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Happy New Year + My Life in 2017
8 years ago
General
tl:dr Happy 2018. I didn't get a damn thing done in 2017, in large part because of medical issues.
In November of 2015, I moved from Mississauga, Ontario, (a pretentious, little suburb just west of Toronto), to Hamilton, Ontario, (a former steel town on the west end of Lake Ontario), because rents were cheaper there. My brother had gone into a nursing home because his health had been spoiled by a massive infection, which Mississauga General hadn't treated aggressively enough. (He lost his right leg below the knee to it.) We had to sell the house we’d inherited from mom so that he could afford rent at the nursing home. Luckily, the entire Greater Toronto Area (GTA), has been in a housing bubble for some time. We got an excellent price for the old house, but not until June. And yes, I got my share.
In the meantime, I was on welfare. I moved into a single room in a rooming house with very cheap rent. I generously call it cosy, but it had enough room for nearly everything I want to do. Then I received a bunch of my brother's knife collection and a mass of photographs from home that I had to store permanently. I managed even so but sharing a bathroom and kitchen, while my refrigerator is a little, old bar fridge with no proper freezer, soon got to be worse than an inconvenience.
My project for 2017 was to find a new apartment. I didn't want to have to share anything; I did want a proper kitchen and bathroom and preferably no carpets, (because bare floors are easier to clean.) That didn't happen. Instead, I had health issues to deal with, both my brother's and my own.
My brother had several health issues going on. He had a sore on his good foot that was not healing. The doctor at the nursing home thought he might have circulation problems and sent him for an ultrasound. The test turned up some pretty significant blockage, so he had an operation to unclog the arteries in his leg. A few weeks later he had an appointment with the same doctor to see if the operation had helped. (It had; the sore was finally healing.) And I had to go with him to all three appointments. (I'm not sure why, he's perfectly capable of minding himself, he's not senile.)
Over 2017, my brother had several appointments with two other health care centres. I had to go with him to those, too. After losing his leg, he spent time at a rehabilitation hospital where he was fitted for a prosthetic leg and learned to use it. Now he goes back there regularly to check that it still fits properly. He had four or five of those. He has been having kidney issues as well. He has regular appointments with a renal specialist. At one point his kidney function was weak enough that they were considering him for dialysis. Then they adjusted his meds, and it improved enough that they didn't do that after all. He had six-odd of those appointments. And then there were his new shoes. My brother had extra wide feet, (he just has the one now, but the prosthetic needs to match it), so I had to go with him to a store that sells extra wide shoes. That took two trips because they didn't have the style he wanted in stock in his size. They had to order it from the warehouse.
Oh yes, and I make the trip from Hamilton to Toronto once a week because I seem to be the only one who visits him. Most of his friends were work friends. They abandoned him after he retired.
Then there were my own health issues.
It all started with anaemia. My doctor had me on an antidepressant because I had no energy and my will to keep active was weak. He also had the usual blood tests done, and it turned out that my blood iron levels were very low. So he took me off the antidepressant and put me on an iron supplement instead. Since then, he had me take all the usual tests to try to figure out what was causing it, but to no avail.
I'm also diabetic, and my blood sugar levels have been a bit high. My doctor referred me to a diabetes specialist at the famous McMaster University teaching hospital. Before I could see him, I had to get advice from a nurse practitioner two or three times to try to get my sugars under control. She ran the usual tests. They showed that my blood potassium level was high enough to cause a heart attack. She immediately sent me to get a chelating powder, which I had to take daily. (I found I had more energy after getting my potassium level down a bit.) And of course, there were more blood tests.
The nurse practitioner and the internal medicine specialist to whom my regular doctor referred me to both checked my kidney function, BTW. My creatinine levels are healthy, so it's not kidney failure, (thank goodness!)
So I've been working on diabetes, potassium and anaemia together since about March. There have been appointments after appointments with endocrinologists and haematologists at McMaster, an internal medicine specialist at her clinic in Burlington, (the next city east of Hamilton), and of course my regular doctor. So far:
- diabetes - probably because I'm overeating, I mean to pay better attention to that in the new year, but having my own kitchen would be a big help;
- high potassium - not a clue;
- anaemia - nothing yet.
Last month, the haematologist had me repeat the endoscopy and colonoscopy my regular doctor sent me to have a couple of years ago, this time at McMaster with the clinic he knows. That was an… interesting experience. First I had to clean my guts out with a heavy duty laxative -- just yuck! Then, because I had nobody to escort me home, they decided that I couldn't have a sedative, so I had to have both procedures without any. Had I been a stereotypical fox… no, even for a subby slut of that degree, it would have been a steaming heap of No Fun! And I hadn't cleaned my guts out well enough. The surgeon gave up and sent me home with more heavy duty laxative so I could try again next day.
Next day, I was good to go. Since I'd done so well without a sedative the day before, they talked me into doing without again. It meant I got to go home sooner, but it was still No Fun. The surgeon found just one polyp, which he took as a sample for analysis. They told me to wait for a call to arrange an appointment for a CT scan of my upper intestines.
Last week I got a letter telling me when my CT scan appointment is and how to prepare for it. It's for tomorrow, (January 2nd.) Luckily, they stumbled on a day when I'm not doing anything. I'm not supposed to eat today, or tomorrow until after the scan. And I have a feeling this procedure won't be much fun either, although at least I won't get anything jammed up an orifice. No, I just have to drink a mass of x-ray dye. Yuck… And I bet you a nickel they won't find the cause of the anaemia, either.
And I won't get the results until April. I don't know why it'll take so long.
Happy New Year, my friends. I hope 2018 will be at least a little less stupid than 2017 was; for me, for us, and the world.
In November of 2015, I moved from Mississauga, Ontario, (a pretentious, little suburb just west of Toronto), to Hamilton, Ontario, (a former steel town on the west end of Lake Ontario), because rents were cheaper there. My brother had gone into a nursing home because his health had been spoiled by a massive infection, which Mississauga General hadn't treated aggressively enough. (He lost his right leg below the knee to it.) We had to sell the house we’d inherited from mom so that he could afford rent at the nursing home. Luckily, the entire Greater Toronto Area (GTA), has been in a housing bubble for some time. We got an excellent price for the old house, but not until June. And yes, I got my share.
In the meantime, I was on welfare. I moved into a single room in a rooming house with very cheap rent. I generously call it cosy, but it had enough room for nearly everything I want to do. Then I received a bunch of my brother's knife collection and a mass of photographs from home that I had to store permanently. I managed even so but sharing a bathroom and kitchen, while my refrigerator is a little, old bar fridge with no proper freezer, soon got to be worse than an inconvenience.
My project for 2017 was to find a new apartment. I didn't want to have to share anything; I did want a proper kitchen and bathroom and preferably no carpets, (because bare floors are easier to clean.) That didn't happen. Instead, I had health issues to deal with, both my brother's and my own.
My brother had several health issues going on. He had a sore on his good foot that was not healing. The doctor at the nursing home thought he might have circulation problems and sent him for an ultrasound. The test turned up some pretty significant blockage, so he had an operation to unclog the arteries in his leg. A few weeks later he had an appointment with the same doctor to see if the operation had helped. (It had; the sore was finally healing.) And I had to go with him to all three appointments. (I'm not sure why, he's perfectly capable of minding himself, he's not senile.)
Over 2017, my brother had several appointments with two other health care centres. I had to go with him to those, too. After losing his leg, he spent time at a rehabilitation hospital where he was fitted for a prosthetic leg and learned to use it. Now he goes back there regularly to check that it still fits properly. He had four or five of those. He has been having kidney issues as well. He has regular appointments with a renal specialist. At one point his kidney function was weak enough that they were considering him for dialysis. Then they adjusted his meds, and it improved enough that they didn't do that after all. He had six-odd of those appointments. And then there were his new shoes. My brother had extra wide feet, (he just has the one now, but the prosthetic needs to match it), so I had to go with him to a store that sells extra wide shoes. That took two trips because they didn't have the style he wanted in stock in his size. They had to order it from the warehouse.
Oh yes, and I make the trip from Hamilton to Toronto once a week because I seem to be the only one who visits him. Most of his friends were work friends. They abandoned him after he retired.
Then there were my own health issues.
It all started with anaemia. My doctor had me on an antidepressant because I had no energy and my will to keep active was weak. He also had the usual blood tests done, and it turned out that my blood iron levels were very low. So he took me off the antidepressant and put me on an iron supplement instead. Since then, he had me take all the usual tests to try to figure out what was causing it, but to no avail.
I'm also diabetic, and my blood sugar levels have been a bit high. My doctor referred me to a diabetes specialist at the famous McMaster University teaching hospital. Before I could see him, I had to get advice from a nurse practitioner two or three times to try to get my sugars under control. She ran the usual tests. They showed that my blood potassium level was high enough to cause a heart attack. She immediately sent me to get a chelating powder, which I had to take daily. (I found I had more energy after getting my potassium level down a bit.) And of course, there were more blood tests.
The nurse practitioner and the internal medicine specialist to whom my regular doctor referred me to both checked my kidney function, BTW. My creatinine levels are healthy, so it's not kidney failure, (thank goodness!)
So I've been working on diabetes, potassium and anaemia together since about March. There have been appointments after appointments with endocrinologists and haematologists at McMaster, an internal medicine specialist at her clinic in Burlington, (the next city east of Hamilton), and of course my regular doctor. So far:
- diabetes - probably because I'm overeating, I mean to pay better attention to that in the new year, but having my own kitchen would be a big help;
- high potassium - not a clue;
- anaemia - nothing yet.
Last month, the haematologist had me repeat the endoscopy and colonoscopy my regular doctor sent me to have a couple of years ago, this time at McMaster with the clinic he knows. That was an… interesting experience. First I had to clean my guts out with a heavy duty laxative -- just yuck! Then, because I had nobody to escort me home, they decided that I couldn't have a sedative, so I had to have both procedures without any. Had I been a stereotypical fox… no, even for a subby slut of that degree, it would have been a steaming heap of No Fun! And I hadn't cleaned my guts out well enough. The surgeon gave up and sent me home with more heavy duty laxative so I could try again next day.
Next day, I was good to go. Since I'd done so well without a sedative the day before, they talked me into doing without again. It meant I got to go home sooner, but it was still No Fun. The surgeon found just one polyp, which he took as a sample for analysis. They told me to wait for a call to arrange an appointment for a CT scan of my upper intestines.
Last week I got a letter telling me when my CT scan appointment is and how to prepare for it. It's for tomorrow, (January 2nd.) Luckily, they stumbled on a day when I'm not doing anything. I'm not supposed to eat today, or tomorrow until after the scan. And I have a feeling this procedure won't be much fun either, although at least I won't get anything jammed up an orifice. No, I just have to drink a mass of x-ray dye. Yuck… And I bet you a nickel they won't find the cause of the anaemia, either.
And I won't get the results until April. I don't know why it'll take so long.
Happy New Year, my friends. I hope 2018 will be at least a little less stupid than 2017 was; for me, for us, and the world.
I am still willing to drive you around to find a new apartment, and/or help you move. It would be February at the earliest, as I'm busy for the rest of January.
I'm glad to hear that the doctors have figured out *what* is wrong with you, even if they haven't figured out "why" yet.
Since I posted this, my GP's office called and made an appointment, (this Monday), to discuss the results of all those tests. Now I'm not sure why I have an appointment in April with the surgeon. Strange times...
Are you house sitting now?
*hugs back*
I should probably update this journal at some point. I might as well wait and get the rest of the results first, though.