Trigger Warning - Women's Medical Issues Being Discussed

Today's exercise in medical care... (or lack there of)

Calcified Uterine Tumor - i.e. Proto-Hank

One of the biggest issues with Hank is that since he's made his appearance, I've been having issues with incontinence.  Heck, forget the delicacy - I can be sitting down, and suddenly my body will say "Ok, everybody, out of the pool".  I'm not talking a little delicate trickle when I sneeze or cough, I'm talking about standing up and having half of cup of urine escape while I run to the bathroom.  It's humiliating to talk about, it's frustrating to deal with, but it is what it is - I have a tumor the size of a grapefruit leaning on my bladder.  It's the equivalent of being permanently 8 months pregnant, without the joyful conclusion to look forward to. 

I've mentioned it to my doctors several times, but no one has really listened to me, but now that I'm pursuing the medical disability thingie, Dr Wang referred me to uro-gynocology to see if there's anything that can be done.  I don't think that there is anything, but we'll see... However, before I can see a doctor, there's a hoop.  Yet another hoop.  Yep.  I got a call from a very nice nurse to set me up to take a class.  I have to take an incontinence class.  I tried to explain to her my circumstance, that this wasn't one of those Poise commercial type moments, but nope.  No class, no doctor.  So, I'll be spending an hour or two of my life (and my increasingly dwindling sick leave time) talking about ways to avoid incontinence issues with a group of women who have no freaking idea what I'm dealing with.  Yeah, team.

Schroedinger's Sicko

Not sure how the doctor's visit today went.  I provided her with the paperwork to fill out, but she's not sure exactly what to say.  I'm not sure exactly what to tell her either.  Am I disabled?  I really don't know. 

I know I've got an incurable form of cancer, one that normally would be fatal (80% fatality rate within 5 years).  But it doesn't seem to be interested in killing me.  It is sort of like walking around 8 months preggers, and there's the whole incontinence issue, but it's not like I can't sit and type... it's just harder to focus and I tire out easily and if any little germ happens to come along, I'm down for the count.  But I am able to work, still - have been for two years now.  But I started out with the maximum 240 hours of annual leave and around the same amount of sick leave... and I'm down to the dregs now.

Other things to take into account - I have insulin-dependent diabetes, but I've had that for years and I've been managing it, so it's not something that really stops me.  There's the whole enlarged heart/losing my breath if I stand or try to walk for more than a minute or two, but again, had it for years, I've been managing it, I have my trusty Moose-Scooter to get me through.  There's the severe sleep apnea, but (thanks to the wonders of modern medicine), I've got the bi-pap that makes sure that I don't stop breathing my usual 75 times an hour while I'm sleeping - plus I get to do the cool "I'm disturbed by your lack of faith in the force" voice at Roger, so that's always a bonus. I have zero cartilage in my knees and the rest of my joints are also pretty much shot - so much so that I'm in pretty much constant pain, dumbed down by Percoset.  Fortunately, I also have a high tolerance, so I can still do my work while dumbed down by Percoset... I really would rather switch over to a non-opiate solution, though. 

The problem here is that my body has never been exactly a Cadillac.  It's been a Yugo - and I've been patching it up myself, using a lot of Bondo and WD40 (and a hell of a lot of duct tape), and forcing it to keep going.  Eventually, it's going to fall apart, but for now... yeah, it'll still do 60, if I put a brick on the gas pedal, but for how much longer?

So.  Taking all that into account... am I disabled?  And what do I tell my doctor to put down on the paperwork? 

Computer Blues

Be Thankful For What You've Got

Frustrating day.  Frustrating couple of weeks - I've been sick, and I've been having work computer problems, which always frustrates the hell out of me.  For some reason, Friday the 2nd my ID card (without which my computer is a brick) suddenly froze up and decided to stop working.  No problem, except that I can't just call the tech guys and have them remotely fix it, it has to be fixed at the District office.  And of course Monday, I come down with the plague.  Coughing fits, fever, snot building up in every orifice - your basic grotesque mess.  I think if I had tried to enter the downtown corridor, they would have instituted Godzilla measures, complete with helicopters and calling out the National Guard.

So, anyway... by today, I'm finally down to non-contagious levels of disgusting and make it into the office.  Still coughing, still weak as a kitten, but at least I'm not going to give it to anyone else at this point, and I'll be able to get my computer up and running.  Sure enough, after waiting an hour and a half (I get there at 6, they don't open the security office until 8, but fortunately, they owe me a favor), it takes all of 2 minutes to unlock my card, and I'm back up and running.  For four hours.

See, my laptop computer is close to end of life (it should have been replaced 2 years ago, but you know... budget cuts.)  For the past couple of months, it's been getting forgetful - it forgets that it has wireless capability whenever it gets jacked into a LAN server, and I try to take it back home and start it up again. It's almost like trying to talk to Bomb 20 from Dark Star.  Today I spent close to 2 hours trying various fixes suggested by the guys from our IT department, to no avail.  Hell, Lee (who is a total sweetheart, and knows my medical issues) even offered to come over and look at it on his own time.  And of course, at this point, I was dead tired, frustrated, close to breaking down, had Moose crawling up on me licking my face (he's a salt junkie)...

Fortunately, I've got my emergency back-up husband Kevin, who is a wiz with computers, and who was willing to come over and look at it for me (and Robyn could tell I needed some talking down from the edge of the cliff), so they agreed to come over after work, and I went and took a nap.  I find it works better than most solutions when things get to that point.  Of course, when Kevin and Robyn got here, and I booted the computer up, it worked perfectly, first try.

So...  things I'm grateful for.  Good friends at work and at home, who are willing to offer help, even when the help I need might just be making it through to the next day.  A husband who understands me and lets me sulk when I need to, and a puppy who won't let me sulk alone.  A forum that I can pour all this frustration out into - it's a little like lancing a wound.  This way, the puss won't stick around and fester inside me.  And music - that song up there has got me through some bad days.

Clapper Pros and Cons

We've been in our house now for 11 years, and I absolutely love it, but... for some reason, the person who built it had an absolute terror of overhead lighting.  They built an entire house with precisely two overhead light fixtures, one in the kitchen, one in the hall.  If they could have figured out a way to put a lamp in the hall, I think they would have left that out as well. 

At any rate... no overheads.  So we have lamps - lots of lamps.  For the bedroom, one of our first purchases was a clapper - one of those hi-tech ones that can run two different devices, so there's a separate lamp for each side of the bed.  Normally, it works great, except...

There are two natural enemies of the clapper.  Small, excitable, German dogs (Hi, Moose) and women with the plague.  As it happens, my coughing happens to be at the precise rate necessary to set off (and on and off and on) the clapper.  And so is Moose's barking - which is brought on by my coughing.  At one point this morning, I swear the lights were cycling like a disco. 

Worrying About Moose

He is definitely starting to show his age.  For one thing, he's getting more and more frosty - but that's not a big thing, it just makes him look more and more distinguished, kind of like Liam Neeson or Sam Elliott.  But he's also getting more and more crotchety - he's been spending more time barking at the air and grumping down the hall at nothing.

But this weekend, he stepped it up another notch.  He's starting to get a lot more demanding about active snuggling, wanting me to cuddle him like a small child, or winding himself around me like a comma, making sure that as much skin as possible is touching his mama.  Normally, he's happy just to be on my lap, passively snuggled in, occasionally getting up to make his rounds or get a light nosh.  But this weekend, he's been shoving in between me and the keyboard, making sure that I'm aware that he needs my undivided attention, or climbing up on top of my pillow in bed and shivering until I wake up and calm him down. 

It may just be the change in the weather, or it might be that I've been under the weather, or any number of weather related things, but... I'm just a little worried.  And when I'm worried, I write.