Thursday, June 9, 2011

I don’t write for 11 days and see what all happens?

Well, let's see, what HAS happened, I am almost done with Physical Therapy, Insurance is kind of stubborn, they will only pay for 4 weeks unless I have a Marked improvement, Dr. Maltese wants me in for 4 more weeks, BUT, because my body hasn't responded by more than a 2 inch leg lift, improvement, and I am still only able to lift about 4lbs without pain, Medicare says UHM, No.

SO, here we sit, Monday is my final day. BUT, that isn't all that has happened though. So it's ok.

My pain has actually gotten somewhat WORSE with some of the exercises and only a few help, I can step about 2 inches without pain, and over about 4, but I have to HOLD my hips, so I still can't do a lot. Then, we move on, My heart monitor came off on the 28th of May, it felt good to go bye bye, I still have scabs and bruises from it, that half surprises me. I have been on the Oxygen for 4 weeks today. It helps A LOT. I am sleeping better than I have in years, and feel refreshed when I wake up most mornings something I have NEVER done. It also helps relieve the headaches back into the measuring area (it took off the chart headaches and put them back ON the chart)

When I saw Dr. Al Kassab on Tuesday he scolded me about my Cholesterol, but the rest of my numbers he said were all good. Then when I left his office I picked up housing applications for 2 subsidized housing places before I went to see Dr. Maltese. Seeing Dr. Maltese was a good appointment too, he checked for the weakness which hasn't gotten much better, since insurance refuses to keep me in therapy and Dr. Dobrin keeps me on REGULAR Pain meds, he scheduled me with pain management to get the pain in my BACK under control so I can have some sense of LIVING again. I have always hesitated on this in the past, but now, I guess I am at the point where I am ready, My back and neck hurt CONSTANTLY, and put me in tears daily. So…Friday afternoon, I see the Pain management docs at Beaumont center for wellness. I am a cross between Nervous and excited.

Wednesday, I was scheduled to see Dr. Matthew Weiner, a bariatric surgeon with a special interest in the digestive system (basically a surgical gastroenterologist when it comes down to it, although he IS a general surgeon, most of his surgeries, are either Hernias, Gallbladders, or Bariatric) I went in knowing I had already gone through the process almost completing the bariatric process (I did Everything except the psych eval and H-Pylori blood test) for another doctor before he retired. I went in with Very little expectation, well that's not quite true, I went in expecting him to tell me exactly what he did when he walked in the room (in a slightly different way, but basically the same thing) with ONE exception, when I mentioned that I had been sick since I was 125# and it's never really mattered what my weight is. Well because HE isn't really familiar with my intracranial hypertension, and all of my Other weight related things all came on AFTER my shunt came OUT, he really could see that my concerns THERE were valid, so he asked me why I came to see Him… lol…I admitted, I only came to see him because my PCP, Dr. Dobrin had been bugging me to see him because of my tummy troubles for the last 6 months, and I really didn't want to, I figured I didn't eat enough and if I wasn't losing weight by not eating, I really saw no point in having surgery to help me lose weight if I can't eat anyhow due to swallowing pain and nausea. So he started asking lots of questions and I mean LOTS, like a rapid fire go around, I just sat there dumbfounded, he was asking and asking and asking away…and you could see a lightbulb go off in his MIND, and he said I will be right back, and he left me sitting there and he went and he called my GI doc here in Rochester Hills, Dr. Wille, and they talked for nearly a half hour, and when he came back in he explained his thoughts, and said, he wanted me to have some testing done, an esophageal manometry and a Modified barium swallow study, yee haw, neither are going to be fun, in the one, they anesthetize and stick a tube down your nose, into your throat and now the esophagus, and then pull it back out 1cm at a time all the while you are making the attempt to swallow it back down, to check the pressures against the tube, sounds painful and NOT fun

The other one is checking how different textures affect the throat and cause the gag reflex to work to make sure things are going down the right pipe when eating, basically why am I choking when eating and drinking so often (especially on things like water and my pills and foods that aren't semi thick

So…if it's not my digestive system causing issues, he is going to be researching IH to see if he can find any good studies that show SUCCESSFUL cure rates or even improvement rates after bariatric surgery that has more than just a few participants.

I went in skeptical and came out quite impressed, he drew 8 tubes of blood for various vitamin defeciencies and he is really looking at the WHOLE person not just a number on a scale. I was prepared for him to just blame my weight and not care about the rest, he is REALLY intelligent and not like the rest of the doctors I have dealt with outside of Beaumont, he is a DMC doc, which is why I was so scared to see him, since Dr. Ing left, I have not had a good doc through the DMC, while Dr. Guthikonda, found the Chiari, he really didn't seem to care one lick beyond it…its THERE and he just said lose weight and everything will go away from there. I want results, not just a risk, Dr. Weiner said the risk for me is HUGE, because of my responses to Anesthesia, my Chiari, after all my BRAIN is causing all these issues, if I am thin, is it REALLY going to make it better, OR is it going to make it worse?