On the medical front... I had my heart check this month. During chemo, some people have a reaction to the chemo medication that affects their heart. It is something the doctors can fix and correct if they find it. But in order to find it, they simply check everybody. I don't have whatever that is. But they check every 6 months - and last time was just an office visit in June... and then I threw a blood clot to my lung in July... And I wondered if they would have seen that coming with a heart scan. But I got the heart scan while in the hospital for the clot to my lung. So three months later, they declared me healthy and off the blood thinner. And they checked my heart again with a ct scan in Oct. So back to the heart guy for my now annual heart scan... and they find a near blockage. And they show me the video of the scan. See....??? wanna go for a ct scan??? Now??? Sure.
So I go to radiology, they get the code wrong to get it preapproved. But the insurance had just enough time to approve it. So I have an approved, but wrong test. But they caught it. So they would need to unapprove that, and approve something else before doing the test. Did I want to wait? Was I willing to pay if the insurance did not pay? How much? About $3400. Now they had just shown me an artery into my heart. It showed an upper and lower wall of the artery, and what looked like a bonbon candy sitting on the lower wall. And it was maybe 96% to the top. Oh, that can't be good. And he had said this was just before entering my heart. But we can't tell exactly what it is. Hence, get the scan.
My limited knowledge of things like this - and being told to go to get a scan now... to me seemed serious. Oh, and you can't have food for two hours before, and it was noon. I had been busy that morning - got there at 10am, and had an 8 oz bottle of water in the waiting room. So it was noon, I was good, but I sure had not planned it that way. And radiology is saying this code stuff could take 3 days to sort out. Wanna come back next week? It was a Thursday. I sign saying I will pay if insurance won't pay. Just as I sign, the phone rings, - they have to code mix up fixed - and approved. I can get the test now.
Good Grief. The guy gets me - we do the test - they use the dye - scans without the dye, and with the dye. He pulls the needle out, and wraps my arm. I go to wait in the seating area again. I had put my winter coat back on, and just sat down, and the lady across from me, who I was chatting with before I went in says - you are dripping blood on your hand. I am - I go up to the receptionist, and ask if I can get some help with this? please? She calmly says to walk towards the back again, and the same guy meets me in the hallway to fix this. I can now feel the inside sleeve of my coat must be soaked in blood. We get my coat off, the sleeve is full of blood, and the wrap is soaked. He wipes me down, my coat is something that can be just wiped off inside the sleeve luckily. And when we unwrap my arm, it has stopped bleeding. I have good platelets, and I know because I used to donate platelets. I give blood, - I am up to almost 8 gallons this time, and I gave maybe 5 gallons before they organized to just one place. So I know what to expect. This was something new. He wraps me again, and I say I will go back to the doctors office waiting area. It is mostly closer to my car. It will take them time to read the test - and they will report it to the heart guy. The two places are opposite ends of the hospital. Going for the test I was fine. Walking back - even after sitting for maybe an hour - walking back is hitting my stamina limits. I get to the doctors office and explain I am just waiting... for the scan results, which I know might be a while. Eventually, they sent out the nurse. I had thought - maybe surgery - maybe back on the blood thinners. She gets to explain - whatever scan they did - didn't show the area the doctor wanted to see on a scan. Gonna have to get another scan... a whole chest scan. Okay, I'm still at the hospital - can we just do that now? Nope - you have to wait 3 days for that dye to get out of my body and out of my kidneys. Now I have to wait until Monday - and they will have to get that next test approved again... different code.
So my former work guy friend comes to help me with a list of things like changing light bulbs, closing off a ceiling vent... he basically puts my life back on track. I could barely climb two steps up a ladder - so it's just kind of stupid things. But he fixes several easy things. Then Saturday - we get an ice storm. Nobody is going anywhere - But it starts melting on Sunday. And on Monday - I go back to the heart doctor to find out about getting the next scan again... mostly - I wanna get this over and not have a stroke or another blood clot. So I ask if they have ordered the scan for sure... they have - but it has not been approved yet from my insurance. So I call insurance and explain - a scan is cheaper than a stroke or blood clot and teaching me to walk and talk again - she says it's approved, and gives me a number. Then I call hospital approval people with the number - and she explained - they have not yet asked for the test yet from my insurance people. They can't approve what the hospital has not yet asked for. But she will call them because I have explained - this is crazy - and kinda trying not to die here. She calls them, and me back - approved. Call scheduling next. Okay - can I come Dec 30? That is like two weeks wait - but the ice storm would have screwed up the people needing tests - unless I will drive to a nearby town - they just opened a new ER - they have a CT scan machine - they could take me tomorrow. The only deal is - if they have ER people - you might have to wait. ER people get to go first. I go to the Walmart near there - just because I like it better - so this new ER - is fine.
Next day - I go - and they do have two ambulances come while I am there - but I am fine - I don't have somewhere to go - I am just happy it won't be the two weeks an a December 30th date. I will sit there all day. It's fine. I am just glad to be the person waiting, and not the people on the ambulances. Not a problem. I am trying not to be the person in the ambulances.
She comes to get me - and starts talking that she has called the doctor or nurse to be sure she gets the test correct. Whatever the guy before did - the heart doctor yelled that the scan guy, and the whole department - and she was not gonna screw it up again. I had not said anything yet. She had trouble getting the needle in me - so called an ER person - which again was fine. That girl used me as a teaching moment to teach sticking me with a machine to scan the area and see the needle as she stuck me. Which again - I have been stuck lots of times - I don't mind being to teachers dummy to show him. I get the scan. I leave.
Next day - the nurse had called - I call back. My test showed the same thing that has shown in all my other ct scans. It is called something fancy - but it is a non - threatening fat deposit.
Like I have run out of other places to put fat on my body??? And it has been on other scans - ??? I had wondered if the guy in July also had seen this? The answer from the nurse was - no meds - no surgery - have a nice day.
Good Grief.
So I broke a crown just before Thanksgiving - leaving a tooth standing alone behind it - so I kinda need something to replace that lost crown - and so I started looking at an implant. That is $6000. and they have to pull the root out of the tooth I lost first. They scheduled an appt to just talk about that - for January 2 - and I am a big winter chicken. Like this can wait - my ride friend is 75, and will take me to medical things they knock me out for - but we don't need to be going on ice and winter storms. So while in the waiting room - I cancelled that.
And after coming home from the dental adventure of wrapping my head around the idea of a $6000 tooth implant - I got a jury summons notice for jury duty in the mail. Oh, and jury duty would be the second week of January. My courthouse is old - it has steps everywhere. I can barely manage my steps to do laundry in my house. Parking for the courthouse is maybe a half mile or more away. I can't do that distance. And if the weather was bad - or icy - and I fall walking - I am screwed getting back up. I'm a fat chick. Getting up off the floor or ground kinda required me to crawl to something I can use to get up again. And if I break a bone while on this adventure - there is nobody to care for me - I live alone. Now if the courthouse was at a mall - where the parking was closer, and no steps - I might have a chance. I usually get dismissed anyway - so then it is a morning of walking and steps, only to be released, and have to go down the steps - and walk the distance and not fall... And if I do get picked - and it goes more than one day - could I do this two days in a row? I start to freak out with worry. I can feel okay - but since chemo - I have awful stamina. If you let me push a cart - like shopping - I can do better - go more distance - but if you put stairs in my adventure - it's gonna wipe me out. So I asked during the heart appt - can you please get me out of this? I had to explain what were my physical limitations - and I did. This is nothing new - I have said my stamina has me screwy since the end of my chemo a year and a half ago now. I started this adventure by actually walking to the other end of the hospital and taking the stairs down - and then back up - and walking back at every appointment just for the exercise. And I have still done that walk several times - but I can't do the stairs after chemo. I'd like to be able to. It's not laziness. It's stamina. I walk stores for exercise - I will park away from the store knowing I need those extra steps. But actual steps just screw me up.
I started dieting again right before Thanksgiving. I had wished I could lose weight. My body just can't support this much weight after chemo - and that's fine. Before chemo it was harder - but after it's just way way too much. Then I broke the crown... which meant I had to wait almost a week to see the dentist - which was dieting and drinking just water - yogurt, and broken crackers. But I was losing. Then jury duty notice - then heart adventure and how to pay for a $6000 tooth. It's was just too much. And there are other life things - nothing major - just life things that cost thousands.
Oh, and my mom once told me - she was gonna die in November. I said - pardon me? And you know that how? She explained - her dad died in August - her mom died in September - her husband died in October - meaning she would die in November.... not all the same years - but it was a monthly progression that seemed to be playing out. She was really sick - had cancer - had surgery to fix the cancer stuff in October - and damn near did die in late November - I was taking her twice a day for wound care after her surgery - and she was just irked at me that day. But we were doing wound care in our city - but the cancer treatment was at a nearby university hospital. So I shoved us in the car, and took her neighbor lady with us - hoping my mom would be nicer in front of her. She was not peeing - but had said nothing about that - and just happened to be out of water pills that day - so we stopped to get her water pills - and she took that pill knowing she was not peeing - and not telling anybody. So we got the the other town university hospital that had her records, and knew her - and to the ER - and she still did not say she was not peeing to them. Her something was crazy high - so they give her the thing to fix that - which sent the numbers completely off the charts instead of lowering it. That got everybody's attention. They figured out her tube from her kidneys to her bladder was blocked from the cancer - she was supposed to start chemo like the following days. We got there about noon, it was nearly 5pm - they said she would need tubes in her kidneys to pee into bags. The nurst asked the doctor - tomorrow? No, he told the nurse - now - she will be dead by tomorrow. Surgery will be asap. And they did.
But she darn near died in November. How long can you not pee before you die? Not very damn long is what I learned - and you damn well need to be telling anybody that will listen - especially once you get to the ER.
And I am her only child - so all this order of people dying.... her nearly dying in November - kinda makes me December.... And I have a heart scan with an artery with a bonbon looking 96% blockage going into my heart.... and no stamina? Well, that sure would explain the no stamina crap. So yeah, I wanted the test. I saved my mom that day by taking her to the ER, and she lived till the following August. She had a tumor wrapped around her spinal cord when all this started - she knew that - and she had cancer. They fixed the cancer - she did the chemo. It even fixed the bladder tubes - they had okayed putting her back together so she would pee normally again. They told her she was gonna live. She was in shock after they told her that. So getting Taxol had fixed both things - bladder and the girly parts area. So when I knew I was getting Taxol for my breast cancer - I was fine with it. I felt if I had cancer somewhere else - it would maybe help something they had not found or known about yet.
When they tested my lymph nodes - I had 3 of 5 bad closest to my breast. So they pull the next group - and I had 2 of 18 bad. The limit was 4 - if I had just four bad - they would not have done chemo. But I had 5 bad - but knowing taxol could fix other things - when I was told part of it was taxol - I knew it was hair loss - I had seen my mom do taxol. But when I did it - there were things I didn't see, that she didn't talk about. Side effects. And what the doctors say is - everybody is different. And because I knew taxol had helped other things for her - I was fine with doing it. Even now knowing the side effects - I am fine with it.
But honestly - December is kinda spooky for me now. I know it is not written in stone - I kept mom alive - so I know it might be something I can change - I mostly just pay more attention. But when your heart guy says - come look at this heart blockage - wanna go get a scan? And wanna sign off on paying $3500 for the test? Oh, and while talking to the billing department a day or two before all this heart stuff - they were not getting paid for a doctor bill from the blood clot in July - so I wanted to ask the billing department some information - making sure it was not some scam bill also. So I had just been on the phone for 2 hours talking to my insurance company the day before all this heart stuff. So when they screwed up the billing code for my scan... I just had to laugh. If you can't laugh - and then bleed into your coat sleeve... and get the scan that doesn't show the right area.... and it's December.... and could I just wait till December 30th for that scan?
And that nurse? She did fax the court people an excuse that got me out of jury duty. After that - I was just so relieved. I will be slightly better once December is over. And I did lose 15 pounds in the past month. But I have tried cooking for Christmas - so I gained 4 back. I didn't gain it all at once - and losing in winter is the hardest thing. So I had a quiet Christmas - I know you can ask the universe for things - and it might pop into your path. I asked for yogurt to be on sale - it went on sale on the 23rd. I had wanted a puzzle of something I am stitching - an Escher puzzle - but maybe a still sealed one. On sale? That popped up the 24th - the puzzle pieces bag is still sealed, and it was about half the price. And I wanted Arbys sandwiches - which are normally on sale around Christmas - I got sale sandwiches. You CAN ask for things - don't ask for lottery numbers - but ask and give it time. You can ask for even better parking spots - but you can't wait till you get to the store to ask. Ask before you leave the house - you'd laugh at what can happen. I ask for silly things all the time. And I get silly things all the time. Just be sure to say Thank You aloud after - just like you want to hear those words for doing something nice - and it encourages you - whatever is nice to you - wants to know they are noticed too. Then the silliness begins, and it learns what you like - and all sorts of fun things get tossed into your path. But if you don't say Thank You - the game is not fun for them - and they feel not noticed. And you don't have to believe me - not at all. But what if I am right - and there is real magic in the world? That is my gift for you to learn on this Christmas Day. Just try asking for something small... The game is more fun the longer you play. And I have played for decades. But it is never too late to start.
