TheBanyanTree: (Fwd) medical sorta update

[Laura]

This one's from today, so it's the last one for now.  I 
promise to remember to send them here to begin with, as 
new info comes available.

I've had this annoying elbow "thing" that has been going 
on for a few months.  I had to see the dr for it again 
yesterday.  This is the fourth time the bursa has swelled 
up, giving me a big mushy golfball-sized bulge on the end 
of my elbow.  First time we tried oral steroids, next 
three times a big-ass needle to drain the goo and refill 
the joint space with cortisone.  He says I have a 
"recurrent olecranon bursitis with tendon and muscle 
involvement".  All of which means my elbow swells up and 
my arm hurts from my wrist to my shoulder.  I can't rest 
my elbow on the desk anymore, or the table.  While that 
might make Ms. Manners happy, it doesn't do much for my 
attitude.  He said that this is the last time he can do 
the cortisone stuff.  Next time it swells up, he has to 
refer me to an ortho for surgery.  That's what he said 
last time too, but this time I think he means it.   

It doesn't help that last night I had a meeting of the 
leadership team of the coop I'm helping run (the meeting 
went very well), and Larry called me to tell me he was 
having an "episode", and what should he do?  I told him to 
take his pulse, if possible, and if it was 100 or more GO 
TO MEDICAL!!  I reminded him of the vagal maneuvers which 
can help slow down the heartbeat.  Didn't work, and his 
pulse was about 104.  So he went to medical where they put 
the sticky things on him and did an EKG.  He was not in 
SVT, but the dr said he had probably just come out of it, 
that his heart was now throwing PVCs (pre-ventricular 
contractions - a "pre-beat" that throws the heart out of 
rhythm).  She said it's a common side effect of the SVT, 
but told him to go home.  So he called and had me come get 
him from work.  I finally got there at 11:00.  It was a 
long night.  It would seem that the Toprol is not keeping 
everything under control like it's supposed to.  And we 
still have a two and a half weeks to go until the 
procedure can be done to correct this mess.    

To top it all off, we were supposed to have someone coming 
to install a whole house humidifier this morning (we have 
gas heat and the dryness is making my dry-eye and chronic 
sinus trouble even worse).  They were supposed to be here 
at 8:00am.  So I was up by 7:30, waiting.  It is now 9:20, 
and they're STILL NOT HERE. (addendum:  just arrived at 
9:30)  For those of you who don't know how fond I am of 
early mornings, suffice it to say that dawn is something 
you STAY up for, not GET up for at my house. I didn't go 
to bed until 2:00 this morning, and with only slightly 
more than 5 hours of sleep, I'm Not A Happy Camper.   

I called the place of business, and he said, "Oh, we had a 
team meeting this morning, and I guess I forgot to call 
and tell you the installers would be late!"  The odd part 
is, we just made this appointment YESTERDAY.  They didn't 
know about the meeting this morning on yesterday 
afternoon?!?

Gggrrrrrrrr....

I better get a cuppa coffee *before* the feller shows up, 
or somebody's losing a limb...

<glowering at the world this morning>

(I am feeling better this afternoon, though I still 
haven't had my coffee!)

:)

-- 
Laura
wolfljshus at insightbb.com
http://home.insightbb.com/~wolfljshus/index.html