Or maybe sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug?

I noticed that the last health update was in November and thought I’d write an update. A lot has been happening and some of it has been good and some of it has been bad. I was trying to think of a catchy title but there just isn’t any unless I said something like, “My new best friend, the toilet” and that really didn’t sound very ladylike to me. It’s true, but not ladylike at all.

My newest blood work indicates that my platelets are not spiking but rising minimally along with my white and red cells. I still have one item they check on the red cells that is below normal, but all of the rest have generously crossed the line into normal. I am back to freezing no matter what the temperature seems to be. Odd, but for a couple of weeks I wasn’t so cold.

The Trigeminal Neuralgia is dormant so I am able to use my face once again. That’s a general way of stating it, but from previous posts, you know that when the TN is full-blown, I cannot eat, swallow, speak, etc.

Yes, I should be happy, but alas I have now developed another problem. The Cymbalta that my doctor prescribed in November seemed to be working really well on my anxiety and depression. It’s difficult to determine if it is helping the TN pain because the TN is unpredictable and comes and goes.

This is where it gets uncomfortable (I don’t normally talk about these types of things) and where the new best friend comes into play. About two and one-half weeks into taking the Cymbalta I started with diarrhea – 24 hours a day and every day. This coincided with us taking a trip and me forgetting my probiotic and the Metamucil I normally take at home. My doctor said that when I started taking them again it more than likely would take my system a little while to readjust. It’s now been four weeks. Nothing is adjusting. What can I say except that sometimes I feel like a science experiment! That might make a good title. Also, while we were on vacation my husband cooked the best shrimp spaghetti and even though I was still suffering with the TN at the time, I was able to figure out how to shove macaroni and sauce around my mouth so I could eat. It was extremely painful but after weeks of ice cream and jello, I was starving and the smell of the spaghetti was causing hunger pains so I ate.

This is where you can begin to feel sorry for little babies when we begin introducing them to foods. We sit there and encourage them to eat and make all sorts of silly faces and tell them yummy. Those poor kids. After a diet of ice cream and jello, I should not have been introducing a tomato sauce to my stomach. I am probably my own worse enemy at times – picture Lucille Ball here. No probiotics. No Metamucil. Lots of red sauce. I guess my body had no excuse but to rebel!

Just for educational purposes, this is the rest of the story. I have been housebound for three weeks; just me and my best friend. If I needed to go somewhere, that meant taking Imodium and when there are three in your system by 9 am and the total 24 hours dosage is 4, you’ve got mail. I found out the hard way (of course) that you might be able to get done what you need to during the day but come dusk, you are the proud owner of the worst stomach ache imaginable until your system is back up and running, literally. Take my tried and true advice – don’t do it.

I spent a fair amount of time this past Wednesday night on the phone with a friend who is a pharmacist. We went over the time frames and the medications I am on and different side effects and nothing was adding up. You really do need to be your own advocate. We went back and forth and back and forth trying to put pieces together and it just wasn’t making sense. I had already contacted my doctor at the beginning of the week and told her I wanted to stop the Cymbalta. It was the last drug I began taking and the timeframe was leading me to believe this drug was the one causing the problems. She told me to take it for seven more days and stop. My thoughts were I would eliminate one drug at a time. My friend and I finally came to the conclusion that I must have a bacterial problem in my system and I needed to contact my doctor again and ask her to run some tests. I agreed and that night I sent an email through the Ochsner app.

My doctor was out on Thursday and they forwarded the email to the doctor taking her place. That doctor responded with a short note saying “my history was quite complex” and she was forwarding it back to my doctor. Fortunately, my doctor responded Thursday night. She put orders into the lab for Friday and sent a prescription for a heavy-duty antibiotic to the pharmacy. I am blessed to have a good doctor. She might not like that I have friends who are pharmacists and nurses and physician assistants. Again, you have to be your own advocate. I am blessed to have these friends in my life. We bounce things off of each other and they give me questions to ask that I may not know to ask and I need this because of my health issues.

This brings me to my own version of Freaky Friday and my besties had the privilege of being recipients of this text. “I had such a harrowing day. My doc put in lab orders for a specimen so we can determine if I have a viral or bacterial infection. I prayed all the way to St. Anne Hospital (not to have an accident – 14 miles one way) only to be told they could not accept it because it was not in their containers (nurse friend said to put it in a butter dish. Yes, you will never look at tub butter the same again). And it would be three days because they had to send them off.  The tech then gave me their version of a sterile goody bag. I started crying right there and cried all the way home. Then I proceeded to eat and drink on purpose to make myself sick to comply with their rules. Now Jeff will have to go back this afternoon and then stop and pick up meds at Walmart. She wants me to start taking them right away. Jeff doesn’t want me taking any more meds until they get the results. What do I do because I just want to lie down and sleep until next year.”

Yes. I was a hot mess. I am always put together when I leave the house. Not this time! I changed from PJs to leggings and threw a coat on over my PJ top, ran my fingers through my hair, no makeup and I don’t remember brushing my teeth.) I am so tired of being sick and sometimes not knowing what is making me sick. And sometimes it involves getting sicker so they can determine what is going on and how to treat.

So right now I am on a powerful antibiotic and don’t even know if I have what it treats as the tests will not be back for a few days. The upside is I think I’m feeling a little better. I almost hate to jinx it by saying that.

Truly, if you have read to this point, you must have nothing to do! I do thank you and I hope by documenting my health issues, it will encourage you to be your own advocate and utilize the people around you. Do not be afraid to bend the local pharmacist’s ear or the nurse in your doctor’s office. AND, Google. Research can be your best friend and you will learn what questions to ask your doctor during your office visit.

I wish each and every one of you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I appreciate you following my blog and the comments you leave on the posts.