thank you + health update

[rushthatspeaks]

Some very kind person has sent us a copy of Your Body, Your Baby, Your Birth, by Jenny Smith, which looks both straightforward and useful, but as it did not have a gift receipt I haven't the faintest notion who it was. Should you happen to be reading this, whoever you are, let me know so we can thank you properly?

Have not yet set up babyfilter, mostly due to health.

Health, and what has been going on with it: as some of you may recall, back in Texas in 2011(ish) I developed horrible respiratory issues which eventually drove me out of the state because I couldn't breathe there. Back here, after some time for recovery, I've been doing very well ever since... except that in both 2013 and 2014 I lost a solid month of the autumn to terrible sinus infections. I had just barely noticed this was starting to be a pattern when it came on again in September 2015, and this time it failed to leave. I have been some degree of incapacitated since September.

How incapacitated varies, but mostly this has been disabling. I spent Thanksgiving asleep on sovay's parents' couch. We ordered fancy takeout with family on Christmas Eve instead of my usual fancy cooking, and I spent Christmas itself lying down on my own couch. I spent New Year's lying down on B.'s couch, despite having made plans I really wanted to keep. I spent all of December frantically trying to catch up on work I'd got behind on in October-November, and managed, and then haven't been able to do a damn lick of work in weeks, so I'm that far behind again. And the whole thing reminds me unpleasantly of the whole Texas health mess, which doesn't help.

It's actually not remotely the same, since back in Texas we didn't have health insurance. Here, I have a concerned, caring, and competent primary care physician who referred me to a concerned, caring, and competent ENT. In Texas I was reliant on the free clinic, who cared about their work immensely and had just about ten minutes per person and so couldn't diagnose anything peculiar; here I have just had a CAT scan and have a lovely informational sheet from my ENT explaining everything she thinks could possibly be wrong with me and exactly what we would do about it in each specific case. (This is what state health insurance programs do. This, exactly this, is why I want national single-payer, because I should not have had to move cross-country back in 2011 to get decent care, because the care I have now is the kind of care I want available to everybody. This.)

So there are paths forward, and there are a great many options, and I have faith that this is going to be dealt with, and that I will feel better eventually and that, seen from a long view, eventually will be pretty soon. We may even manage to get things to where I stop losing a month every fall, because the current theory is that there is something physically, structurally wrong in my sinuses, and if that gets fixed (though it would mean, sigh, surgery) I would no longer be nearly so susceptible to infections.

But basically right now I can do One Thing Per Day. Sometimes Two Thing, and then I have to lie down the day after. And by Thing I mean, washing my hair, that's a Thing. Reading a book I've read before, that's a Thing, reading books I haven't read before is often more than one. Last Friday it snowed, and I had to take the cat to the vet a fair drive away, because his appointment was while Ruth was at work, and the cat is newly diabetic, and we're trying to get it under control. The snow didn't look all that bad when I set out, but after an hour in the vet's office it was whiteout out there, and driving home from the vet's in the snow with an annoyed and somewhat ill cat was about Six Thing all by itself. I didn't get out of bed again the whole weekend, and then only because I had to go to my own doctor. So that's what it's been like. The aggravating part is that it's not just fatigue, it's vertigo and nausea and an honestly fairly ridiculous amount of flat-out pain. This is why I haven't seen many people in a very long time, or written here much, because writing is definitely A Thing, so I have to plan for it well in advance.

I am very much looking forward to being able to write more again, both here and in general, and to being able to be more social both online and off. Rest assured, you'll all notice when that happens.

Until then, though, one thing at a time.

Comments

[lilysea]

Sorry you're going through this.

I'm familiar with being able to do one thing a day, and it is so, so, so, so, hard. You have all my sympathies.

Without my shower chair (so I can sit down in the shower) and my power wheelchair (so I can leave the house without getting as exhausted), I wouldn't be able to cope.

I'm so pleased that you have health insurance and a competent, caring Dr.

Hoping you get good treatment soon, and the best possible outcomes.

[redbird]

Much sympathy, and thanks for the update.

[yhlee]

Sorry to hear about health stuff, and feel better soon.

[eeyorerin]

Hello. I have been following your journal for a while now but I do not think that I have commented before. I had a similar Thing with my sinuses, including being able to do about One Thing Per Day. The face pain got especially awful. I had surgery to basically replumb my nose and sinus passages (so many things showed up on the CT!) and while the recovery from surgery was pretty awful for the first week, after about a month I started being able to breathe and have energy and not be in pain all the time. So, if you do go the surgical route, there is a cheering tale of it being helpful for someone. In any case, I hope that you can get back to doing More Things, especially more things you love.

[thistleingrey]

Ah, that's hard. Glad of the good medical support, and best wishes to you.

[jesse_the_k]

Oh! so sorry to hear of the health issues, and so happy to know you have experts on your case!

[starlady]

I'm sorry you are having to deal with this, but glad that you have a good medical team to deal with it with.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I am sorry that you are having such a rough time, healthwise, and so relieved that you have decent health care.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Having had a multiple-month sinus infection that involved lots of lying on the couch and doing one thing a day if that, I am in so much sympathy I can hardly say. Paths forward for the win.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

That sounds miserable. I had something very like that coming off my honeymoon and into my new job. I greatly hope that your level of pain diminishes soon and that you can have your life and your energy back.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The book was me -- I did mention it to you back when you guys started trying, and when you made your last post I looked on Amazon and there was a copy for about tuppence so I just grabbed it. Somebody may have written a better one since, but when I was having Z it was literally the only one that was helpful. It has been updated, so I don't know, but the version I kept out of the library for 8 months had bits of actual women talking about actual experience, and they weren't all white and straight. Hope it's useful for Ruth -- and it has good stuff for fathers too.

So sorry about your sucky health stuff, that sounds absolutely horrid, and I hope the medical people can do something useful about it.

[weirdquark]

I'm sorry, that sucks a lot. I hope your health things get sorted soon so this can stop, but yeah, yay health insurance.

If you are feeling up to it, I would love to see you while I'm in town for Boskone, but since my schedule is super full for some reason, I don't think I can go to you and getting yourself out to where the con is is probably multiple things, so that may not work.

But there will be other cons and other trips and I will get to see you again at some point. Take care of yourself and feel better!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's an excellent book. I used earlier versions for both my kids. Every update has been more sensible, inclusive, and awesome. If my kids decide to sprog, that's the first thing I'm giving them.

Wishing you strength and healing.

[batdina.livejournal.com]

Very sorry to read about your health issues. Much sympathy (and empathy) coming to you from a stranger on the left coast.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you've been feeling so rotten! I hope the comprehensive list of possibilities gets whittled down to an actual cause and follow-up solutions soon.

[gallian.livejournal.com]

Many sympathies.

May you have better luck resolving chronic sinusitis than I did. My ENT basically said "take this when you feel one coming on and never break your nose because your only saving grace is that your sinuses are perfectly straight"

May your health continue to improve and stabilize.

[midofayed.livejournal.com]

Very sorry to read about your health issues :(

[andrewsimmons35.livejournal.com]

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