And the struggle continues
The past few weeks have been very hectic for me. My youngest son graduated with his Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering. My daughter in law graduated with her dentist degree. That graduation was out of town about a four-hour drive away. We had to book a hotel and decided to spend two nights there. The long ride about did me in. It took longer than four hours because of my bladder issues. We had to stop a few times along the way for bathroom breaks. Another daughter in law had her baby shower on the same day as my youngest daughter’s birthday. We couldn’t do a party that day so we chose to take her out bowling with a few friends this past Friday night. With all the running up and down and trying to get everything lined up, I was exhausted all the time. Not only that, but my insomnia was working overtime.
Two days before we went out of town, I had to get a biopsy done at my OBGYN’s office. I’d already had an ultrasound of my womb previously and he had told me that the cervix was thickened. He needed to do a biopsy to see if it was because of polyps, fibroids or cancer. He said that it may even be nothing. I pray it is not cancer. One good thing in my favor is that all my yearly pap smear results always come back normal. My gynecologist talked about hysterectomy and hormone therapy depending on what the results of the biopsy happen to be. I have to go back this Thursday for another ultrasound. I have no idea why this one.
I always want to post on this blog to record what is going on with me. This is more for me to be able to track my health. A lot of times when I want to post, I just do not seem to have the energy to do so. Now that I am actually writing, I just start putting down whatever I can remember. If I don’t, I tend to forget so preplanning a blog post for me is not an option. If you are a fibro warrior, you’d understand what I mean.
So since my last post in April, here is what I have been going through regarding my health:
-I had requested a change of cardiologist and got my first appointment with the new one last month. I told him about my palpitations starting back again. I used to wake up in the wee hours of the morning with my heart pounding a lot as if I am afraid. My former doctor had told me about my racing heart issues a couple years ago. She put me on medication to slow down the heart rate. She’d also referred me to a cardiologist since I am a high risk due to family history. Before visiting that cardiologist, I’d had a treadmill stress test, EKGs and worn a heart monitor for 30 days. Everything had come back normal. There was a few instances of tachycardia. My cardiologist sent me for an echo-cardiogram and he said that had come back normal. I went a couple more times to that cardiologist and he was charging a lot. I do not have health insurance and everything was getting to be very costly. I did not feel as if that cardiologist was a good fit for me (apart from financial reasons). I felt as if my questions were not fully answered. I asked my former doctor for another cardiologist.
Fast forward to the new cardiologist I saw last month. He was younger and seemed to talk straight to the point. I did show him a copy of my tests results and blood tests results. When I told the doctor about my palpitations coming back, he wanted to change my medication that I was using to slow down the heart. He also wants me to cut off my coffee. Due to my racing heart, I had started using decaf most of the time. Every now and again, I would use regular. When I told the new cardiologist about me using decaf, he still wanted me to stop it saying that there are traces of caffeine in it. I love my coffee and apart from water, that is the only thing I drink. I have not quit it but I have quit the night drinking of coffee. Instead, I drink hot milk at night which is not as satisfying as hot coffee. I am trying my best to use only one cup of coffee and usually take it on mornings.
Another thing the cardiologist wanted to do was take me off the cholesterol medicine that I was using and use Crestor. I told him that I do not have insurance and cannot afford it. I asked him if I try to control my diet and my cholesterol levels get better, if I can continue the meds I was taking for it. He gave in only for now. He wants me to watch what I eat and exercise. I told him that the only exercise I can do is walking slowly on the treadmill. I usually do 30 minutes on it at a slow pace but my plantar fasciitis on my left heel bothers me after walking on it.
So it is becoming difficult to walk on the treadmill. More stress for me because I cannot lose the weight, cannot do the exercises regularly and I stress eat. In fact, I have gained more weight now. Sad to say that I am 161 pounds. At the beginning of this year, I was 145.
The new cardiologist also wanted me to get a treadmill stress test. He had seen the results of my other tests and said they were good but not good for someone like me with a high family risk. He even gave me a copy of my echocardiogram and nuclear stress tests when he found out that I never got a copy from my other cardiologist.
I went with trepidation last week to do the treadmill stress test. It was only after I reached the hospital that I found out it was a nuclear treadmill stress test. They had to inject nuclear medicine in my arm to get images of the heart while it is being tested. The nurse who injected my left arm couldn’t get the vein. It hurt. She had to pull it out because she said I had tiny moving veins. She went and called another tech to help me. The guy checked my arms and decided to put the needle on my right hand below my wrist. He said he didn’t like doing it there but it was the only place he could. That did not hurt as much as the one the nurse did. I had to wait about an hour after that for the medicine to work and then they put me under the machine to read my heart. Then afterwards, another wait. Finally I was hooked up and did the treadmill test. The tech said that they were going to test me until I was at 85%. By the time I reached 59%, I felt as if I was going to drop. I forced myself to go. 83% and it was super tough. My throat was burning. My asthma was acting up. Finally, I made it. They asked if I wanted a Sprite, coffee or water. I took water because my throat was closed up. I could hardly breathe. Afterwards, they put me back under the machine and got more pictures of the heart after stress. Though I had a hard time on the treadmill, I was thankful that my heel did not bother me too much.
I have no idea when I would get the results of that test. For the past few months, it is almost every week that I am doing some kind of tests.
-The day after the treadmill test (that was last week), I decided to go on the treadmill at home and walk. I did walk for 30 minutes. For two days afterwards, my heels bother me. I have not walked on the treadmill since.
NEW ISSUES:
Now the insomnia is not back on but instead I keep feeling sleepy a lot. I usually take a shower the last thing at night and then sit in bed and say my prayers. Afterwards, I read my bible. The past week, I have been falling asleep with my bible on my lap without even finishing my prayers. It didn’t matter if I went to bed earlier than my normal time or not. I would find myself waking up around 2-3 a.m. and realize that I hadn’t even started reading the bible for the night before.
I would wake up to use the bathroom as usual but instead of being awake a lot, I fall asleep fast. Sometimes, I would feel as if I cannot sleep and take my kindle to play some kind of word game and the next thing I know is that the kindle falls off my hand and I am asleep. It may be exhaustion or what is scarier is that I started to wonder if it is my heart being tired from beating so fast. For the past few months, I have been feeling sleepy while I drive. Now that sleepiness has increased to any time throughout the day and night, I am anxious. I do not want to have sleep apnea. Plus I cannot afford a sleep study.
This past Saturday, I had planned to get my craft room/office cleaned up and organized. I am almost done with it but just cannot find the energy to do anything because I feel so sleepy. At church yesterday, I had to close my eyes a few times. I just laid around yesterday and hardly did anything when I got back home.
I hate the feeling of not being able to accomplish anything. There is so much to do and I cannot get the energy to do it. My brain feels tired. My body feels tired.
-My left shoulder started hurting again. The last time it was doing that, I had gone to the chiropractor and after a few adjustments, it has helped. The pain usually comes while I try to put on or take off clothes, fix my bra or have that arm turned at a certain angle. It is not there all the time but when put at that angle. My hubby told me to go back to the chiropractor but I was trying to bear it out. Just another set of money to spend. And now that I have mentioned it, we got good news concerning that. Today, we got a newsletter in the mail from the chiropractor’s office. They are having a food can drive in June and if we bring 5 cans, we get free adjustments. I called today and got my appointment and one for hubby too. God is good!
For the past few years, I started having trouble holding stuff without hurting. Things like a skillet or even writing by hand using a pen or pencil. I usually have nice handwriting but when I would start writing by hand, after a paragraph or so, my writing starts turning sloppy. My fingers would hurt. I never thought much about it. Then it continued to where it became hard to open jars.
Now, all my finger bones are hurting- from touching them or just curling to grasping. I am kind of worried about if it is going to start bothering me with holding the steering wheel to drive. It hasn’t reached that stage yet. Last night I was hurting so much that I ended up taking two generic brand of Tylenol arthritis tablets. I told hubby if the pains keep up like that, I may have to schedule a visit from my rheumatologist.
I am tired. Tired of fighting the pains. Tired of complaining. Tired of feeling like my life is on hold. Some days, there are more pains, more flares than others. I know I have to take it one day at a time. It is just hard sometimes. I’ve got to keep on going. I am not going to let this overcome me. And the struggle continues.
I’ve been having lots of pain in my hands and feet. It’s becoming an every day thing now. The pain in my hands are usually in the finger bones. If I pass my fingers along the hand with my other hand, I can feel as if the bones under the knuckle joints swollen. On the palms of my hand, it also hurts- especially the heel area- parallel to the pinky finger. The heel of the right hand pains more than the left but both hands hurt at the finger bones area. It is hard to hold, grasp, press or write with a pen or pencil.
Fibromyalgia Undiagnosed 