feuervogel: (moo)
Ben brought my laptop this morning.

So, here's what we know so far: it's not C. diff; it's not my gallbladder; it's probably not IBD. The doctor I saw (a Dr. Lamba) thinks it's something viral, probably, but with the chronicity, I've wiped my normal flora, so we're trying probiotics. If that helps, they'll send me home (because hospitals are full of germs).

I've gotten about 3.5L of IV fluids. They decided that was enough, so I'm not tied to the pole anymore. Clear liquid diet, lactose-free. Ginger ale, water, broth. I didn't touch the apple juice or jello. I don't have much of an appetite, really.

I'm catching up on my interwebs. Ben's going to the con for me. If you want my room number, PM or text me :) I'm in a very stylish hospital gown.
feuervogel: (do not want)
This gets a DO NOT WANT because I really do not want, but my dislike of hospitals is outweighed by my dislike of not being able to eat for a whole fucking week already.

Ben's on his way, and I'm trying to pick up my assorted junk around W&G's apartment, and figuring out what I want to take with me (books, yes. Will they let me bring my laptop if I get admitted? What about my toiletries?)

Time to get off the computer & get organizing. Ben should be here in 10 minutes or so.
feuervogel: (do not want)
I'm not doing this just to bore you all or garner sympathy; I want to be able to have a record in case I need it.

Was fine after about 1:30 yesterday. Drank a vitamin water (lemonade flavor) and had some ginger ale at the Flying Saucer (which made me really sad, because it wasn't one of their hundred-some beers, and I couldn't eat, either), and was OK, if tired & weak. Drove back to W&G's and slept on their couch (which is actually pretty comfy. I have my AeroBed, but this is actually a little better.)

Woke up around 5:30, went to bathroom. Wondered what I'd put into my body that it could have digested. Went back to couch. Felt queasy. Got up, took a zofran, went to bathroom again. Same question. Went back to couch, felt dizzy. That's from the medicine. Laid back down, tried to sleep. Dozed a bit while W&G got up & dressed & ready to go.

My stomach still hurt a bit, but I didn't have the utterly miserable nauseous feeling. Then I dry-heaved. Then I went back to the couch, tired and weak, and left a message for my doctor. (Around 7:45)

They called back around 9, I gave them more information, the nurse said she'd ask the doctor what to do next. (ie, is it time for me to go to the hospital and get IV fluids & nutrition and a whole fuckton of testing?)

They haven't called back yet. I've been feeling better, and I even took a shower. I've been sipping flattened ginger ale, and I may be able to leave for the con in the next hour or so. Since I haven't eaten in 6 days now, I'm low on fuel (and vitamins and all that sort of stuff). At least soda has a lot of sugar in it.

The annoying thing is that when I do eat, it doesn't bother me until the next day. So I can never tell if that packet of saltines or that up of applesauce is going to make me horribly ill until I get ill 12 hours later. So right now I'm basically terrified of food. THIS SUCKS.

I'm going to rest a bit more and rearrange some of my con gear for the day.

If I don't hear otherwise from my doctor and I wake up sick again tomorrow (after another day of clear liquids and maybe applesauce), I'm going to decide on my own that it's time for the hospital. Though by the time I got there, I might look well enough that they think I'm faking.
feuervogel: (do not want)
That's the only explanation I can come up with for why I woke up sick again today.

I really want to be able to make it to NASFIC. I can't afford to throw away the $120 I spent on the membership. But I also don't want to be driving to Raleigh and need a bathroom NAO, or in the middle of a panel (that I'm on) and need to run off stage.

I got a brief call back from my doc's nurse, who said my doc wants me to do the metronidazole, but I have trouble keeping food & water down; there's no way I'll be able to do metro. But I left a message earlier this morning about feeling nauseous & vomiting again, which may change the equation. The nurse said she'd relay the message about the n/v part and my dr would get back to me asap. (She's off Wednesdays, so today's really busy.)

I hope it doesn't change the equation to "go to the hospital today."

I haven't had a chance to let her know I had some much more mild bouts over the last year, of randomly waking up at 2 or 3 am with nausea (and sometimes vomiting, but not often), or that when I went to bed last night, I had a sharp, stabbing pain under my ribs on the right.

I'm much more inclined to think it's the gallbladder.

All I know is this had better be fucking OVER before Dragon*Con.
feuervogel: (do not want)
I got in for ultrasound this morning. The radiologist on duty took a look at them as soon as the technician finished taking pictures, and he said it looked fine. But my doc hasn't received the report yet, and I don't know if she wants to do further testing or just make me take the nasty-ass metronidazole empirically. I'll probably hear back Friday while I'm at the con.

According to the website I linked yesterday,
* Ultrasound accurately detects gallstones as small as 2 mm in diameter. Some experts recommend that the test be repeated if an ultrasound does not detect stones, but the health care provider still strongly suspects gallstones.
* Air in the gallbladder wall may indicate gangrene.
* Ultrasound does not appear to be very useful for identifying cholecystitis in patients who have symptoms but do not have gallstones.
* Ultrasound is also not as accurate for identifying common bile duct stones or imaging the cystic duct. Nevertheless, normal ultrasound results, along with normal bilirubin and liver enzyme tests are very accurate indications that there are no stones in the common bile duct.

So, if I have tiny gallstones, or no gallstones at all, ultrasound won't pick them up. A friend who had her gallbladder out last year (or the year before?) said it took u/s, HIDA, and CT before they found hers. Yikes.

Other options to consider, I suppose, are IBS, IBD/Crohn's, and adult-onset food allergy.
feuervogel: (do not want)
I've been battling random bouts of nausea and other digestive issues since the end of June. I thought about calling my doctor after ReaderCon and the quasi-food-poisoning issue, but I didn't, and I tried a little experiment of eliminating vitamins. Then Sunday I woke up sick yet again, so I decided to call the doctor after I got back from Asheville (because I was feeling well enough in the afternoon to make the drive). Then I woke up Monday morning feeling like crap, and having to deal with guilt for not showing up as promised to the job site, and eventually I felt well enough to go in, and I worked 1-9 pm.

Since Saturday night, I've eaten a sleeve of saltines, a couple bites of pumpkin cookie, a bit of zucchini bread, and a mountain dew. Just now, I was hungry enough to eat a slice of zucchini bread. I've lost close to 5 pounds since I got back from Europe. (On top of the 7ish I lost there, when I was walking 6 miles+ a day.) Yeah, I'd like to lose weight, but not because I'm nauseated or terrified that the next food I eat will make me nauseated.

I called my doctor yesterday morning and made an appointment for this afternoon. I went through my symptoms, and she agreed that it isn't normal, and the only 'different' things I've had recently was the trip to Germany (because if it was Austria or Hungary, Ben would probably be sick, too). So it's either a weird German parasite or my gall bladder.

She's referring me to the radiologists for an ultrasound, and if that's negative, I have a prescription for metronidazole x 10 days. I might almost prefer having my gall bladder out than taking metronidazole TID for 10 days.

From poking around on the internet, the symptoms fit, and I have 3 of the risk factors (female, fat, family, forty). My dad apparently needs his GB out.

DX

7 Jul 2010 12:53 pm
feuervogel: (do not want)
tmi. GI issues. )

So I called my doctor and left them a message. They called back and said eat BRAT and drink flat coke or ginger ale. And by no means should I think about driving to Boston today.

Lucky for me Ben had already planned to take today off to do some car stuff and watch the Germany game, so he picked me up some saltines and a bottle of Coke and is currently out running other errands.

I doubt I'll be up for driving this afternoon (plan *was* to leave around 5:30 and head to my sister's to sleep & break the 13-hour drive), but I could be surprised. I almost feel like showering, though it takes me 10 minutes to eat a saltine.

Problem is, I'm supposed to be going with somebody else. The plan for now is for her to come here, then see how I feel in the morning. This plan is subject to change.

I really want to go to this con. I can get a flight up tomorrow at noon and back Monday morning (if a friend in Boston can let me stay there Sunday night) for 32k frequent flyer miles. Going Friday morning costs 40k, which is just more than I have. I just hate flying, you know? And I don't want to be on an airplane with GI issues (which, thankfully, seem to be resolving, though I'm still tired.)

I wonder if I drove to my sister's tonight and didn't feel up to going on if J would be able to fly from DC to Boston & back to Charlotte. It's a little cheaper, and there's also the Amtrak option (even with flying back to Charlotte 1-way, it's cheaper than flying RT from here.)

Argh, I hate when my plans go all pear-shaped.
feuervogel: (win)
So far this morning, I have done the following:

- called the vet, the vet school, and the vet again, and rescheduled Isis' ultrasound for this Thursday at TAC rather than the vet school. We'll get her in earlier, and it'll save us the trip to Raleigh.

- called my doctor. I haven't had a physical since 2007, so back I go. I'm getting fasting labs (;_;) the 7th at 8:30, then the appointment is the 27th at 10:15. I'd wondered if she was going to want a physical again, since I couldn't exactly remember my last one. (I'm young. Insurance only covers a physical for people my age every few years.)

- called the pharmacy. Since I'll run out of drugs before the appointment, I had to get the pharmacy to fax a reauthorization form. (Though, hm, my labs will be done before I run out; I don't know if they'll wait till then. I'm in no rush on that.) And because I'm going to be gone for 6 weeks, I asked if we could do it in 90-day supplies instead of 30. They may have to bug my insurance people.

- called BCBS and got numbers for whom to call if I get sick (and end up in the hospital) in Europe. I need to look up in-network doctors in Berlin, just in case. (I can also just go to a doctor and pay cash, then send in the claim when I get home.)

- emailed the Goethe Institut with some inane questions about housing.

- emailed Pension Wild asking for a confirmation.

- got Ben to put the registration form in the mailbox.

And that's basically my to-do list for the day.

But I need to buy a plane ticket from Berlin to Vienna. Can't forget to do that. That would be really bad.

I was too tired to get up and exercise this morning, and I was hoping the weather wouldn't be this vile and I could go for a walk. Guess not.
feuervogel: (isis)
So, SeƱora Crankypants has diabetes. Her cleaning for Monday is off until we get her under control, but we have to take her in for a urine sample Monday, as well as some instructional stuff and getting the prescription.

- This is where my training in diabetes education and management will come in handy. Thanks, UNC SOP! I'm a little out of date as far as what meters are available, but we don't need anything fancy like Ascensia Breeze. Luckily for me, some kind soul at Walgreens put together a comparison table.

- Our vet likes to use Lantus pens. Except not as pens: they want us to draw insulin into regular U-100 syringes. It's more cost-effective: one box of 5 3-mL cartridges costs $185 at Harris Teeter (and we can get a VIC discount), and one 10-mL vial costs about that. Once you open a bottle of insulin, you're supposed to pitch it after a month. If you're good about aseptic technique, and you're vigilant about checking for precipitate in the cartridge, you can use it longer. I personally wouldn't use it more than 2 months. (In humans, this typically isn't an issue.) So even if the pen cartridges cost more, it's really saving money in the long run.

- Isis should eat food that's <7% carbohydrates. The Evo she's eating is 7% max, which is the lowest carb content in dry cat food. We'll try a few other types of canned Evo, to see what she likes. The one she's eating at the moment (turkey & chicken) is really mushy, and I think she may have trouble eating it. We know she likes Luna's food, which is Innova canned (not Evo), and that has 3% carbs. A trip to Phydeaux is in our future.

- We also need to have Karo syrup on hand in the event of hypoglycemia. Smear it onto her gums, apparently.

- The vet said I can do a glucose curve at home, because she's comfortable with me doing it, since I'm a pharmacist. It's about $170 each time they do it in clinic, and it may require several times to figure everything out, so it'll be another cost saver. Because I feel more comfortable having a glucometer available when giving insulin, I'm going to acquire one.

- Boarding at the vet clinic is $22/day, plus $2.50 if the cat needs medication. They also do a flea treatment on admission for $5. So not too much gloom and doom for vacation travel (there's no way I'm asking a pet sitter to deal with this. Isis hates everybody except me & Ben. Vet staff can deal with it, and if anything goes poorly, they'll be able to take care of it.)

Things to buy:
- glucometer (AccuChek Aviva ($20 at Walgreens) or Active)
- test strips (AccuChek Active $30/50 at Walgreens; Comfort Curve $20/50 at Amazon)
- alcohol wipes
- lancets
- Karo
- Lantus SoloStar

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