Let me first apologize for a few things, dear readers… The first is my absence. I’ve been having some health issues which is the reason I haven’t been blogging. But I’ll get to that in a bit… I’d also like to apologize in advance for my blatant reuse of old images. It seems I have exceeded my limit and I refuse to pay, what is it… I don’t remember, but it’s more than I want to pay for just a tiny bit more storage and you need to pay that every month?! Come on, WordPress… Do you think we’re all idiots who can’t do math?! I know how much that comes out to per year and it’s a fucking rip off. So sorry, dear readers, unless I can figure something else out, you’re doomed to seeing repeat pictures…

In any case, the past month has been a real shit show… I’ve faced a lot of health issues, some frightening, and I’ve been on such an emotional roller coaster ride. In my last entry, I thought I had a touch of the flu. Well, I ended up with a slight case of pleurisy, so I went to the ER for a chest X-ray to confirm. Yeah… they also confirmed I didn’t have the flu… I had COVID… I was in denial. I took a home test the day before and it was negative, but a lot of people were having the same issue, if you take it too soon, it doesn’t register. So I had to get more bloodwork done to test my clotting factors (which were a bit high) and had to get a lung CT to check for blood clots which you can get with COVID. I was okay with that since I needed one for my emphysema and was getting shit because I wasn’t 50 yet and they don’t give full lung CTs until you’re 50 or you have something wrong or smoke… My advocate from the insurance company and I argued with the dipshit from the hospital, the one we just told why we wanted the CT, and in stereo told her again I have emphysema and smoke! She hung up on us… I was livid! So at least I was getting my CT. No clots, thank goodness or I would have ended up staying in the hospital. However, they found an 11mm nodule in my lower right lung… It took probably 10 minutes of shock to process before I started to cry. The doctor tried to make it sound hopeful, it could be nothing. I know he was right, but it was still terrifying. So the couple of weeks right before Christmas weren’t holly or jolly in the fucking least…

My sister was concerned because this was a new mass, over 10mm and I’m a smoker, so she said I needed the PET scan they listed as an option ASAP. I got the green light and made the appointment, but it was nerve wracking waiting for it. It was scheduled for the 20th of December, right after it was safe for me to go maskless around people again. I was terrified as to what they would find. But hey, I couldn’t feel bad enough that Morticia couldn’t make it worse, right? Of course not… She called me on a day I was having a hard time of it all and she was nice enough to call and berate me, use her famous, “You know what your problem is,” line then proceed to tell me what my problems are (which, by the way are actually issues she has), telling me I’m being paranoid, I worry too much, it’s probably nothing, I shouldn’t let it upset me… stupid shit like that. And I lost my shit… I literally SCREAMED at her over the phone and told her, “Seriously?! You’re going to sit there and tell me I’m being paranoid and I should ‘go with the flow’?! (she literally said that) Let me tell you something, if it was you going through this, you’d be scared out of your fucking mind! And don’t you tell me you fucking wouldn’t be!” She got really quiet for a moment, admitted she would be the same way and changed the subject… I need to get mad at her more often. It seems to get things through to her better and shuts her the fuck up, makes her see I’m not a fucking punching bag and I’m not taking her shit…

The 20th finally arrived and I was nervous as a cat… But I went in and got my PET scan done. It’s really just a glorified CT scan. They just pump you pull of some nuclear waste and you need to lie still and quiet for an hour before the test. How boring… The test itself? Literally only 10-15 minutes… Then came the waiting… I kept checking to see if the hospital network app had my results up and eventually it did. I was never so scared in my life… Luckily it said the nodule in my lungs shows all signs of being benign! I actually started to cry… I was so happy and relieved… I was an emotional mess, but a happy mess! So happy, in fact, that I went out to finish up the last minute Christmas shopping that needed to be done and, when I stopped in for a Starbuck’s coffee, I got lucky and got the last sugar plum danish! I couldn’t help myself, I told the young man at the register it was definitely my lucky day! Usually they’re out of that danish when I go in, but I was getting the last one, I’d gotten good news… He inquired if he could ask what the good news was, so I told him what test I had done that day and the results. He said he had a feeling that’s what it was and that he was so happy for me! He was literally beside himself, he was so happy! That made me feel even better than I did in the first place, so I was having such a great day! I still need to get another scan done in 6 months and keep hoping like hell every one comes back clean. Still, I was never so overjoyed as I was that day. It’s a great feeling!

And just when you think things can only go up from there, karma comes along and dry fucks you up the ass with a cactus… even though it’s already done so enough lately and your ass is sore enough…

I was supposed to go for my first osteoporosis injection on December 29th, but I had to postpone it until January 11th due to my being on antibiotics to try and get rid of the last of the dreaded COVID cough (it was really annoying). I never thought I’d be so glad for a fucking antibiotic… If I hadn’t been, well…

Let me tell you something… If you get so nervous about something that you get the runs, take your gut’s advice. RUN… My gut was trying to tell me that for 2 days, the day before and the day of my injection, but I called and talked to the nurse who didn’t really answer the questions I had or reassure me much in any way, but I went for the injection anyway because I was told this was good for my bones and would help them grow stronger again and not be so porous and prone to fracture as they are now. But man, my anxiety was off the charts… I didn’t feel much better when she showed me a paper with the side effects highlighted that I was shown so briefly that I didn’t have time to read it. Essentially, flu like symptoms, fever, aches and pains. Worst case scenario was kidney failure, jaw necrosis (I knew that one) and your standard allergic reaction you can have with any med. That was what I was told (and what I learned later was highlighted on the paper) before a consent form was shoved in my face and I was told, “Sign here and here.” I didn’t even get to read it! So I got the injection which took all of 12 minutes. I felt fine, nothing out of the ordinary, and I thought that I had just been silly and stupid, getting myself worked up as I had for the past 2 days. Nothing had happened… I didn’t grow a third eye or a tail, I didn’t go into some kind of arrest… It was just an injection and that was that.

That night at dinner, I felt some pain under my jaw, but it wasn’t bad and didn’t last, so I thought nothing of it. I felt fine otherwise. I felt fine the following morning… until about 10AM. Suddenly the flu symptoms hit with a high fever. You could have fried an egg on my skin! My bones felt as if they had been napalmed and I had the worst stomach and abdominal pain. I had no idea what the fuck was going on as I wasn’t told all this and I had followed their directions to stave off the flu side effects. So I went online and learned a lot about this zoledronic acid I was injected with. It’s actually used to treat hypercalcemia (too much calcium in your blood) and is used to treat multiple myeloma, which is a type of cancer. Incidentally, it is also used to help treat osteoporosis… And my symptoms were all on the list along with a few others I was having (back pain and such). I was in agony! But I was toughing it out, hoping it would just ease up and go away. Sadly, it just got progressively worse, especially the stomach and abdominal pain. And if I didn’t think it was excruciating already, it certainly was after Baxter jumped up and accidentally rabbit punched me right in the gut. The last time I had pain like that was when my first ovary ruptured and I knew something wasn’t right. I called the rheumatologist who told me she never heard of this as a side effect (she’s not a good actress, I assure you) and I should go to the ER. It was difficult to get dressed as I felt I was going to vomit, but I got dressed and got my ass to the hospital.

You know, even with kick ass pain meds, the pain in my stomach and abdomen got so intense at one point (it was also in my back) that I was literally crying and asking the nurses to help me… And all the nice nurse could tell me was, “Remember what we talked about? Try to breathe through it, deep breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth…” You know it didn’t help, right? I NEEDED DRUGS!!! Normally I’m not that kind of person. The only other time I was a sissy like this was when my ovary blew up and I was bleeding internally, which really hurts. So you know I was in pain. Anyway, they eventually found something that helped, did bloodwork and a CT, all of which were good, and the doctor asked if I wanted to stay overnight for observation in case the pain came back. It was already 2AM, so I figured I may as well. Besides, then I wouldn’t need to go through the bullshit again if I had to come back. But while I was waiting for them to set everything up, there was a factor that changed… Now, I normally have low blood pressure, but not like this. It had dipped down to 79/49 and the nice nurse told me later I had them all scared. I don’t know what of, it’s been lower than that before, but I was bleeding out pretty badly at the time… Anyway, at that point I couldn’t have gone home if I’d changed my mind. I was also put on a different observation floor because of it. And there I stayed… From Thursday night/Friday morning until I was finally sprung Sunday morning, that was where I stayed… You’re probably wondering why. Well, at first it was because I still had this raging fever and they couldn’t get my blood pressure to come back up far enough for it to be safe for me to leave. Then, by the time my fever was gone and my blood pressure was at a safer place (this was Saturday morning), my bloodwork showed my already low white blood cell count that had been a little over 4,000 the day before was now a little over 2,000… Had they let me go, I would have been prone to all manner of infection that would have run rampant because my count was so low and I could have gotten very sick or even died. But it wasn’t just the white count. The red cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit and neutrophils absolute were all low. They were still low when I was discharged, but they were better. Now I need to go get repeat bloodwork done again next week to make sure everything is steadily on the rise and not still falling. And the punchline? My calcium is low, too…

So I got sprung (oh happy day!) which was awesome since I wasn’t feeling bad after the pain went away and my fever broke but I wasn’t allowed to do anything (not even shower). I got home, took the longest, hottest shower ever, then called my rheumatologist since she said I should call her and let her know what happened. She seemed surprised when I told her I just got home from the hospital and asked why I was there so long, so I told her what had happened. She didn’t say much about the stomach and abdominal pain or the high fever, but she pretended to be baffled by the fact that my blood pressure had dropped so low and didn’t want to come back up and that my white cell count had pretty much been cut in half. She claimed she had never heard of such a thing happening with this medicine and she’s been using it on patients 15 or 16 years. She told me she was going to call the manufacturer and look into this and call me back this week. Uh-huh… Sure you will… I did some investigating on my own. It’s all over Google, anyone can find it. And that paper I was given with the side effects? It’s one page of a bigger article. So I what I gave was not informed consent. Even my sister, the nurse practitioner, said, “You can’t tell me she didn’t know what it was going to do… They use it to treat multiple myeloma!” I have no doubt she fucking knew because she didn’t sound very convincing to me. I was told what they wanted me to know, plain and simple…

You know when you go to the pharmacy and pick up your medication and it says, “Remember, your doctor has prescribed this medication for you because they believe the benefit outweighs the risks”? This comes after they list all the possible side effects (that they know of, anyway). But what happens when your doctor decides you don’t need to know side effects at all before they inject you with whatever noxious potion they give you? Who are they to make that call as to whether the benefit really does outweigh the risk? Who are they to play God? Because I can tell you this much… Had I seen that list of all the possible side effects (and it’ a mile long) I would have never consented to be injected with that shit. Oh yeah, you have a consent form that I signed, but I wasn’t given informed consent. And I wasn’t allowed to read any of the papers, either. In all honesty, I’m at the point where I’m seriously thinking of calling around to different lawyers to see if I can sue her for this… I mean, how many other people has this happened to? How many of them wouldn’t sue because they were afraid or couldn’t afford it or couldn’t find a lawyer that would take their case? So we’re just supposed to step back and let this shit keep happening and think everything is okay simply because the doctor says, “Well, we’re definitely not going to give this one to you again.” No shit, Sherlock! If you tried to give it to me again, I can guarantee you’d have an IV needle jammed right into your fucking eye! But just because you don’t want to give me this same shit again doesn’t mean it makes the situation all better. Just because you call me “honey” doesn’t mean I’m going to think you’re a nice doctor who cares… Someone needs to be held accountable for what happened!

Of course the real hero here is Baxter…

Think about it… If he hadn’t accidentally rabbit punched me in the gut in his enthusiasm that night, I probably would have just toughed it out. But when that happened and the pain was as bad as when my ovary ruptured, I knew something was seriously wrong and I probably had to go to the ER. But, had he not punched me… I would have stayed home, never knowing how dangerously low my blood pressure was or how dangerously low my white cell count was. Any number of bad things could have happened from either of those scenarios, including me dying… My pupperoni saved my life. He’s my hero… I know, I treat him like he’s my baby and maybe I love him a little too much, but now… How can I not? Seriously, he saved my life. Best dog ever! I think Baxter deserves at least a round of applause for that, don’t you, dear reader? Leave him some applause in a comment if you think he’s a hero for helping save his mommy’s life!

Yes, I know… I need help… Probably… But look at that adorkable face! And he’s such a spaz! It’s hard not to love him! At least I’m not as bad as my mother… She spoils my animals so badly I’m waiting for her to get shit to put on her car that says “I heart my grandpuppies” and “I heart my grandkitties”… I’ve actually thought of buying things like that for her to see if she’s goofy enough to put them on her car… Yet I’m supposed to be the goofy one. Yeah, okay then…

Well, dear readers, I feel it is time for a nap… I’ve been very tired since I’ve gotten home. It’s no wonder with all my blood counts being low, actually. Plus no one is waiting on me, so I’m more active, which explains a lot when you put them both together. So I think a nap is in order.

In the meantime, send me some good vibes… I really need them right now. Last year ended on a bit of a shit note and this one is starting on one. I just want things to go right and to feel better. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for, really…