My Recent Health Scare

I guess I am back from Death's door.

Maybe that is a bit over dramatic, but I haven't been able too write because of my health and that has really hurt me.  I have come to rely on the cathartic effects of writing.  I need to express myself and I am not able to do it vocally and have it sooth my soul.  It just feels like complaining..  I find I have to mull over my ideas and emotions and I can't do that when speaking.  The writings in this blog equal months, even years of thinking.  I am fortunate to have found a way to get rid of my obsessing.  If a thought is bothering me I have learned to write it down, that is how I get it out of me and it stops hurting.  I work through my feelings and emerge from the other side a little bit wiser I hope.  Well, I haven't been able to write because I had another eye bleed that is still blocking my vision.  This eye bleed started a domino effect that then turned into an epic saga.  I feel that my sickness is a private matter, but since others seem to want to know what is going on and who isn't curious about another's misery, I will recount the events of the past month.  So, here we go.

I woke up Thursday afternoon ready to start helping a friend with her quilt when I noticed a smudge of dark red in my eye.  I knew it was blood.  I told my mother and she had me call Dr.Vogal, who of course wanted me to come in.  I really did not want to because I have been suffering.  Since the beginning of the New Year I have felt sicker and sicker.  I kept thinking I would feel better, but now I was just unable to pull my bulk around  I need a cane as a support because I feel like I am going to fall all the time.

It is an arduous drive to Lynchberg.  They seem to forget all the time that it takes us an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes for the ride. There are very few freeways here.  I am used to lanes of traffic and getting to go fast and straight, Not Here!  We have to travel on a small two lane road where people are slowing down to turn off into their driveways!  It is awful and it sucks if you get stuck behind a truck.  We go through the middle of towns and the road twists and turns.  I hate it so much because I have become very sensitive and end up car sick.  The other problem is the lack of bathrooms.  My mother and I have the places we can get gas and go to the bathroom memorized because there are long stretches of nothing....nothing but grass and homes, again I hate it.  It is all what you are used to and all what you grow up with.  I am sick and I do not have any tolerance for the beauty.

So I make it to Dr. Vogal's building, but I had a very hard time getting into his office because of the extra weight I was carrying.  Dr. Vogal looks in my eye and said, "Yes, It is full of blood.  Here is the problem.  I think you maybe in congestive heart failure and the shot I need to give you in your eye is not good for that condition."  He then went on to tell me I needed to see a Dr. right away because he couldn't help me until I was better.  Well, when Dr. Vogal tells me I am in serious trouble I listen.  I did not see what could be done, but I wasn't going to be stubborn. 

I refused to go to the ER and try to explain my condition to another Dr.  It is too hard to explain and I know I am very confusing,  I realize this fact.  My mother wanted me in the hospital and I was willing to go if my Dr. said that was needed.  So I call the fancy Halifax Primary Care and leave a message with the nurse recounting my story and saying I need an emergency appointment wit Dr, Pambid.  She calls me back and says he is filled the next couple of days and that I should go to the ER.  I hung up and resolved to see the clinic Dr.  He is my last choice because I have to pay cash for him, but I had seen him before when I did not have insurance, so he at least knew my situation.  Out of the blue I thought I should make a formal appointment with Dr. Pambid to get him updated with my condition.  I called thinking I would not get into see him for a month, but the appointment lady said he had an opening on Weds.  I snatched it up.  It was Monday,  So here day by day is what happened over the next month.

Friday: Dr Vogal sees blood in my eye.

Weds:  I see Dr. Pembid.  He makes me get Blood tests.  Wants me to see a Heart Dr. & Kidney Dr.  Gives me a shot to make me get rid of the extra fluid.  Wait over 3 hours at the office end up closing it down.

Friday: Go back for another shot to get rid of the fluid.  Find I gaind 3 pounds IN TWO DAYS!  All of it fluid.  Go to the heart doctor.  He sets me up for a chemical stress test which I said no too, but nobody listened to me.  I already had a stress test and I couldn't lay down without choking, so I ended up canceling.  I did the echocardiogram (ultrasound) of my heart.  He took more blood.

Monday: Go back to Dr. Pembid, find I have gain another 4 pounds IN 2 DAYS! So 7 pounds of fluid in 4 days.  I was so glad the Dr. saw that.  It is impossible to gain 7 pounds in 4 days from eating.  The body can not convert that fast.  We sat together talking and by the end he said, "I don't know.  I don't know what to do?"  My answer, " I know.  I don't know what to do either."  How do you take that?  How do you explain that to other people?

 

I found a pic of Dr. Vogal, so I thought I should find one of Dr. Pembid, but only found this blank spot.  Dr. Pembid is an older gentleman of Asian decent.  Who is trying his best with my care.
So, He told me to go see a kidney Dr. and I said I would.  He then told me I may have to go on Dialysis to get the fluid off.  The last Dr. who talked of me about Dialysis said that if I started going on a machine that I would become dependent on the machine and I really do not want to live that way.  I watched my grandmother dealing with going to dialysis 3 days a week.  I would stay over and a bus would come to pick up my grandmother and she would be gone for hours and come back angry and exhausted.  It was the amount of time she spent doing the process that distressed me.  She would be gone for over 4 hours every other day.  She was dependent on a piece of mechanics and that was awful to me.  She finally asked to stop Dialysis and died of kidney failure.  I wasn't there for her death, but my mother was and I often think of dying the way my mother described.  I have a chip on my shoulder about dialysis.  But Dr. Pembid said he thought I could go off it and it became a new possibility to help get the fluid off.  At the end of the appointment we decide to double my diuretic medication and since my echo cardiogram looked good hr thought I should get a chest X-ray to see if I was in Congestive Heart Failure for sure, since he thought I would have been better by then with the shots.  So off to the hospital so they would have the X-ray in time to see if I could get the shot in my eye on Thursday.

Tuesday:  Call from the nurse to say I was clear for the shot.

Thursday:Drove to Lynchberg  to have Dr. Vogal stick a large needle into my left eye.  The medicine shrinks the blood vessels to prevent them from bleeding.  We then had to wait 2 weeks for the blood to clear up enough that he could see the back of my eye, so he could use the laser.

Thursday 2 weeks later:  Mom and I set out on the drive with a few things working against me.  I could not sleep at all the night before.  I took a sleeping pill and everything.  I felt like my brain refused to click off.  I describe it like a car always in neutral.  I may not be in drive. moving, but it never downshifted and turned off.  When that happens my blood sugars go crazy because I don't know when to eat.  So I felt crabby, sick to my stomach and I was traveling to have a man hurt me with a high power laser.  Not a good start.  I asked my Mom to stop for snacks and that helped me feel better.  I was making a mental effort to be nice and talk about nice things when right in the middle of my sentence I saw a huge black worm block my vision and slowly dissipate.  I sat in the front seat silently crying.  It was too much for me to handle.  We were half way to Dr. Vogal, no turning back and I knew the worm was another eye bleed.  If there was too much blood then Dr. Vogal would not be able to do the surgery.

I was beyond exhausted when we finally made it too his office.  I don't remembering being pushed so close to the end of my mental endurance.  I have a very high threshold for pain, but I was so beyond my capacity that I went numb to survive.  Thank goodness my mother was there to deal with the stupid people.

I get called back for the nurse to start the exam and to dilate my eye.  I told her of the blood in my eye and she said she didn't know what to do.  I guess those words were a trigger because I started to sob.  I don't cry in public.  I do not think it is proper and I can name maybe 3 times I have cry out loud since turning 16.  This time, I could not control it.  I felt the muscles in my mouth contracting giving my sobs away.  The nurse was really sweet.  She asked me what was wrong.  I couldn't answer for a moment.  She had no idea of what I had gone through to be there and now it was possible that Dr. Vogal couldn't do his work and I would still be blind, but on the flip side, if he did do the surgery he was going to cause me a great amount of pain.  I didn't know what to hope for.

Here is a pic of Dr. Vogal.  My torture!  And he takes his job seriously.

She got D. Vogal in and he cleared me for surgery and I felt like crying again.  I almost fell asleep waiting for my eye to dilate and stumbled into the back room with the laser when my name was called.  I had been through it twice before, but it doesn't make it any easier.  I kept stalling putting my head into the contraption and asked what exactly he was doing.  Getting information out of Dr. Vogal is worse than the CIA trying to crack a Russian KGB spy.  He said my body was making bad blood vessels in my eye that would then pop and bleed.  He was attempting to destroy the bad vessels.  I said, "I know what's coming." He answered, "I know and I hope you don't hate me because of the pain I will be causing you."  I have never had a Dr. be concerned with the way I feel.  Most of the time I feel as important as a little white lab rat.  Someone to work there medical knowledge on, but not a person.  I was very surprised to hear myself answer, "I like you.  I just don't like what you have to do to me."  I felt shy after I said I liked him, since that has been such an offending thing for me to vocalize to a male since childhood, but he seem to accept my honesty without a second thought and I placed my head into the steel trap.

One of the most awful experiences of my life.  Each pinprick of light feels like red hot ice picks being jabbed into my brain.  They force your eye open with a lens, strap your head in so you can't jerk back and have the nurse place all her body weight on your head for good measure.  The pain would build and build.  Worse there was one spot in the middle of my eye that felt like he was poking an open wound each time he hit it.  I kept thinking it was almost over.  I can endure because it is almost over, but it kept going and going.  I finally asked him to stop, but it didn't help because it kept echoing inside my skull.  I was surprised when he asked if I was going to have a psychological break, I guess since I had been crying with the nurse a short time earilier, he had a right to be worried, but I think his sincere expressed concern for me instead of the usual patronizing Dr.'s normally give me manged to really helped.  I felt mentally fine.  It helped because I knew he meant his concern.  He had put his wallet where his mouth was and saved my sight before at his own cost.

It was finally over and I asked what would happen next.  He said, "I don't know."  I was getting used to that phrase.  He did not know if the blood vessels would return or what would be the best next step.  I left his office feeling like I had been punched multiple times in the eye.  The pain echoed across my face and I felt an intense aching in my sinuses and cheekbones.

As far as I can tell my eye has not improve.  The blood is still blocking my vision and now I am getting a throbbing pain in my right temple.  I have another appointment with him this next Tuesday.    I have to meet with the Kidney Dr.  the 26th and then with Dr. Pembid the !st.

The diuretics have worked.  I am not carrying around as much fluid.  I think back in November I complained of suffering diarrhea and other maladies from my diuretic, so he lowered my dosages and the fluid slowly crept on.  I really thought I would get better, but I didn't have enough medicine to get the fluid off, so I never felt better.  With the extra I can now adjust the dosage for my needs, but I didn't know that was the problem.

I say to everyone what the Dr.'s keep saying to me. "I don't know."