke. I am still livid and hot about it just writing this...I wish you could take these things over the staff's head. and have a chat with the surgeons-They just weave a stiff we of incompetence! When I finally do get an entrance invitation to see a surgeon i will spend some time on the topic that is for sure.

Om the much calmer home school front. Things are going ok. shockingly (sarcastic tone intended) she is learning much more than she was while in school. We are doing much more talking and problem solving as it related to everyday things...why did you do that? how does it work kinds of stuff. in addition for two days a week we go to a home schoolers school-its a very cool arrangement. teachers volunteer to teach classes and are paid from the money raised by those classes. kids can then pick and choose the classes they want. This last term Grace has taken a math class, messy art, spanish, drama and a 3 hour long socialize with her peers time where they investigate things in a very informal way. next term we would like to get her into a creative writing class, geography and maybe a zooology class. We will talk it over tomorrow and decide whether she will be there 2 or 3 days aweek and if so what classes she will take. and or drop.

Im still juggling my work load with being home with her all day. DH stepped up today and tomorrow to give me two days of work time so I will be free of it before we leave next week. I had some curriculum to write for an online course that I finished today and then my application for a post doc in Sweden. I hope i get it. What a grand adventure to have! :) as part of the application I have to plan my research goals in an 8 page paper asap-well by tomorrow really. I have about 1/3 of it done I just need to wrap the idea up in my head and organize it and then figure out what exactly I want to study in the two years I would be in the hinterlands of Sweden.

Yeah-well The Doctors Office SUCKS

So as you might remember I called on Friday to speak to the nurse practitioner who had called me and left a message!! Well it is now Wednesday I left a message on Friday and was told she would call back on Monday...NO....I called twice yesterday leaving my phone number twice and again...NO return phone call. It is sooooo frustrating!!!!