Thursday, April 28, 2011

Somewhere Only We Know

I'm a sucker for music....it brings me back to moments in my life that I truly treasure.  

And this song I feel like came out in high school.  But when Darren sang it this past week on Glee, I could not get a huge smile on my face.  Keane did an amazing job on this song when they released it, but Darren made me realize with this scene how much of a love song it truly is. And I fell in love again with not only the song, but this television relationship.  Silly I know, but I figured I would share it because this scene just seriously brings a huge smile on my face.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Hey Hey Hey Goodbye

As many of you know from either my facebook or an email from my mom, HENRY IS DISAPPEARING!!!

The doctor told me yesterday that the blood clot has gotten much smaller and it's almost gone.  He wants me to continue with the Warfarin until after my trip to Washington in July.  Originally he said I could be done with it in June, but when I mentioned the trip he said stay on it till after I got home.  He said I didn't need to do blood work every week anymore but every two weeks.

And he also told me to just live my life.  At this point in the appointment I started to cry.  Huge surprise right?  He told me to let it out and stressed the fact that I needed to live my life and not worry about Henry anymore, that stressing is not going to help anything.

I did tell him how difficult it was to deal with Dr. P telling me every week that my INR levels continue to decline and that it was somehow my fault.  He proceeded to tell me that I do not need to worry about my INR levels, that they change throughout the day and that if it was between 1.5 and 2.5 then it was fine.

What's the most frustrating thing about the whole thing is getting two different stories from the different doctors.  But I'm going to trust the experts.  And that means I don't have to worry about Henry anymore, and I can even enjoy a glass of wine (his words not mine).

I cried once again outside and my dad told me I have to start to trust some doctors.  I think he understands why I don't because it's been different stories for four months, but after four months I finally am told good news.  That the freaking clot is almost gone!  And it's finally sinking in that four months to the day I have finally reached the point I never thought I was going to.

So July be expecting a fiesta of epic proportions to celebrate, if that's okay with the parentals.  But I need some celebrating the fact that Henry is GONEEE.  And sorry to say this Henry, but I won't really miss you.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Crossing Fingers and Toes

Today marks another ultrasound for this little girl.  I'm especially nervous about this one.  Not because I don't know what to expect, because I do, but because Henry has been acting a bit strange the past week and a half and I am hoping to get some answers today.

My leg has started to get a little bigger than it has been.  My leg could be swollen because I really have not been resting it or elevating it when I get home.  But it's not just that it's swollen.  There almost seems to be a pulse in my leg where I can almost feel the blood going through.  Or maybe that's not the right explanation.  There are small waves of uncomfortableness, or pain that goes through sometimes that I don't quite know why it's doing that. 

So today we find out what is going on.  I find out if I'm stopping the blood thinners.  I find out what the next step is.  I find out if my bike riding has caused more harm then good.  I find out if Henry has grown or shrunk.  My hope is for the latter. And after an emotional draining doctor's visit, I get to go into work and work with people that will be able to cheer me up.  Nice to look forward to you know?

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Smiling But We're Close to Tears

The past few days have sucked.  To put it mildly.  I'm sorry I can't put it in better words but I am brutally honest and that's the hard truth.

Yesterday I found out that once again my INR levels are dropping.  I feel like it's the stock market, and nothing I do can stop these stupid INR levels to drop.  I'm at the highest level of my Warfarin ever and yet the stupid blood work is not giving me the results I need.

Dr. P wants me to see the Dr. C to determine when I can get off the Warfarin because I have "been on it for four months".  I informed her that I was going next Monday and she said that should be fine to wait.  I told her that my leg has become somewhat hard which it had not been and that it has been hurting. She told me waiting Monday should be okay.

I cried after getting off the phone with Dr. P.  I cried (almost) at Pop's.  I cried when I came home from work.  Basically I have been in the worst mood ever, that even shopping didn't turn, and have been a hot mess ever since Saturday.  Or at least that's when I have come to terms this whole funk has occurred. 


It's become very difficult to be positive when nothing is going right.  I am basically following everything they tell me to do and yet I get opposite results.  The weeks that I was at the INR therapeutic levels?  I had had a beer the night I would go out AND had a huge salad.  Now I'm not doing either and it just keeps crashing.  I'm just waiting for the whole thing to burn and for me to once again not be able to move because they can't figure this thing out.  That's the point I have gotten to now.  I'm expecting that I will never be fixed.


I was talking to the pharmacist at work last night about Warfarin.  She told me that people normally go on 5 mg and become therapeutic and it's rare for a person to go to 10.  To go over 10 mg is nearly unheard of.  Well guess who is over ten? This girl.  She laughed and said you would think I was a 300 pound man or something with the levels that I am already on.


Maybe I really do need to see and talk to someone because right now I don't want to be around people where I have to pretend that everything is wonderful but at the same time I want to be around people.  The time I almost forget about everything is when I'm at work and super busy that I don't have to think about it.  That and the fact that there are always so many people around that it just makes my mind go blank.  It's great.  But maybe I really do need someone to sort out everything up there.  I just don't know anymore.


Up next:  Monday I get the dreaded ultrasound.  Which will tell me if this thing has grown or not.  I almost feel like it has because it's becoming more obvious that it's there but who knows.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Hodge-Podge of a Post

Hello readers. Welcome back!


Sorry I have been MIA the past week and a half.  Nothing much on the medical side has changed.  Last week I was told my INR level went up a bit but was still not in the 2-3 range.  This meant that I increased my Warfarin on Monday and Thursday to a mil gram that I have never done in the past four months.  Scary, I know, but I did what the doctor says.  And tomorrow I will be getting my blood drawn to see if increasing the medicine has helped get my INR level where it's supposed to or if my body just does not want to fight anymore.


On another note, my steroids continue to decrease and yesterday began taking only one steroid pill per day.  Super exciting news right there.  Pretty soon I'm not even going to need to have the steroids anymore!  The other inside medicine that I have taking has been changed too.  Instead of taking a pill eight times a day, which I hated and had several breakdowns because of, I only have to take one pill four times a day which is what I was doing before.  This does not mean that the medicine was not increased, I just asked my doctor to put in a new prescription for the higher dosage.


Now onto Henry.  Oh Henry.  He's been hurting a bit.  Some days Henry is extremely weird with a feeling that is more intense then your foot awakening after it has fallen asleep.  There are other days that my knee hurts which makes zero sense to me but it's what happens.  I realized today that Henry is hard as a rock and I'm not sure if that's a good thing.  A question I need to put on the list for Dr. C (I think that's what his nickname was).  And my veins? Let me just TELL you that they are disgusting.  The veins on my foot basically pop out to not normal levels and sometimes you can see the blue on my legs are chest.  It's really kinda gross.  I'm going to be SO happy when I do not have to take these blood thinners anymore and hopefully get my body back.


Onto other news.  A drove into the building I work in.  Seriously, went right through the brick.  Luckily I was not there as it was supposed to be my day off.  Of course when I heard though, I went to check it out.  The car was completely into the building and I really do not understand how someone could have done that.  The store was closed for the day, minus the pharmacy drive thru.  (Insert car making a new drive thru joke here).  I was called in at two to help put up the next day sale and seeing the damage inside from the car almost brought me to tears.  One of the nicest women I know works the section where the car went through and luckily went up to the front so she did not get injured.  But it's an act from above that she was not there at the time.  There was a HUGE hole for a while in the wall but they have bordered it up for now.  I don't know what is going to happen in the coming days or even weeks in regards to the hole.  But to say that it will be the topic of conversation for weeks to come is an understatement.


Also at work, we had a bake sale fundraiser.  I was the organizer if you use the term loosely because I basically just picked the day and hoped people would make something yummy.  And did they ever.  I don't know how much money we raised yesterday (it was supposed to be a two day fundraiser, but with the store closed, we didn't make too much money on Saturday) however I am so touched by how my coworkers came together and not only made things, but bought tons of treats throughout the day.  Seriously, I didn't think we were going to have anything, and then we end up with an overabundance of delicious treats.

In the next week I have my WONDERFUL ultra sound to see if Henry has gone down in size.  Given the fact I was told several different time periods for this whole thing, one of them was four to six months.  We are at month four, so let's hope we see some progress.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Let's Play A Little Game

Okay so we are going to play a game.  You have to choose one thing you don't think you can give up cold turkey.  I'll give you a few options.

a. Chocolate
b. Soda
c. Alcohol
d. Salad

If I know people like I think I do, most people would never answer d.  However, that is my answer.  I have basically given up b and c....only having one of each on special occasions.  I'm not a true fan of chocolate; I have to be in the mood for pure chocolate.  It's been hard to avoid the Thin Mints but we don't have as many boxes anymore and I'm trying to avoid them.  And the rest of candy bars? I've been good.

Salad? Salad is the reason I cried last night; it's the reason that when I get home from work at night I get upset that I can't make a quick salad to eat because it's better then eating all the pasta we have in the fridge.  I mean I have to be healthy, and I'm depriving myself of essential nutrients because I'm not having good balanced meals due to my work schedule.  So I eat salads to have my vegetables.


Ever since Dr. P told me that my INR levels continue to plummet with no idea why they are doing that, I have been trying my very best to not eat salads, and to continue to be semi good with not eating chocolate.  This salad deprivation is what caused another breakdown last night, and what brought me close to tears when I looked in the fridge tonight upon my arrival back home.  You see we have a whole new head of lettuce, and all I want is some of it, but I can't.  It really is such a tease, and I don't know how much longer I can avoid it.  


Truth is we are on month four of this bullshit with no resolution in sight.  I have a flight to Washington booked for July, I need some sort of change.  The doctors have no reasoning as to why my INR level is not therapeutic like it's supposed to be.  They seem to be stumped and I think part of the reason I have been so emotional recently is because there are no answers.  I take pills eight times a day, which basically means I'm taking pills every two hours, or what feels like ALL DAY.  Not only that but the blood clot had not gotten any smaller since the last ultra sound and I won't know how it looks again till the day after Easter.

I was told at the beginning of this thing that I did not have to change my diet.  It's funny we were more concerned about keeping my weight level because of my insides.  After I have seemingly gotten that situated for the time being, now I have to worry about what I'm eating because my doctors can't figure out why my INR is not staying where it should be.  It honestly boggles my mind.  Okay maybe not, I understand they are trying to get it to a certain point and taking away certain food is trying to find said solution.  But when I'm not eating "tons of it" like they told me, just small bowls of it to get my veggies in, I don't understand how this is helping me instead of deterring my health.


I remember a while back when I cried to my dad after being told some news, maybe it was the colonoscopy, that I was done with this all.  I said it again last night.  I'm grateful for being back at work, for being able to interact with people and able to eat and not bed ridden.  But when I have to cut on some of the things I love without getting any sort of resolution, I just don't see the point anymore.  Taking over ten pills throughout the day?  How is that living to a 24 year old?  Because I can honestly say I worry more about when I'm taking my next pill and if I took them all then what I am doing.  And I'm just completely over it all.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Hearing bad news for the second week in a row has brought me into a serious funk.  I'm not happy.  I'm sad again.  Always a chance to start crying at the drop of the hat.

Not even winning the game last night changed my mood.  I just don't want to be sad anymore.

You Know What It Is

Here's the deal; I love UConn basketball probably the same level that die hard Yankee and Red Soxs fans love their team.  I love the Red Soxs as well, but UConn basketball games make my anxiety rise during close games.  While last night's championship game was no where near that type of anxiety, only when they drained that three at the end of the half, I was beyond words for how excited I was that they won.

I mean this team was not expected to do ANYTHING.  A team of mostly freshmen, with a few sophomores and a star junior, nobody really thought they would do anything.  Then they won the Maui tournament, and started to take the world by storm.  Maybe not the world, because UConn had a bunch of haters with the NCAA troubles from last year, but I mean they sure did shock me every chance they got.

I remember back to my senior year, when Kemba was just starting out.  And now he has brought the championship trophy back to the little farm town in Connecticut.  I loved how Olander cheered and celebrated like crazy after the win.  I love all the videos of the boys dancing.  And I love how at a bar full of older people last night, cheers erupted after we won the game.
 The man.  The myth. The legend.  I don't know what it is about Jimmy Calhoun but I really do love this man.  Maybe it's the fact that he freaks out when his players do bad.  Or the fact that I can now call when he will pull a player out right after they mess up on a play.  Or maybe it's because he truly does love this team and has never discounted them for anything.  But I'm SO freaking glad he won this game.  What a way to end a season, and possibly even bow out gracefully


Then last night they won; of course it was after I graduated, but I couldn't be more happy.  I loved watching the press conference, I loved all my fellow alum statuses and I loved seeing all the videos from people I know still on campus.  What I wouldn't give to still be on campus, to go see them as they arrived from the airport, or even to go to the parade.  While I wish the game was a little more exciting, I am still so freaking happy that they won, with the help of the supporting cast more then anything else to gain the win.

Monday, April 4, 2011

April Fools....Days Later

Today, I ended up crying in the middle of my kitchen after getting off the phone with Dr. P.

I'm just very tired of having to deal with all this crap.  She says my INR level is continuing to get lower and asked me what I have changed in my life that would cause this to be happening.  I explained to her that I have been decreasing my steroids while increasing the other medicine so maybe that's what happened.  She didn't seem convinced.  But I really don't know why I have so much faith in what she says because she has not been on the top of her game.


When I originally called the office, they didn't seem to have any idea where the results were.  That's smooth guys, I had the thing done on Wednesday.  Then, I was told by Dr. P. that I had to call the office within 24 hours if I didn't hear from them after my blood work.  Funny, I thought I was going to get sick of her and now she isn't keeping up with her end of the bargin.


I'm tired of feeling like I can't get anything right and that it is somehow my fault.  I guess I will try to cut chocolate, salads and caffeine out of my diet completely (that's another promise that's broken Dr. P).  Today is the first time in a couple weeks that I have broken down to tears, it's not a fun time.  Especially on such a fun/good day!


UConn game after work tonight which means this is going to be the longest day in the history of work days.  And it's a short shift too, which means it probably should go fast.  But the UConn game is on tonight!!! CHAMPIONSHIP GAME.  Ugh I can not contain myself.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Sitting Waiting Wishing

This title is relevant in two completely different ways.  Remember how I said Fridays were similar to American Idol result shows with my INR levels?  Well Dr. P has been failing at giving me said results.  This is the second week in a row that I'm sitting on a Sunday night not knowing what the results from WEDNESDAY were.  Seriously, I understand I got the blood drawn late on Wednesday, but I should know by now.

And watch her give attitude when giving my INR levels like last time because they went low again last week, as if I should know why it isn't staying consistent.  Plus I should be giving her a bit of an attitude for not being more prompt with my results.

I'm seriously over doctors.

The SECOND thing I'm waiting for is tomorrow night at this time.  Which means I'm outta work and waiting for the UConn game to begin.

Last night I watched UConn beat Kentucky to get into the championship game tomorrow evening.  The game was not pretty by any means, I was made fun of by my friends for taking it so seriously.  In the final moments I was so nervous I turned my back for a few seconds so I didn't have to watch.  But we won!! And I love this picture of Kemba; it's rejoicing after a hard fought battle (or just a difficult game because it really wasn't that great of a Final Four game) to come out on the road to the championship game.

And Butler's coach? Completely reminds me of a my boss.  I asked him today if he gets that a lot.  He kinda laughed and said he's heard it a few times.

So here I am waiting for results.  One that directly affects my health, body and well being, and the other that doesn't necessarily affect my health, but my well being and happiness? One could say that is possibly.

I think I'm okay with people thinking I'm weird about my love for the Huskies