Sunday Stroke Survival: Breathing a Bit Easier

 Sigh! Better late than never.

The past two weeks, I've had a difficulty breathing. Yes, all that extra fluid from my ill heart finally hit my lungs. I knew it was happening and knew it would without a cardiologist's help. Lasix in high doses can be a scary thing, even for me. My wheezing got so bad, I could barely manage ten steps to the bathroom without getting raspy breaths let alone back to my seat again. I hit my inhaler so often I barely needed the drugs to raise my heart rate. My inhaler is albuterol so it raised my heart rate and blood pressure. Yes, it was that bad.

I've finally got a local cardiologist!!! Or, will have after the 13th. I just have to hold out until then. What was really shocking to me was my weight gain. Now knowing I have a heart issue, I weigh myself every morning. For me, it's the best indicator of how much of a fluid load I'm carrying. I went to my late afternoon neurology appointment and as part of my check in I got on the scale. I can usually count on a 1-5lb variance between my at home scale and any doctor's office scale. But the reading showed as 15lbs higher!! There was no way I could have gained 10lbs in less than 12 hours. This was fluid weight. My feet were puffy and my middle was muffin topped over my jeans. No wonder I was huffing and puffing over the walk to the treatment room, several hundred feet. When listening with a stethoscope my lower lungs sounded wet like I'm going into CHF (congestive heart failure).

With my midodrine and metotoprol taken early in the AM by the appointment time, my heart rate and BP was in normal limits, 72 & 124/80. Imagine what it would be without the drugs and the walking. So when I got home, I doubled my old dose of Lasix to 40 mg and spent the next 8 hours peeing every 10-20 minutes urinating. The next morning, I held off the Lasix until noon because that's when the weight piled on from fluid back up began. It was after I started my daily routine and I was up on my feet more. Sure enough, my wright was up 5lbs heavier than my first rising weight. By 1PM, my weight was up  7lbs when I took my 40mg of Lasix again. My side note was that I noticed my affected foot's shoe began feeling tight. I'd found an important indicator to the fluid build up. 

After looking at the situation realistically, I bought diapers to see me through until my cardiologist's appointment.  You see I don't know how to juggle my meds any more than I've done so far. I may need some other medical intervention like a pacemaker or a total change in medications. Both of those take a doctor. Since my bladder sling tore, my urge to urinate and actually going is about 30 seconds. It's no longer a small to medium gush of urine, easily handled by a pad. But with the Lasix, it's a GUSH that lasts several seconds and repeats with every step until I reach the commode. Think of turning on the tap full force for a 5-second increments. Even having 20 pair of panties and pads can't keep up with the flows with the Lasix. Even with a diaper, pants or shorts are left in the drawer for at least the first four hours after taking the Lasix. It's just one more thin between my backside and the commode and every second counts...even diapers have their limits. I have thought about upping my dose to 60mg of Lasix but I'm not comfortable with that without medical supervision, I'd bought a 90-day prescription the week my old cardiologist changed my dose to as needed so I have plenty.

I've been watching the flooding with Hurricane Ida, I've been going through the similar battle with my body. I hope the cardiologist has an answer I can live with...anything less than a transplant and open heart surgery. This is where I draw the line and refuse. But at least now they know what causes my v-fib and cardiac arrest during surgery...a drug allergy to propofol, an anesthesia med. Sharp, good work Emory team for the diagnosis! It was traced back to my egg yolk allergy. How's that for great detective work?

For now, I'm breathing easier and moving again. I caught russet potatoes on sale this week so I canned up some more French fries and some great waxy, baby potatoes to can whole. Every little bit counts.

Nothing is impossible. 

Sunday Stroke Survival: Silent Reflux

When I asked my surgeon why I was still having a hoarse voice and pressure where my enlarge thyroid was, he was stumped. The hoarseness was one of my symptoms of my thyroid cancer. The pressure he chocked up to scar tissue. For the hoarseness, he decided that a visit to an ENT (ears, nose, and throat doctor). It turns out that the hoarseness and pressure were cause by silent acid reflux.

By placing a camera through my nose and down to my trachea, the damage done by my stomach acid was evident. There were burns on my vocal cords. Unlike the GERD (heartburn type) that my internist pulled me off Plavix for leading to my stroke, this type of acid reflux had some strange symptoms like acne, persistent cough, sensation of post nasal drip, and trouble swallowing. The exact same complaints I told my PCP about stating my allergy meds weren't working.

A simple prescription of Pepcid rather than Prilosec actually fixed all these complaints. My allergy meds are working fine again. Plavix and Prilosec are contraindicated.  Pepcid over the counter is easy to come by, but the prescription product is in short supply. Monthly I'm having to call around to different pharmacies to get my 60 pills for my prescription. Over the counter, I can get the same thing but at the dosage the prescription is equaled to 120 tablets a month at a cost of $84 which my insurance won't cover. I pay $10 with my insurance.

Why the shortage of the prescription version? I had to go online to find out. It all has to do with Zantac being pulled from the market last year. All those patients plus new patients were switched to Pepcid. But you'd think after a year, the company would have figured out the production increase by now, wouldn't you? Well, they haven't. So I go through the list of the five pharmacies within a 20 mile radius of me each month praying somebody's got it. For the last three months I've been lucky and found it so far.

The fact is all of my symptoms of post nasal drip, acne, hoarseness, increased trouble swallowing, and that nagging cough disappeared within two weeks on this medicine. It was like a miracle cure for something I never knew I had wrong with me. But it fixed all the little things. Unlike the GERD I suffered with a dozen years ago, heartburn isn't one of the symptoms. In fact, the symptom that I had in common with the two was my inability to sleep on my back. With the GERD lying on my back brought on heartburn, while with the silent reflux, it brought on shortness of breath. I literally could not draw a full breath. This too has disappeared while taking this new medicine.

I can't tell you how relieved I am in spite of the difficulties in filling this prescription. Now if only the drug manufacturer would get it in gear so I won't have to go on a scavenger hunt each month for it, I'd be one happy camper.

Nothing is impossible.

Thursday's Tumbles and Stumbles: The Raccoon Mask and Seeing Red

Well I really did it this time. It was an epic stumble and almost tumble if there had been more space. It could almost be categorized under the results of sleep deprivation or not walking will under the influence of medication.

Have you ever sleepily made your way into the bathroom in the middle of the night and dozed when you did your business? I think we all have at one time or other. Have you ever momentarily forgotten how you got somewhere? A brain fart moment? Has medication ever hit your system harder than you expected? Okay, now you have the set up for this week's stumble.

I awoke sitting on the commode. Did I have to pee or was I done? How did I get here? My AFO was on correctly, so I must have been awake long enough to do it. I find I had already finished the chore that I went to the bathroom for. I try to  push forward to rise and my legs don't want to cooperate. "Okay Jo, get it together.  There is a comfortable bed waiting for you. Alley Oop."
I manage to stand and both legs feel like they are made of Jello. I reach forward for the towel rack for support. The beauty of having a 5x7 bathroom. My hand misses the mark.

I pitch forward, more like stumble. The bridge of my nose smashes into the ceramic towel rack and my head pile drives into the wall behind it. Imagine cartoon stars circling my head. If I thought I was dreaming earlier, I was wide awake now, by God. I grabbed the hand towel which was conveniently catching the blood and held it to my nose. I sat back down on the toilet seat and leaned my head back. Ah, the joys of all the muscle relaxers and blood thinners I'm on.

Now the normal procedure for stopping blood flow from the nose is to put pressure near the bridge of the nose, but I wasn't touching it. It hurt too bad. I balanced the towel under my nose and reached for the cold water tap. There's one thing good about having a deep well for water. It's always cold. I put the washcloth under the tap and then wrung it out. I replaced the hand towel with the cold washcloth. I seemed to sit there forever waiting for the blood to stop, but it was more like five minutes.

Finally, the blood stopped.  I got myself cleaned up and wobbled off to bed. I awoke again a few hours later to give my husband his morphine  and went back to sleep thinking I had dreamed it all except from the pain radiating from the small goose egg on my forehead. Back into bed for a few more hours sleep as is my custom.

I awoke later to tiny paw taps and quick flicks of a rough tongue. My furry alarm clock, Lil Bit the cat, has no snooze button. She taps me with her paw and licks me until I get up. She'll wait while I don my sock and AFO always within a paw's and tongue's reach of me in case I doze off. She knows me too well. We have a regular morning routine now since my stroke.

I glanced at myself in the dresser mirror as I passed. Jerking back to stare at my reflection. I saw raccoon eyes and a bruised goose egg on the right side of my forehead. The battle trophies from the night before. Okay, so the circles around my eyes were more of a purplish-grey than black, but still a shocking sight upon waking. There was a definite knot on the bridge of my nose so I think I might have broken it. It's straight so I'm not going to worry the doctor with it. It's all tender to the touch and I'm suffering the after effects of old aged aches and pain throughout my body as I usually do after being hard on my body. The face will heal, but I wish it had improved my looks (as cute as a raccoon) instead of me looking like I'd gone a few rounds with a boxer. Or even had been able to say that I'd had a nose job instead of saying I got this from getting off the commode.

In other news...
I say this news report and saw red a week or so ago on CBS. The story was about a nasty note left on the vehicle of a handicapped person. You can find the news story here.  I've had a blog about handicapped parking before and I've even left messages for people who don't belong in them too. This was so cruel that I was seeing red after I viewed it. It never ceases to amaze me the cruelty of people. It was so disrespectful and down right mean spirited. It makes me want to throttle to writer with my cane!

How has your week been?