February 6

Recently I read an article that was talking about how dogs don't remember yesterday, that they're always living in the moment. I only got a couple sentences in and I was immediately thinking the author was full of shit. Case in point. Both my dogs are rescue dogs. Jack was a year and a half old when I got him and Freedom was 2 years old. I don't have a lot of details about their lives before they came to me. I was told that Jack and his littermates had been tossed over the side of a motorboat in the middle of a lake and then got swept into the propeller. Only two of them survived, rescued by some witnesses of this heinous action. Jack had to get a lot of stitches to piece him back together. The foster mom of Jack told me that he's a bit possessive and that he would be better off in a single dog household. I didn't listen to her. A month or so later I adopted Freedom. His owner had found him wandering the streets as a puppy. She was moving and her new landlord didn't allow pets. According to my vet, the reason Freedom has no hair on any of his joints is because he spent about 20 hours of every day in a cage. His owner kind of backed this up with all her complaints about how he couldn't be loose when she wasn't home because he would chew everything in sight. So, they both had some issues in their past. Yesterday, I'm laying in bed trying to take a late morning nap. Freedom is in the dog bed next to my bed. Jack is downstairs on the couch. Whining. I laid there for a good 10 minutes listening to him whine and getting more and more angry about it. I knew exactly why he was whining. Something had changed in the living room and he didn't like it. He was too scared to walk past it and join us in the bedroom upstairs so he was crying about it. I wasn't sure if it was the laundry basket that I left on the coffee table or the small, 12" x 24" x 2" box that UPS delivered that I left on the floor near the front stairs. I finally got out of bed and trudged down the stairs. I was channeling a majority of parents from the 70's and 80's. The word bubble over my head said "You think you have something to cry about?? By golly I'm about to GIVE you something to cry about.".  And I proceeded to spank his ass. I then turned around and went back up the stairs and went to bed. Two minutes went by. Jack jumped off the couch. He walked past the laundry basket no problem. He got to the small, cardboard box. His step skittered a little but he safely made it past. He came up the stairs, walked over to the dog bed and curled up with his brother. I would like to state that I've had Jack for over 8 years and not once on my watch has a cardboard box attacked him. So don't tell me that dogs don't hold on to things and that they live in the moment. That's a bunch of crap,

 Reader's Digest has a contest going on right now. They want you to write a true life story about yourself in 100 words or less. I brought it to baby doll's attention. One of the things that attracted me to him right from the start is his love of writing. We still e-mail each other almost daily and we've been dating for over a year now. Sure enough, he was up for the challenge. He's submitted four different entries so far compared to my single entry. His latest entry was his best one yet. He described the experience he had stopping at the grocery store on Super Bowl Sunday. It made me laugh. He's so creative. My entry wasn't nearly as good but it's mine, so I'm allowed to share:

Flag Day, 2012 I was told that I have cancer. He was involved in a roll over vehicle accident. I had surgery and came out a little worse for wear. So did he. I healed and celebrated by going to a Renaissance Festival. He was there that same day, celebrating with his daughter. I started radiation therapy. He started physical therapy. I counted down to September 25^th with glee for the end of treatments. He counted down to the same date, his daughter’s birthday. I posted an ad on a dating website. He answered. We’ve been simpatico ever since.

  
Okay, enough stalling. I've had a really crappy week. Last Thursday I came home from work with a slight fever, as usual. Friday morning I woke up with it which was not usual. I was also hugely nauseous. I called into work sick. Fever and nausea finally dissipated late Saturday afternoon. But I was very fatigued and my face seemed to be swelling more than usual. Sunday afternoon I showered and brushed my teeth so that I could get some solid sleep and be prepped for work on Monday. When I brushed my teeth I managed to dislodge a glob of what looked like flesh and there was a LOT of blood. Whatever. I ignored it because there really wasn't anything I could do about it. I then woke up in the wee hours of the morning in excruciating pain from my jaw where I had dislodged the UFO AND unable to see because my face had swollen so much that I couldn't open my eyes. VERY scary. Baby doll ended up waking up and I started bawling all over him. I had been up for over an hour at that point trying everything to make the pain stop. (Thank god I don't own a gun because I really would have been tempted!) I had used my lidocaine, I had taken Excedrin, I tried an ice pack, I used the OraMagic mouthwash. I had already taken 10 ml of oxycodone and I finally took another 20 ml in the hopes that it would simply knock me out. It finally did. Obviously I did not make it to work on Monday. 

I finally got the pain back under control but what was up with the swelling?? Seems like it was an allergic reaction to something. The only new thing that I could think of was that I had started taking Excedrin instead of the liquid children's pain meds that I usually took. So, I stopped taking the Excedrin. I woke up at 5:15 Tuesday morning and the swelling was WAY down. Yay! I discovered the problem and alleviated it! I took some oxy and some liquid acetaminophen and went back to bed. Woke up a few hours later with my head the size of a watermelon again. WTH?? Decided that maybe I had poisoned my liver and that I should stop taking the acetaminophens. Didn't help. Then I realized that I had switched brands of detergents a few weeks back. I switched back to my usual stuff and re-washed everything in the house. Didn't help. I decided that the Jevity was making me a little nauseous whenever I ate so maybe I had gotten a bad batch of it so I switched over to the Carnation Instant Breakfast stuff. Didn't help. UGH! Here's some pics of me on Tuesday and Wednesday.

My eyes are actually open in that second picture. I had about 10% visibility yesterday. Bleah. So I had an appointment with the doc today at 1:00. Kit was kind enough to drive my butt in because the swelling sometimes occurs mid day for no apparent reason.

First I met with Nurse Jo Ann and Dr. Brendan. I walked them through all of the variables that I had tested out. Dr. Brendan was impressed. He said he wasn't sure what else to try. I asked him if it made sense to give me a dose of steroids. If it helped, I would think that would point to it being an allergic reaction. If it didn't help, then it must be something else. He thought that sounded like a good idea and said he would run it past Dr. M. 

So then Dr. M came in. He doesn't think it's allergies at all. He thinks it's lymphadema which is pretty common in cases like mine, according to him. He said they've removed pretty much every lymph node I own from my neck and on top of that they've radiated it twice, burning the heck out of anything that was left behind so now the fluids in my head and face have nothing guiding them to leave the area. He said it will take a few months for the fluid to find new pathways to escape through. He said that sometimes the juglar veins take over some of the work but they often get clotted and become useless. He did a quick sonogram on the left side of my neck and said it's partially blocked on that side. He said my nose is probably running like a faucet because mucus membranes are nice and thin so some of the liquid is managing to find it's way out my nose. I complained that I've been having to sleep with tissues shoved up my nostrils, otherwise my nose runs down my face all night long keeping me awake. He's going to prescribe some nose spray that will help dry it up at night. He also showed me how to gently massage my face to help move the liquid out and away from my eyes. He said I should do that a few times a day to try and keep things moving. He said it would also help if I tried to sleep in a slightly more upright position. Meanwhile, the underlying message is that it's just going to take time. He's going to schedule me for a CT scan just to make sure there's nothing funky going on that he may have missed but he's pretty sure it's as simple as lymphadema. I was also supposed to get the ear tubes placed this past Monday and start the HBO treatments on Tuesday. I had canceled both those things when this whole mess started happening. One of the specific questions they had asked me at the HBO place was if I had a sinus infection. If you have one of those, you shouldn't get the HBO treatments until it clears up. A sinus infection was definitely on my list of things that could be wrong with me so I postponed that whole end of things. Dr. M checked my sinuses though and ruled that out as well.

So, I have a new appointment on Monday to get the ear tubes placed. I'm waiting to hear back from the HBO place to find out when I can once again start those treatments. I also made sure to tell them that things were going to be tricky because if I wake up not being able to see, I'm obviously not going to be able to drive in for the session. If they give me the 8:00 AM session then baby doll might be able to drop me off before he heads to work. I can then have the front desk call me a cab to take me home. All of that hinges on if it's a night that baby doll actually stays over. The whole thing is going to be a PITA. I asked if it made sense to wait a couple of weeks for the face swelling thing to settle. Dr. Brendan said no. First, the HBO treatments might actually help with the face swelling. This surprised me. You would think putting even more pressure on my head would be a bad thing but I guess not. Second, the fistula under my chin is still getting progressivley worse and the HBO treatments will definitely help that so I should delay as little as possible.

Meanwhile, I haven't gone to work all week. Dr. M wrote out a note stating that I am unable to work as of 2/3 due to complications with my eyesight and that I need to be out of work indefinitely. Baby doll called the insurance place and let them know the same thing. I still have 5 weeks of short term disability that I can use. Hopefully I don't need that long but I have no idea what to expect with this swelling crap. Not only does it change daily, it changes all during the day too! So I can wake up and be fine but a few hours later my vision could be down to 30%. Super depressing to take that big of a step backwards too. Work was exhausting me but it felt so good to be back at it and working towards building up stamina and getting back into a routine. Now I feel like I'm in limbo again. I'm starting to better understand what Dr. C meant when he talked about how far my quality of life would degrade. This time last year I was training to run a 5k. This year I'm not sure I've even set foot on the road to recovery yet. I feel like new bad stuff is happening all the time.

Okay, that's the health update for the week. My buddy Andy should have touched down here in Rochester an hour ago. I'm still planning on having poker at my house tomorrow night, even if I can't play. The least I can do is provide the pizza and beer for Andy's homecoming game. I can't wait to see him!