Category: Life

Hubby is Home!

On By WendyIn Life, Medical Tests7 Comments
Doctors just don't know.

I’m very happy to say that my hubby is home, and seems to be well.  Very tired, and is sleeping right now, but much more like himself.

The cardiac MRI came back great.  The brain MRI came back showing no signs of a stroke.

They really have no idea what caused this episode.  As we all know, that is hard.  Since we don’t know what caused it we don’t know how to avoid it.

One of the doctors he saw said he had the same symptoms about 10 years ago.  He said they never found out what was wrong, and it has never happened again. *shrug*

When we got to the ER yesterday Stuart’s blood pressure was very low.  They said he simply wasn’t getting enough blood flow to the brain, they have no idea why.

He is worried because his judgement was so impaired while this was happening.  He knows he should have come home when he first got double vision, and he feels normally he would have, but it didn’t even occur to him that something was really wrong.  He doesn’t remember most of the episode.  What he does remember I’m not sure if he really remembers it, or if he just remembers what I’ve told him.  He doesn’t remember being in the store at all.  He doesn’t remember getting to the hospital, being in triage, or the first few hours in the ER.  His memory starts with the second CT scan last night.  (Except he does remember when he threw up…I think that is very traumatic for him…unlike me, he’s not used to it.)

Oh, I did find the rest of the groceries.  It appears he took my car to the store!  Something he just doesn’t normally do.  I went to drive my car this morning to go the hospital and there in the front floor board were the sodas and milk.  (luckily we were buying this milk to spray on our squash plants to get rid of the powdery mildew on the leaves, not for consumption.)  It was also very strange that he put the groceries in the front of the car, he always puts them in the trunk.

My hearing is still down, and I got a bit dizzy today, but I took Valium and never started getting into a full spin.  I hope it stays that way.  I just don’t need that right now.  Not that I ever need it, but I really need to be able to be there for my husband.

Thank you all for all the best wishes and thinking of us.

It makes me feel so much better knowing I have you to talk to and call upon when I need some uplifting.

Thank you all for being my friends.

Scared out of my wits…

On By WendyIn Life10 Comments
Please, no more trips to Duke's ER department any time soon.
I have just come home from the hospital.  I’ve been there for over 11 hours with Stuart.  I’ve never been so scared in all my life!  We didn’t have eggs this morning and he went to the store to pick some up.  He was gone over an hour. (we live 1 mile from the store).  When he came in the door he was pale as a ghost, sweating profusely, and couldn’t walk straight.  He couldn’t talk right.  I asked if he’d been in an accident, he said no, he just needed to sit down.  Well I knew that wasn’t right.  I got him sitting down and ran upstairs to put some pants on (I had on thin shorts), and rushed him to the hospital.  He couldn’t get his words out, he was seeing double and he started throwing up.  I ran in the hospital asking for help – I was so distraught they thought he was coding…well heck, I thought he was dying!!  (Yes, my coping skills were not as high as they usually are.  I’m just so glad Stuart didn’t notice.)
 
They thought he was having a stroke.  They gave him a CT scan, and a contrast CT scan, they came back normal.  They asked if he could be dehydrated.  I don’t see how. We hadn’t done anything strenuous or in the heat for days.  He drank plenty yesterday.  (and said he “had a big pee this morning.”)  (of course, when they were checking him in they asked how much he weighed and he said 120, my husband is 6 feet tall, and a bit over 200lbs.  I don’t think he was thinking clearly.)  They thought his blood sugar might be low…nope.
They pumped him full of fluids, and after the first CT scan he threw up again, then went to sleep.  When he woke up, just minutes later he felt and looked much, much better.  
The doctor said it sounded as if he may not have been getting enough blood to his brain.  They are checking his heart out tomorrow.  They will be doing a stress test MRI in the morning.  Where they stress the heart and do an MRI at the same time.  He’s in observation right now.  I came home to get some sleep, but I’m still so stressed.  My head is roaring.
 
When I left he was acting and looked like his usual self.  But I keep thinking how close it came.  He can’t remember his trip to the store.  His receipt says he bought 2 doz eggs, 1 box cereal, 5 sodas, and 1 carton of milk.  He carried in one bag, it had the eggs and cereal in it.  There is no sign of the sodas or milk.  I have no idea what he did with them.  I can’t believe he drove home in that condition.  And he can’t even remember shopping at all.
I feel so lucky that he made it home.  I’m so afraid to lose him.  I’m so afraid for him.  

My hearing has been down for 3 or is it 4 days now?  I’m so afraid I’m going to have an attack at any moment, then how can I care for him?  How can I be there for him like he has always been there for me?  Yet, how could I not?  I’m so scared.

Stuart’s worried about his job.  The last guy who had his job left under mutual consent because right after he took the job he started getting sick all the time, in and out of the hospital.  Stuart is still a contract employee, he won’t be full time until July 16th.  They could decide not to hire him.
He’s also upset because he isn’t happy with his job, and doesn’t fill fulfilled.  I don’t know how to help him.  I wish I could get a job and make enough money where he didn’t have to worry about how much he made.  But I can’t.

Well enough about that.  He will be getting the cardiac test tomorrow morning sometime between 9 and 12.  If it comes out ok we could be home by 2pm.  I want it to be ok, but then again, I want to know what happened.  I want it to be something small they can fix.  I don’t want to be constantly wondering if it is going to happen again.  He did not realize he was doing so poorly.  He really wasn’t thinking clearly.  And now he doesn’t remember it.  The memory lapse is really scaring him.  He doesn’t really want me to know how scared he is…but I know he is.  And I don’t want him to know how scared I am…but I’m sure he does.

Company Coming! Excitement and Worry all rolled up.

On By WendyIn Disability, Gluten-Free, Hip pain, Life, PainLeave a comment

Tonight one of my very best friends and her husband will be coming for a visit.  Not only is Kym a great friend, she was once my roommate, and my maid of honor. (Which I think was a great honor considering I only had one attendant.)

During our wedding ceremony. (l-r) Kym, Wendy, Stuart

I haven’t seen Kym and Camden since their wedding 4 years ago.  Unfortunately, we live on opposite sides of the US, about 3,000 miles apart.  They live in San Francisco, CA, we live in Durham, NC.  So, of course, I’m VERY EXCITED!  However…

I’m also a bit worried.  Kym and Camden are very energetic people, they love to site see and just go, go, go.  Well, the go, go, go is a little hard for me.

Let me explain with a little side note:  Yesterday I was telling Stuart how much I hate it when a doctor asks me to rate my pain on a number scale,  0 being no pain and 10 being pain that sends you to the ER.  I think the amount of pain it would take to send me to the hospital (someone who absolutely HATES to go to the ER) a lot different than someone else (who doesn’t mind going at all).  I told him that the scale should be 0 for no pain and 10 for when I pass out from the pain, and I really think they should tell you what 5 would represent.  Stuart said he was glad that he hasn’t been in pain that often.  Once when he broke his arm, and when he had to have surgery on his knee…but not much.  I confessed that I can’t remember a day that I haven’t been in some amount of pain.

Now I guess you can understand why I’m a bit worried.  I really want to show my friends a good time, and do things with them, but I’ve been in a lot a pain lately.   I know they’ll understand, and wouldn’t dare think of me being in pain so I can do something with them.  However, I don’t want them to be bored.  And I really WANT to do things.  *sigh*

I’m still having trouble with my arm with pain and tingling, my wrist with carpel tunnel, my hip is still giving me trouble, and I can’t seem to walk very far without pain in my feet, calves, and knees.  I feel so old.  I feel like I can’t do much at all before I get so tired (or hurt too much) and have to sit down and rest.  Every night I’ve been taking a hot bath before bed, it seems to help dull the pain, especially in my legs and hips, so I can go to sleep.

I keep waking up in a lot a pain, and I feel exhausted.  I wonder if I’m hurting so much while I’m sleeping that I don’t sleep deep enough to rest?

I’ve been baking today, and I’m exhausted.  I was trying to make gluten free hot dog buns.  After 3 tries, I gave up.  So no buns for the cook-out tomorrow.

They’ll be here in about 3 hours.  Think I might take a nap.

Silly Photos

On By WendyIn Life4 Comments

I’ve been in a silly mood the past few days, and I’ve had a camera in my hand, so I’m going to share it with you.

I told Stuart to do something silly, so he grabbed me! It made a cute shot, and it made me laugh!!
Our silly cat has too many toes! Max the polydactyl cat..

I hope you aren’t too bored with photos of my dog.  Every night Sandy will dig, and dig in her bed, she moves it all around the living room until she gets it in just the right spot.  Also, every time she eats she has to rub her face all over the floor, or in her bed; I can only guess she’s trying to clean her face off.

Silly Sandy rubbing her face in her bed. (Her bed started over by the wall.)
More Silly Sandy.
Such a Silly Sandy
Gotta Get that bed just right!
Almost there.
Whew! She's finally ready to rest.

Much Better – Doctor’s Report – and Sandy update.

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Life, Meniere's Disease12 Comments

Thank you to everyone who sent me so many good wishes and encouragement!!

I saw Dr. Kaylie yesterday.  He was not discouraged by my attack, and feels confident that I will continue to feel well.

However, he said, I do still have Meniere’s Disease, so I may have an attack now and then.  If we can keep my attacks down to one small one every 3-4 months, then that’s doing great.  He’ll be concerned if I start having attacks more regularly, and if I start having more severe headaches again.  If that happens then I’ll need to get in to see Dr. Gray again, and have another Myelogram.  Since we don’t know what caused my leaks in the first place, there’s always a chance I could get more.

It was kind of funny, when he said that I still have Meniere’s and I may have occasional attacks, I told him, “No, I’m cured!”  Of course, I was just joking.  We all know I’ve never looked at this as a cure, but perhaps, down deep, I was kind of hoping.

Since I didn’t have a picture that would go with this post, I decided to share some photos of my Sandy Dog!

Sound Asleep
Waking up. (Thanks to that darn flash.)
A bit confused.
What a cute dog.
Look at this face. How could you feel bad with that face looking at you?

Update on Sandy.  For those who don’t know the story of my darling dog:  Sandy is 18 years old.  She was found in a dumpster when she was about 1 year  old.  I adopted her shortly after she was found.  She’s been my constant companion for 17 years.  In March of 2009 we found out Sandy had bladder cancer.  She had the tumors removed, but in July of 2010 an ultrasound showed that the cancer was back.  We were told then that Sandy didn’t have enough bladder left to operate again.  The doctor told us that this cancer is very aggressive and he guessed she would last about 6 months to a year.  We do have her on a drug that is supposed to slow the growth of the cancer, and so far so good.  She still acts as if nothing is wrong.

I noticed that Sandy acted like she couldn’t see us as well as she usually does.  She was barking at people she knew until they were close enough for her to smell them, or really see them.  I noticed that her eyes were looking a little cloudy.  A couple of weeks ago we took her to the vet, and she does have cataracts.   The doctor said she can probably see light and dark, big shapes….that kind of thing.  I think she can still notice movement because she follows my hand motions.  (She has been hard of hearing for a long time now.)

Even with all of her “issues”, Sandy is a happy dog.  She runs around the house, and asks to go for a walk every day.  She still runs up and down the stairs, jumps on the couch and on our bed.  Of course, her favorite pastime is chasing the cat!

I really don’t understand just how good Sandy is doing until I see other dogs close to her age.  Our vet said that they are always talking about Sandy, she is a wonder dog!!  Still so energetic and bouncy at her age!  I hope I age so well!

Rainbow, Tears, and feeling Dizzy

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Life, Meniere's Disease7 Comments
I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but this was a beautiful rainbow, with a second rainbow right above it.

We had a nice rain on Friday.  Stuart went to leave the house and called me out to see this beautiful rainbow.  How fabulous.

Thursday was our last Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (MAPP) class.  For the past week I’ve cried and cried.  I was grumpy, argumentative, and just plain scared.  I finally realized that I was letting what my father said get to me.  I read a lot between the lines.  He really didn’t say that much, but I could just hear the disapproval.

I’m venting here, so forgive me.

The classes ask you a lot about your relationships.  They ask about your support system.  They ask how your family will react to you having a foster child.  I knew how my father feels about African Americans.  I know he’s a bigot.  But I felt I needed to ask him.  After all, this is going to be my child, perhaps he would feel differently, perhaps he would support us.  (I know unrealistic dreams.)  When I told him it was highly likely that the child we would get would be an African American, and wanted to know if he could accept that.  He told me that I knew how he felt about things like that.  This hurt and I continued to think about it.  Finally, I felt I needed to ask more.  I asked him if he could accept any child that wasn’t white?  If he could accept a mixed race?  Anything?  This is the answer I got: “As for as your question
about the Foster care thing I don’t really know how to answer that because that is really up to you what you want to do.  I don’t think in the long run you will be happy with it but I am wrong a lot of the times.
So I am just saying do what ever you and Stuart want to do and don’t worry about what anyone thinks.”

Don’t worry about what anyone thinks.  That includes him.  And telling me that he doesn’t believe that I will be happy with this.  Yeah, Pop, thanks for the support.

I hate to admit it, but his words made me doubt myself.  This isn’t unusual, but I thought I had grown past it.  I realize that I need to just back away from my immediate family, but this is very hard.  It’s hard to not want my family to support me.  However, I’m not surprised.  The only person in my family who ever supported me was my mother.   I miss her.

Now that I realize what was really going on inside of me, I’m feeling much better.  I’m very happy with my little family right here.

On Thursday I was having a lot of ear pain.  When we left our class that night I started feeling dizzy as we went down the elevator.  As we walked out to the car, I was scrambling for some Valium.  (can’t be too safe, right?)  When I got to the car, I took the Valium with some watered down warm diet Dr. Pepper that was in the car.  Yuck.  But it was wet, and it worked.  Don’t you hate it when you really need to take a pill, and you don’t have anything to drink?

The disequilibrium subsided, but the pain continued through that night.  The next day it was better.  Today is the last day of antibiotics for my ear infection.  I really hope it has knocked it out, and I won’t have to take any more.  I’m thinking the pain was mostly from all the tears.

The dizziness has been a bit scary.   I’m sure it’s because of the ear infection and the crying.

As another Meniere’s warrior said this week, “I am so utterly grateful and do not take one day of freedom from vertigo for granted.”   (Thanks Angelea for all the inspiration.)

I’m really driving again now!

On By WendyIn Life, Meniere's Disease6 Comments

I’m so very excited, we bought me a car yesterday!!

It’s been about 4 years, give or take, since I had a car of my own.  Now that I can drive again, and we will probably be having a child in the house soon, it was time for me to start looking at cars.  It has taken about 2 months of looking, but yesterday we found the perfect car!

It’s a 2008 Convertible Volkswagen Beetle.  Isn’t it cute??

As a friend of mine said today, “Watch out Wendy’s on the road again.”

What a milestone.  Just think, I couldn’t drive just a few months ago, now I have my own car.  hehehe!

Gardening, Fostering Classes, Housework, Hearing Aids…a busy week.

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Life9 Comments

What a long title huh?

Boy am I busy this week.  Just think a couple of months ago I wouldn’t have thought about doing any of the things I’m doing lately.  (or planning to do…heck, I wouldn’t have made plans.)

So yesterday and today we started working in our little garden patch in the front of the house.  When it rains we have a river running through there so we had to be inventive.

Front Yard Garden, in progress.
Sandy walking through front garden.

I wish I had a before picture, then you would know just how much work we have done.  We decided to work with the water flow instead of against it.  We put some small pebbles to help the path of water, so it won’t tear up the garden, then sat potted herbs on top of the rocks.  (We still need 2 more pots to fill the area, but our local gardening center was out.)  The pots contain herbs, we have day lilies coming up from last year, and we put out wild flower seeds to fill in.  We’re also going to put a rock border around the front.  (We found a lot of cool rocks in the woods right behind our house!)

Tomorrow night we start fostering classes.  They will need to do a house visit to inspect where we live, so we need to get the house in order…and ready for a child.  We also need to sign up for CPR classes, including CPR for children.  And we each need to make appointments to bet a physical.  Lot’s to do, but totally worth it.

On Friday I’ll be getting my hearing aids.  How cool is that?  I just can’t wait to hear what I’ve been missing.  I wish I was getting them before we start our classes, I’m afraid I won’t be able to hear what’s going on.  Luckily, I’ll have Stuart there to help.

I’m still having too many headaches.  I do wish they would go away.  Perhaps the next time I see my neurologist she will be able to do more.  I’m also having more hip pain than usual, of course I’m doing more.  But that doesn’t mean I should be in pain all the time.

What is everyone else up to?

I have Fructose Malabsorption

On By WendyIn Dietary Fructose Intolerance, Fructose Malabsorption, Life, Medical Tests9 Comments

I know I promised Part 2 of Treatments for Meniere’s as the next post, but I got some news today that I wanted to share.  It may also go along with the last post.

image from the fructose malabsorption group on Yahoo

Today I got the results of my Breath Tests, I talked about those previous posts.  They tested for digestion issues, Lactose Intolerance, and Fructose Intolerance (otherwise known as Fructose Malabsorption).  I have the later.

This is going to take some getting used to.  As you probably know I already have to avoid gluten, this will just add to the things I can’t eat.  I knew this may be a problem, but I never knew there would be so many things I wouldn’t be able to eat.  I’m shocked actually.

According to the diet my doctor gave me there are only 9 vegetables I can eat. And after doing some research on this disorder on the web, I found that one of those vegetables are not recommended.  I will be calling a nutritionist tomorrow morning to get in as soon as possible to help me with this.

Not only can I not eat fruit, and many vegetables, I can’t eat any sugar at all.

I don’t know if this aggravated my Meniere’s symptoms or not, but I’m sure it effected me in more ways than I know.

Life without chocolate…*sigh*.

Movie Date

On By WendyIn Life, Meniere's Disease7 Comments

I’m so excited.  My husband tool me to see a movie today, and I started crying while we were sitting there, I was over whelmed with the fact that I was watching a movie in a theater without closed captioning!  I could hear every word.  In fact, I thought it was a bit too loud.

It’s been so long since I dared go to a movie.  I realized the other day that I didn’t need to “read” the TV show I was watching and was so tickled.  So today when my husband asked if I wanted to go see Gnomeo and Juliet, I said, sure.  But I was nervous.  I hated the thought that we might get in the theater and then I wouldn’t be able to hear the film, what a waste of money.  No worries though, I heard every word.  Yay!  My left ear is doing great!  I still can’t hear much in my right ear, but I can handle that.  Heck, I just wanted the vertigo to stop, so I’m super excited!

One thought though.  I can’t remember the last time I went to a movie that the person behind me didn’t keep kicking my seat.  What’s up with that?

By the way.  The movie was very cute.  I have always been a fan of Shakespeare, and there are little things that allude to him and his plays.  They even have a Shakespeare statue that talks.  (voice by Patrick Stewart, how cool is that?)   I also enjoyed the music, mostly old Elton John songs with the words slightly changed to fit the movie.

Seen any good movies lately?