Off the grid and minding the muddle

Life's details are vast and varied these days.  Keeping up is an act of will, perseverance, and a whole lot like everyday magic, when you think about it.  How crowded and hurried the days are, and yet how brazenly slow.

Renovations continue in a less frenzied state, though they do have their moments of speeding up so I can barely keep pace.  Nature of the beast, I suppose.  But at least things are moving along.  Still so much to do.  Not far from done, it's just that once you get one thing updated, the things near it look... well, you know.  At some point you have to stop and reel yourself in before you end up rebuilding your house! ;)  It's all good.  Things are nearing the finish line now.

On the matter of health I'm attempting the act of patiently waiting to see specialists with regards to the lung nodule and.. whatever is going on with my liver...muscles...or whatever it is that's throwing my liver enzymes, etc. out of whack.  Things are highly elevated that shouldn't be, another is dropping that SHOULD NOT be, back in vitamin D defiency again, sliding back into anemia again, and... more.

It was really shocking to get pages and pages of blood work in my hands and see just how much had flown out of the normal range.

Now I await the 2nd pulmonologist appointment, and the GI/Hepatologist appointment, a follow up with my rheumatologist with another discussion about all the labs that are out of whack.  But the good news is that I finally found a good primary care doctor, a DO! :D  THAT, I am very happy about.  Only one visit with him, but he has good reviews and... I like him so far.

Well, time to sign off.  But.. I will try my best to post more often.  There's a lot of abdominal pain, and referred pain.. so I may not be here every single day.  But I will try my best. :)

Till then....  Listen to this with me... I LOVE this song.. sexy, weird, crazy, naughty... and sounds sooooooo good in my car! ;)  Kind of weird for a vegan to post, huh? lol

When a kidney stone is a GOOD thing

When they lead you to have a CT scan and something is found that may have otherwise have not been found until much later.  "Early" is a good thing.  Really.

So, yeah... last weekend wasn't one of my better weekends, but hey.. stuff happens, right?  When your urine looks like cranberry juice.. it's high time to go have it checked out.  Suspected kidney stone(s)... and off to the ER so I can be sent to radiology for a CT scan to confirm there is in fact stones and where they are.. and if they're obstructing anything.

Yep.  Two stones, they said.  One in the ureter (ouch!), and the other in the kidney and not moving thus far.  Drink a lot of water, take these drugs... and if things get worse come back.  Ok.

Things got worse, but not in the way you would think.  Back I went.  Saw two D.O.'s (love those docs)... and they think something AI is going on and that I should see a rheumatologist.  Okay.  Off I go to see yet another Dr.

A few days later I'm looking at the sheet they sent me home with from the hospital, the one from my CT scan.  The one that sat on my dining room table for about a week.  And there at the top of the list of findings was this....

ABDOMEN: Lung bases: No infiltrate of effusion.  A 1.1 cm nodule in postro basal segment of left lower lung.  Follow-up using Fleischner criteria suggested.

Top of the list of findings, and you guys didn't, you know, consider mentioning this? lol  Okay.  Well, the rheumatologist did.  "You need to have your primary care physician refer you to a pulmonologist. That nodule needs further investigation."

Well alrighty then.

I've been looking for another PC physician because the one I have, as I've discovered over the last year and a half, is more interested in writing prescriptions than actually helping.  He takes an eternity to refer me to specialists when needed, ignores symptoms for so long that I have to literally INSIST on getting a referral, and this... seems to be no exception.  I found a pulmonary doc I want to see and called my PC doc and made the request, explained why... and... have heard nothing back.  If I were already a patient I could have made the appt myself, so I was told by the receptionist.  But they require a referral.

Spoke to the receptionist at the pulmonologist's office and she was actually quite shocked that my dr hadn't bothered to call for a referral right away.  She is taking it upon herself to get my records sent over and try to do things from her end instead.  I like this clinic already.

And my primary doctor is... so fired.