| fat hernia |
[Apr. 18th, 2008|05:30 pm] |
Well, i got the results from my ct scan. possible hernia. "There is unusual thickening in the peritoneal fat in the left side of the peritoneum..." etc etc "...suggestive of some type of presumed scar with some general herniation of peritoneal fat." Goes on to day this is an "unusual finding." Hm... Also, he/she says that "the appearance of the abdomen is quite unusual." You would be unusual too if you had 3 operations in that area.
Going to talk to my doctor on Monday and get a referral for a surgeon. |
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| kitty scan |
[Mar. 16th, 2008|08:18 pm] |
Last august I pulled an abdominal(i think) muscle and I keep reinjuring it. My new doctor here in Phoenix wants me to get a ct scan in case it's hernia. Yeah. Chicks can get hernias. I think I had an umbilical hernia long time ago. Could it be that? But it was in a different spot. I don't know! Too many thing have happened. I hope it's something that can be fixed. I want to be more active. I haven't gone to yoga in awhile and I just found an instructor I like. I think her class aggravated my muscle. Oops. I waited a month before starting yoga again, but the pain started again.
I also want to start taking kung fu with my sister. She started a weeks ago and is now a yellow belt. She's been teaching me sparring techniques that's she learned. I would love to go to her classes, but they do a lot of pushups and situps. I can't do those at all. I shouldn't complain. I've been through worse.
(snore)
Sorry I just put myself to sleep. But this is my medical lj. Helps me remember stuff. Ct scan tomorrow. Can't forget. |
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| 1 year anniversary |
[Jul. 25th, 2007|10:12 pm] |
It's been one year since I had my kidney transplant. Hard to think about life before the transplant. Food restrictions. Tired all the time. Not peeing! Tube sticking out of my chest. It's nice to wear a v-neck once in awhile now. Maybe even a plunging neckline... hmmm?
The past year I've been in and out of hospitals so many times, but I'm so lucky compared to others. So many people to thank. It's overwhelming. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! |
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| brittle bones |
[Jun. 13th, 2007|08:34 am] |
Saw my nephrologist 2 days ago. The prednisone that I am on is making my bones weaker. Not quite osteoporosis, but it could become that, so I'm now on vitamin D and calcium. I also have to start walking more and do weight training. I went to a vinyasa yoga class yesterday. It was fun and challenging. I'll definitely go back. I need to check out the fitness room at the local park district to see if they have weight machines. Prednisone has been cut in half.
Today going to see the plastic surgeon. Ideally, I'd like to have surgery in August. |
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| plastics postponed |
[Feb. 26th, 2007|06:51 pm] |
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Saw the doctor today. He was concerned about my crazy sinus infection and wants to wait 6 months before doing the surgery. Wants to make sure that my body will be ready for it and the infection is completely gone. Annoying, but necessary. He said that he will be putting stuff in behind my eye that could be another source of infection. If that got infected he would have to open me up again and take it all out. La sigh. Well, now I don't have to be worried about my travel plans. As soon as I got home I bought a plane ticket for Phoenix. Still not sure about San Francisco. Too close to the Singapore trip. Need to find a dog sitter. |
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| plastic man |
[Feb. 20th, 2007|03:10 pm] |
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Seeing my plastic surgeon next Monday. One last appointment to see if we are set to go before surgery. I actually had eye surgery scheduled for Mar. 13, but with the whole ER fiasco, they wanted me to him first before scheduling. I hope they can see me soon. The sooner the better. Get it over with so I can heal then go to Arizona then go to Singapore and Hong Kong. My cousin also wants to make a quick stop in Taiwan so she can "eat street food." Sounds good to me! |
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| crap |
[Feb. 18th, 2007|03:10 pm] |
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My sister called and said Lewis (our dalmatian) has an enlarged heart. That is why he has been coughing a lot lately. He is on medication now and he will have an echo test tues. I hope his prognosis will be good and with controlling his heart problem he will be comfortable. His birthday is in April. We got him in 1995. He's up there in age, but Chris says he's acting normal. I wish I was in Arizona now so I can give him a hug. |
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| stuff i'm working |
[Feb. 10th, 2007|04:14 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Galaxy 500 - Flowers | ] |
Yesterday and today started production on solarforward.com Looking good. I bought some stock photos for it without even consulting the client. I found a site where the photos are only $1 for a low rez (pretty big low rez) to about $100. So cheap! A few years ago I had to spend (i mean clients) over $100 per photo for mediocre images and about $500 and above for rights managed stuff. I noticed quite a few of the images were from Russia/E. Europe. Global economy. So I bought a few images because I really really wanted to see them clearly. Going to chuck out 2. Eh. Wasted a couple bucks. I could use them for something else in the future.
Also, making little updates to my store. Inventory is low and don't have much left. Made a few things in the garage, but it was about 10 degrees in there. The space heater helped a little.
My sister wants to learn how to make glass beads so in the future she might make her own work. That would be so fun. I really don't know how artistic she is. I don't remember her ever drawing or anything. She does knit. Maybe I can teach her how to make the tedious boring updates too. I'm going to order some glass equipment for AZ so I can setup a studio there. Also, still need to buy a laptop. I think it's between the 15" or 17" macbook pro. We'll see what my tax refund is. |
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| not all my brain cells died |
[Feb. 3rd, 2007|10:11 pm] |
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I went to visit my cousin at the hospital. She just had a baby girl. Amelie. Cute as a button. Her nurse stopped by and she looked really familiar. I looked at her name tag and asked her if she went to St. Nick's. She said "Jennifer?" Holy shit! It was Laura T. from grade school! I haven't seen her since 8th grade graduation! I went to this small Catholic school from preschool to 8th grade. I think she was there since 1st grade. I don't remember. But it's been 20 years and we still recognized each other. That was cool and I'm kind of amazed that I remembered her. I forget things easily. There are some coworkers that I've worked with that I don't remember their names and I saw them just a few years ago. I kind of wish I had a little lip gloss or something on. I was a tomboy in grade school and had really short hair. I went through a bad puberty too. I remember this little boy thought I was a boy when I was around 13. It didn't help that I liked watching the Transformers (more than meets the eye). I didn't really "blossom" until college or maybe after that. But she recognized me too, so maybe I didn't really change. |
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| Inner Light |
[Jan. 30th, 2007|08:33 pm] |
Damn! It was freezing out! 15 degrees, but was much colder downtown by the lake. I don't know why, but I wore just a vest thingy over a hoodie with a scarf and I had to walk 4 blocks to a restaurant. When I reached the restaurant my head and extremities were numb. I couldn't think straight for a few seconds. Thing about the cold it feels so nice to come inside and have a hot bowl of soup. I don't mind the cold that much (as I sit in my warm room typing away).
Took my first yoga class tonight. It was great! I've been putting off taking a class because I didn't think I'd last a whole hour. I was challenged a bit, but it wasn't too much. Some of the yoga dvds I borrowed from the library were more advanced. Too advanced sometimes. (Damn you Rodney Yee!) The instructor was very nice and laid back. I mentioned my kidney transplant and she said her mom had one too! I've met several people who knew someone who had a transplant just by coincidence (and not in the hospital). |
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| liquid money |
[Jan. 27th, 2007|01:04 pm] |
Cleaning out my purse and noticed my walgreen's prescription price sticker. My neupogen without insurance cost $1643.99!
That's a plane ticket to Thailand. Or 160 music cds. 320 movie tickets at matinee prices. All injected into my body. The first time I used it it didn't even work!
I understand it cost millions for drug research and probably this drug cost a lot to produce, but it seems a little crazy. I think my other drugs cost about as much, but it's for a 30 day supply. The neupogen was only 3 injections. |
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| germs germs everywhere! |
[Jan. 23rd, 2007|01:24 pm] |
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I finished my antibiotics yesterday. Yay! I've kind of isolated myself because I don't want to have to go back to the hospital just for a little infection. I probably should get a blood test this week to check out my wbc (white blood cell) count. Everyone seems to be sick now. Can't visit anyone. Getting a little antsy. When I get antsy I make traveling plans. I emailed my friend in Oakland and told her I wanted to visit her in the spring. I always love visiting her and I think there's a Bizarre Bazaar in May, so I'm going to try and get in. This time I won't make the mistake of buying plane tickets to far in advance. I bought a ticket for my sister to fly out here so we can drive my car to Arizona then canceled it because I want to get my surgery done first. And this whole infection thing is scaring me now, so I'll hold off on moving to AZ until my health is more stable. Wow. This is a boring post. No thievery or nothing! |
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| Comedy! Drama! Thriller! The ER. |
[Jan. 10th, 2007|10:53 pm] |
Last Friday I stayed over my brother's place. For some reason my jaw started feeling achy. Next day my face started swelling up so I called my aunt who is a doctor. I drove to her place and she thought it was a sinus infection and gave me a prescription for some antibiotics. If it got worse I was to go get a ct scan in case it was an abscess. Sunday it was worse, so I contacted my nephrologist and she recommended I go to the ER. So I quickly called my cousin and told her to come over with her t-shirts and iron-ons so I can help with those because I'm going to the ER and might not have time later to print those out. (I have my priorities) Went to the ER and got a ct scan. The radiologist was surprised at how much work I had done on my face because he couldn't tell from the outside. That was nice. Saw a bunch of doctors and nurses and had an iv put in me. Then they wheeled my bed into the hallway to make room for another patient. Lovely. Passed the time playing different songs on my ipod and pretended I was watching a tv hospital drama or comedy. The Scientist by Coldplay made the hubbub around me look like a tv ad for a pharmaceutical company or an investment firm or maybe a non-profit. Tiny Dancer by Elton John made everybody look sad yet determined at the end of tv drama...roll credits. Blue Sky by ELO made them look upbeat...sort of like Scrubs. Charge by Angie Hart did not really work.
My bed was right across 3 patient rooms closed off with curtains. In the room closest to me a man with gown open to the FRONT stumbled out displaying his red boxers. I looked at the doctors and nurses and they all had their backs turned. He looked kind of confused and started walking down the hall. I looked at my dad just to check if he saw what I saw. Finally a nurse intercepted him and brought him to his room. He then began to reach into his boxers. "Wait! Do you need to pee?" She grabbed a pee jug, but he ignored it and peed on the floor. Bigger nurses came to help her out and tried to return him to his bed. Then the guy slipped in his own pee and crashed to floor. I finally looked away and listened to a podcast.
One of the ER doctors said they wanted to keep me overnight for observation because of my medical history so they put me in the Observation Unit 1 floor up. There was one other patient there. And only 2 nurses. Kind of eerie. A tray of meatloaf and mashed potatoes was waiting for my in my room. An eye doctor came in around midnight and took a look at me and on Monday 6am a bunch of ENTs came around examined me. They put me on an iv antibiotic. A few ours later I was wheeled up to the eye clinic and they saw nothing. Back downstairs was a bland chicken breast sandwich in my room. The swelling was getting worse so they put in a regular patient room and I had to stay another night for observation. Slept pretty well despite them checking my vital signs at 1am and 5am. 6am I felt a nudge on my leg opened my eyes and in the darkness was a woman by my bed. She quickly moved to a chair and sat down. Oh. That's probably the nurse's aid waiting for my iv antibiotic to finish so she can unhook me. But then I slowly started to wake up. The woman got up from the chair and stood at the foot of my bed then coughed and walked. She was wearing no pants! She was a patient. Slowly. Still waking up. Remembered that my big purse was resting by my leg where I felt the nudge. Was I dreaming. Thought about it for 30 seconds and pressed the nurses call button. On the intercom. "CAN I HELP YOU?" I was a little scared so I whispered, "there was someone in my room." "WHAT?" "There was a patient in my room." Nurse came and I described what happened. She went in the all and I heard her confronting someone. Looked in my purse and saw that everything was there and my ipod was still plugged into the wall. So I went back to sleep spooning my purse. An hour later I noticed that the box of chocolates sticking out of my purse was gone! An hour after that I noticed the box was on the floor by the chair that woman was sitting in. Still a lot of chocolate left. Threw them out. Herds of doctors came in and out. Even one med student. Later they said they were going to stick a scope in my nose and look in. "My what? My nose?" "Yes. Your nose." Nose scope doctor came in. He was all business. He said it was a fiber optic thing. I pictured something like a fishing line. He showed me a tube about halfway between a regular straw and bubble tea straw. Good of him to lube it up for me. I shut my eyes as he shoved this massive tube in my nose. Good god. All done! He was 3 feet away from me when said that. My eye were still shut when said that and it felt like it was still in there. He saw nothing. Dinner was extremely dry "roast beef". It was so dry the ends were curled up. Later that night an MRI. Next day got the results some residual tumor from my last surgery in 2003 but there were no changes from the MRI in 2003 so that wasn't it. Conclusion: Sinus Infection. Not discharging because of possible blockage from inflammation and structural changes to my sinuses due to my past surgeries. Treatment: switch to oral antibiotics for 12 days. See infectious diseases doctor and ENT doctor in 1 week. Jeebus.
Mad props to Mr Donor and my buddy Andrew for visiting. Nurse thought Andrew was my boyfriend. "No he's just a college friend." She looked surprised and asked "How old are you?" I thought she meant "You went to college with that guy with premature gray hair? I thought you were much younger!" Now I wonder if she meant "You're in college? I thought you were much older!" Hm... I guess I don't need to label my friends. I always say "My work friend So and So and my internet friend So and So" Ok. I need to go relax because my mind is all over the place now. I just ate a lot of dark chocolate. |
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| needles are not that scary |
[Dec. 31st, 2006|04:48 pm] |
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I went to Northwestern to get another blood test. I had to wait in the blood sucking room (my term) for a bit because the phlebotomist had to ask a nurse a question. Another patient sat in the other seat in there and I asked her if she got a transplant. "I didn't even start dialysis yet" She was getting some blood drawn for tissue typing to get on the transplant waiting list. How crappy is that? She also mentioned that she was afraid of needles! When the lab person came back the other patient mentioned her fear of needles and the lab woman said "This is nothing. The needles at dialysis are the size of harpoons." I felt bad for her, but after thinking about it it's good that the lab woman didn't sugarcoat things for her. She needs to get used to things fast. I'm so lucky. |
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| health stuff |
[Dec. 28th, 2006|07:21 pm] |
Transplant nurse called and said my white blood cell count was even lower. .9 I guess normal is 5? Dunno. I'm taking the shots again. They are making me achy. I feel like I have the flu. They also cut one of my meds in half and changed one of my meds to another one. I now have a 3 months supply of bactrim that I can't take anymore. It's not even open, but the transplant nurse said I can't give it to them because it's against the law.
After thinking about it awhile and discussing it with my brother and sister I've decided to postpone going to Phoenix until after I have my eye surgery. I need to cancel the plane ticket I bought my sister. Sort of disappointing. I was so excited about my roadtrip I went to Best Buy to get a new radio for my car. One with a cd player and capable of plugging in an ipod.
Some good news. I fixed my ipod! It's been "broken" for 2 years. The apple icon would come up, but that was it. A clicking sound would come on when I turned it on. I thought that meant the hard drive was busted. After some research I found out it was just frozen. I wiped out the hard drive, re-installed the software and now I've been filling it up. Downloading old Ricky Gervais radio shows so I can put it on the ipod. |
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| mini drama |
[Dec. 15th, 2006|06:39 pm] |
Transplant nurse called me last night. My white blood cell count is waaaay too low. It is usually 4 or 5, but my last test showed it at 1. I don't know what the numbers mean. She said it could be my meds or a virus. I need to take more blood tests on Monday and in the meantime I need to get 3 injections of Neupogen. 1 each day for 3 days. I absolutely can't inject myself, so I went to my doctor aunt and asked her to do it. "What? You can't do it? It's easy!" "Well, then you try and inject yourself." She just smiled. Ah ha! Thought so. The cost of having her do this for me? Me having to donate some money to the church in our hometown in the Philippines. She didn't say this, but she was packing to leave for the home country and said btw, while you are here can you make a donation to the church. I was going to anyway. My mom was bugging my about it earlier. My grandfather was mayor of that town, so we give a lot. It seems like every Filipino I know has some relative who was a mayor or governor or something. I digress. So, these injects might make my bones ache because it increases the production of white blood cells in the bone marrow. The body is a fascinating thing. Thank goodness I still have decent health insurance. Those injections are tres $$$.
I can't stop listening to ELO's Mr. Blue Sky. I saw an episode of Dr. Who with that song. It was so sad. |
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| on my plate |
[Dec. 12th, 2006|04:10 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | my reliant video soundtrack | ] |
- Got catscan today
- Solar Forward logo and website redesign
- BananaBelt Boat website redesign
- Appt with nephrologist
- Starving Artist Bazaar orders
Reliant video... done! Worked out great. 26 minute video whittled down from 10 hours of footage. Thank goodness I saw Prison Break because it had a song on there that was PERFECT for the ending of the video. Orange Sky by Alexi Murdoch. (episode where the brother was going to the electric chair) |
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| saw my plastic surgeon... |
[Dec. 11th, 2006|08:39 pm] |
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I love throwing those words around. Plastic surgeon. Like I'm some rich actress getting my body redone so I can make a comeback. But no. Just more work on my gimpy eye. Catscan tomorrow then we'll see about scheduling surgery. He says he need to put 4 cc's of stuff behind my eye to get it back in place. I think that stuff is my own fat. Yum. If there is too much scar tissue he might not do it and I think he can only know that when he has me opened up. I'm going to be optimistic about it. I'm willing my muscles to be soft and supple so he can yank my eyeball forward. We'll see how this affects my moving plans. |
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| a tad gross |
[Dec. 3rd, 2006|08:55 pm] |
Working away on my online store, rubbed my eye and accidently pulled my eye tube out. It's this tube they put in my tearduct about 3 years ago when they first removed my tumor. The doctor said it will eventually work its way out. Never did. So now I had this 1.5" piece of tube sticking out from my eye. both ends still attached to the bottom and top of the corner of my eye. Called my plastic surgeon and he said I should wash my hands and try and pull it out. If it shows resistance. Stop. Yup. It came a little out, but then got stuck. Then he said I should try sticking it back in. That didn't work. Then he told me to call the eye doctor who put it in. Called that dude and his assistant called. She said to cut the loop because the ends are tied in a knot in my nose! So if you can picture it it's a circle that is threaded through the 2 holes in the corner of my eye passes through the nose and back up to the eye. She said the knot was small so it can pass through the tearduct. I snip the loop. I pull. It stops moving. I pull harder and the whole thing comes out. Did I mention that knot was bigger than I thought? It fucking hurt! But now I have the damn thing out.
Good things: My plastic surgeon wants me to make an appointment with him so I can get a cat scan and we can figure out when my next surgery will be. Yay! Maybe I will be able to see better and look normal again. Other good thing: that damn tube is out.
Oh! Check out this site, KIVA I saw this featured on pbs. You make small loans to people in developing countries to help them run their businesses. Can be as small as $25. I loaned $50 to woman in Mexico so she stock up on goods for her store and $50 to a man in Mexico starting a barber shop in his home. You get your money back in 6-12 months. |
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