We went to White Plains again today for my follow-up with Dr. Melville. The verdict? Besides having reactive hypoglycemia, which means low blood sugar AFTER eating, I've got one messed up thyroid, despite having been on meds since May. My TSH shot up to nearly 10 when it needs to be at a minimum below 3. So everyone who yammered at me that I'm just getting to be middle-aged and should just accept my weight gain needs to eateth of the great crow bird. Dr. Melville is ditching the Armour thyroid and starting me on Synthroid, but it will take at least four to six weeks to start to work, and may even need to be adjusted further after that, so it still looks like I'm in for a long haul, but at least maybe I'm getting somewhere. If I could just get myself to the point where diet and exercise would at least PRODUCE SOME RESULTS I'd be happy. Cause diet and exercise aren't producing shit right now.
What's really sad is that I had begged Dr. Jennings to switch me months ago, but Jennings has got a real hard on for that Armour shit, and I don't know why. Probably because it's "all natural", but so is cow dung and that's not good for much other than growing plants. Dr. Melville explained that the problem with Armour is that it's made from pig thyroid, and it's very inconsistent in dosage because todays' batch of dead pigs could have been a little hypothyroid, so a pill marketed as 30 mg may only contain 20 mg, and the next batch of pigs could be hyperthyroid, so a pill marked 30 mg may actually contain 40 mg. If Jennings had at least recognized that the Armour wasn't doing it for me I could have saved myself a lot of money, time, trouble and multiple trips to White Plains. But it is what is it. Oh, and my thyroid antibodies where through the roof. High normal is 40. Mine was 275.
So we'll see. I'll hang in there and hope Melville is on to something.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Tuesday November 11, 2008 7:27 PM
I had told my mother about the gyno and my fascinating "grey patch" and I can tell she's worried about me having cancer. She doesn't come out and say that, but you can just tell. Jim says he's not worried, but for the first time in nine years he wanted to try a vodka and ruby red grapefruit juice last night after I said, "Hell....I need a drink!". Jim hates alcohol. He fixed himself another one tonight. Maybe he really just wanted to try a vodka and ruby red grapefruit. I don't know...but you never know exactly what's going on in Jim's head. If I can't guess he'll fill me in a year from now. I'm so off my rocker, though....want to know the first thing that popped into MY head when I found out I needed a biopsy? "Shit...I just got my hair looking good! Sonofabitch!" But my gut feeling is that it's nothing serious, and they were probably just looking at a patch of scar tissue. After I had all those surgeries when I nearly died having Jimmy I was told by my doctors that my uterus had been reduced to nothing but a big hunk of scar tissue, which is why we never had any more kids. It doesn't happen to me much anymore because I'm an old broad now, but when I was younger it was amazing how many people made remarks about "When are you having another kid?" and I'd say, "We're not" and they'll say "Oh, you'll change your mind...." and then I'm forced into having to tell them, "I can't" which makes them feel bad. I know that people just assume that you're able to pop out kids like english muffins but it bothered me that Jim and I no longer had any say in that decision. Would we have had more? Probably not, but it would have been nice if the decision could have been ours and not pre-ordained by the condition of my body. To everyone out there....don't ever make remarks about people having more kids. You don't know the story, and you may hear more than you bargained for.
As for the theory of the patch just being scar tissue or some damage left over from my fabulous birthing experience, I found the following in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children: "When there has been trauma inflicted upon the cervix, with resulting exfoliation of the epithelium, the abraded surface is covered with a dirty yellowish-grey patch of pseudo membrane. This is usual in streptoccic infection." And what is "streptoccic infection?" What I was loaded with after I had Jimmy. On the National Institutes of Health website, I found this: Group A streptococcus (GAS) causes a variety of human infections. It is also an uncommon but serious cause of postpartum infections...It is possible that women who had GAS as a cause of vaginal infection may have a tendency to be carriers of this organism, but this has never been proven. We believe it is of importance to determine if women who have had one infection may be long-term carriers" Anyway, that's just my theory. We'll see if I'm right. I go for the biopsy the day after Thanksgiving.
But enough of the female anatomy lesson. Now on the Jim's teeth: I had mentioned before that Vanni was not on the website as a participating dentist in our new dental plan that just started on the 1st of November. There's a guy that we work with who has dentures, and they look great. I honestly would never have guessed that the guy wore dentures until he told me, that's how convincing they look. This guy got his teeth done at a place called "Affordable Dentures", and they have several offices in New Jersey, one of which is about a half an hour from our house. Jim had gotten the website, and I called there. Affordable dentures has a lab right on the premises, and if you need work done you can come in in the morning and your dentures are ready by the afternoon. No appointment necessary...you can just walk right in. In the meantime, Jim asked Vanni if he participated in the new dental plan, and Vanni does...not in the HMO but in the PPO, which is what we have. Well, Jim was supposed to go to Vanni on the 10th but rescheduled it for later in the month so he'd have time to go check out Affordable Dentures and see if they could finish the work. We figured it's better to go to a place with a lab onsite that to have to go to Vanni and say "Hi", he reschedules for a month out, takes impressions, reschedules for ANOTHER month out, tries on the teeth, decides to make adjustments, reschedules for ANOTHER month out, and pretty soon you're looking at a year going by and you're still not done, which is where we are right now. Ridiculous. So Jim went over to Affordable today. Good news and bad news. Jim's uppers were not fitting right....he'd been having to load them with glue goop just to keep them in place. Affordable relined them today from soup to nuts and Jim got them back at 2 pm. Now he doesn't need any glue at all for them to stay in. But Affordable can't help him with the bar on the lowers to meet the implants because they don't work with Jim's model of Frankenstein bolts. So it's back to Vanni. The good news is, once the Frankenstein bolts are all done, Affordable can handle Jim's maintenance work.
We're off to White Plains again tomorrow to talk to Dr. Melville about my test results. I'm keeping my fingers crossed I get more than a condescending look and "You know...you ARE getting older...."
As for the theory of the patch just being scar tissue or some damage left over from my fabulous birthing experience, I found the following in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children: "When there has been trauma inflicted upon the cervix, with resulting exfoliation of the epithelium, the abraded surface is covered with a dirty yellowish-grey patch of pseudo membrane. This is usual in streptoccic infection." And what is "streptoccic infection?" What I was loaded with after I had Jimmy. On the National Institutes of Health website, I found this: Group A streptococcus (GAS) causes a variety of human infections. It is also an uncommon but serious cause of postpartum infections...It is possible that women who had GAS as a cause of vaginal infection may have a tendency to be carriers of this organism, but this has never been proven. We believe it is of importance to determine if women who have had one infection may be long-term carriers" Anyway, that's just my theory. We'll see if I'm right. I go for the biopsy the day after Thanksgiving.
But enough of the female anatomy lesson. Now on the Jim's teeth: I had mentioned before that Vanni was not on the website as a participating dentist in our new dental plan that just started on the 1st of November. There's a guy that we work with who has dentures, and they look great. I honestly would never have guessed that the guy wore dentures until he told me, that's how convincing they look. This guy got his teeth done at a place called "Affordable Dentures", and they have several offices in New Jersey, one of which is about a half an hour from our house. Jim had gotten the website, and I called there. Affordable dentures has a lab right on the premises, and if you need work done you can come in in the morning and your dentures are ready by the afternoon. No appointment necessary...you can just walk right in. In the meantime, Jim asked Vanni if he participated in the new dental plan, and Vanni does...not in the HMO but in the PPO, which is what we have. Well, Jim was supposed to go to Vanni on the 10th but rescheduled it for later in the month so he'd have time to go check out Affordable Dentures and see if they could finish the work. We figured it's better to go to a place with a lab onsite that to have to go to Vanni and say "Hi", he reschedules for a month out, takes impressions, reschedules for ANOTHER month out, tries on the teeth, decides to make adjustments, reschedules for ANOTHER month out, and pretty soon you're looking at a year going by and you're still not done, which is where we are right now. Ridiculous. So Jim went over to Affordable today. Good news and bad news. Jim's uppers were not fitting right....he'd been having to load them with glue goop just to keep them in place. Affordable relined them today from soup to nuts and Jim got them back at 2 pm. Now he doesn't need any glue at all for them to stay in. But Affordable can't help him with the bar on the lowers to meet the implants because they don't work with Jim's model of Frankenstein bolts. So it's back to Vanni. The good news is, once the Frankenstein bolts are all done, Affordable can handle Jim's maintenance work.
We're off to White Plains again tomorrow to talk to Dr. Melville about my test results. I'm keeping my fingers crossed I get more than a condescending look and "You know...you ARE getting older...."
Monday, November 10, 2008
Monday November 10, 2008 11:08 PM
Last Monday I went to Labcorp here in town for my two hour blood test, which wound up being a three hour blood test.
First, they had me come in at 7 a.m. when they open up, and I got there about 10 minutes to, but of course, all the senior citizens who have no jobs and nowhere to go have to be lined up there ahead of me. They probably slept there the night before. Those old biddys queue up like the Beatles were having a reunion concert and tickets just went on sale. Then there was another woman who came into the vestibule complaining about how she had to make it to work, and I let her go ahead of me. I wouldn't want her having a coronary. So it was the old biddys, the lady with a job, and then me. They wound up not starting my test until 7:45.
Well, the way Dr. Melville asked this test to be done must really be unusual, because it totally threw the Lab Ladies for a loop. "Why is he doing it this way? I don't understand why he's doing it this way! I've never seen it done this way! You know I'm going to have to stick you five times?" Whatever. I've got to do what I've got to do, right? So they stuck me for a few vials of blood, because not only was Melville checking for glucose and insulin over a two-hour period, he was also checking about 15 other bodily functions as well. Then they gave me the sugary goo, gave me a timer set for 30 minutes, and sent me off to a little room to watch t.v. The problem soon became, when the timer went off, they weren't ready to check me, so what should have been blood draws in half-hour increments turned into 40 minute or more increments, and I wound up not getting out of there until 10:45. I'll just have to let Dr. Melville know that what's marked "two hours" is really three. I'm sure he can piece it together. I go back to him this Wednesday.
Now I'm going to talk about "female problems" now, so the squeamish men can skip this.
It had been at least four years since my last gynecological exam...at least four years. In fact, it may haven been longer than that. I don't do well with those pesky pelvic exams so the old gyno wasn't on the top of my list. But what finally got me off my rump was a monthly friend that hung around for two weeks. Not to mention that this friend comes to visit a little too often and I'm getting sick of it. So I found a new OB/GYN at Thomas Jefferson and went today. I'm not so thrilled with the staff at this place right off the bat....it's definitely another Physician Factory line with tons of patients and you're lucky to get 10 minutes with the doctor. The intake was a little different, though...they have a PC on the front desk and you put your own name into it to let them know you're there, and then they call you. But they know I'm here because I haven't had an exam in years, and at first they put me in the doctor's office because they don't realize I'm here for an exam. When they finally figure out I should be in the exam room instead, the room is so small and full of junk it makes my work desk look like it belongs to Martha Stewart, but whatever. I can't judge the doctor on the level of clutter. I've been in beautiful, immaculate offices where the doctors are idiots.
Dr. Zacher is probably about 50 and reminds me of the Church Lady...dowdy and humorless. I managed to get her to actually make conversation with me though, but it was tough. I got her to open up about Governor Rendell and malpractice insurance in Pennsylvania while her resident did the pelvic exam. Well, the bottom line is, it's never good when the resident takes one look and says, "Uh, Dr. Zacher, can you take a look at this please?" And now they're both staring up there mumbling about a "grey patch" and "don't swab it with the Q-tip" and I don't know what else, but they were very concerned about my "grey patch" and my abnormal bleeding and now I've got to go back in three weeks for an endometrial biopsy. Am I a little freaked out? Yeah, but honestly I'm more freaked out about having a biopsy of ANYTHING while I'm awake. The thought of sharp things without benefit of anesthesia is more distressing right now than the possibility of cancer. Hell, I'm eight hours apart from that little pelvic exam and my uterus still feels like it was combed with a cheese grater. How am I going to feel when they snip it? Oh hell. I told Jim he's coming with me for the biopsy, because I'm going to hepp myself up on so many pain killers I'll need him to lead me around by the hand to make sure I get on the right train coming back to New Jersey.
First, they had me come in at 7 a.m. when they open up, and I got there about 10 minutes to, but of course, all the senior citizens who have no jobs and nowhere to go have to be lined up there ahead of me. They probably slept there the night before. Those old biddys queue up like the Beatles were having a reunion concert and tickets just went on sale. Then there was another woman who came into the vestibule complaining about how she had to make it to work, and I let her go ahead of me. I wouldn't want her having a coronary. So it was the old biddys, the lady with a job, and then me. They wound up not starting my test until 7:45.
Well, the way Dr. Melville asked this test to be done must really be unusual, because it totally threw the Lab Ladies for a loop. "Why is he doing it this way? I don't understand why he's doing it this way! I've never seen it done this way! You know I'm going to have to stick you five times?" Whatever. I've got to do what I've got to do, right? So they stuck me for a few vials of blood, because not only was Melville checking for glucose and insulin over a two-hour period, he was also checking about 15 other bodily functions as well. Then they gave me the sugary goo, gave me a timer set for 30 minutes, and sent me off to a little room to watch t.v. The problem soon became, when the timer went off, they weren't ready to check me, so what should have been blood draws in half-hour increments turned into 40 minute or more increments, and I wound up not getting out of there until 10:45. I'll just have to let Dr. Melville know that what's marked "two hours" is really three. I'm sure he can piece it together. I go back to him this Wednesday.
Now I'm going to talk about "female problems" now, so the squeamish men can skip this.
It had been at least four years since my last gynecological exam...at least four years. In fact, it may haven been longer than that. I don't do well with those pesky pelvic exams so the old gyno wasn't on the top of my list. But what finally got me off my rump was a monthly friend that hung around for two weeks. Not to mention that this friend comes to visit a little too often and I'm getting sick of it. So I found a new OB/GYN at Thomas Jefferson and went today. I'm not so thrilled with the staff at this place right off the bat....it's definitely another Physician Factory line with tons of patients and you're lucky to get 10 minutes with the doctor. The intake was a little different, though...they have a PC on the front desk and you put your own name into it to let them know you're there, and then they call you. But they know I'm here because I haven't had an exam in years, and at first they put me in the doctor's office because they don't realize I'm here for an exam. When they finally figure out I should be in the exam room instead, the room is so small and full of junk it makes my work desk look like it belongs to Martha Stewart, but whatever. I can't judge the doctor on the level of clutter. I've been in beautiful, immaculate offices where the doctors are idiots.
Dr. Zacher is probably about 50 and reminds me of the Church Lady...dowdy and humorless. I managed to get her to actually make conversation with me though, but it was tough. I got her to open up about Governor Rendell and malpractice insurance in Pennsylvania while her resident did the pelvic exam. Well, the bottom line is, it's never good when the resident takes one look and says, "Uh, Dr. Zacher, can you take a look at this please?" And now they're both staring up there mumbling about a "grey patch" and "don't swab it with the Q-tip" and I don't know what else, but they were very concerned about my "grey patch" and my abnormal bleeding and now I've got to go back in three weeks for an endometrial biopsy. Am I a little freaked out? Yeah, but honestly I'm more freaked out about having a biopsy of ANYTHING while I'm awake. The thought of sharp things without benefit of anesthesia is more distressing right now than the possibility of cancer. Hell, I'm eight hours apart from that little pelvic exam and my uterus still feels like it was combed with a cheese grater. How am I going to feel when they snip it? Oh hell. I told Jim he's coming with me for the biopsy, because I'm going to hepp myself up on so many pain killers I'll need him to lead me around by the hand to make sure I get on the right train coming back to New Jersey.
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