Catching up Again!!

Things have been hectic since the end of June. In short:

We had our annual 4th of July bash! It was great fun with lots of great friends. The fireworks were really spectacular this year. Nowhere else can you go and get 2 hours of cool explosions and loud bangs!! :-)

The week after that, both of the boys and I got ear infections. Strangely, they were all in our left ears. How weird is that? Unfortunately, mine was perforated and very painful. All in fun at our house eh?

On a side note, and for another blog post, we changed our doctors. Now all four of us are seeing Randy's doctor as our family physician. It is nice that the office is only up the street from the house and the boys seem to like her.

The week following the ear infections, we all went on vacation! We drove from our house to New Orleans where the boys stayed with Mimi for a week. They had a blast!! When I get some time I will expound more upon their adventures and even put up some of Nathan's pictures that he took with his new digital camera.

While the boys were on their vacation, Randy and I took a cruise!! We had to fly out of New Orleans at 6 AM to catch our flight to Miami. From there were caught the boat! We took Carnival this time rather than Royal Carribean. It was a 7 day cruise with one day at sea, then to Grand Caymans, on to Isla Roatan, next to Belize, and finally on to Cozumel with one last day at sea. It was a fantastic trip!!! We met some very good people that we hope we are friends with for a long time. The trip back was exhausting! We spent 7 hours in the Miami airport while it opened and closed three times due to bad weather; a plane and gate change due to malfunction of some sort. We got in way too late for dinner, but we survived. The next day we drove home from New Orleans. Phew!

The day after we got back, both Randy and I went to get biopsies on some "freckles" we had. It has only been a week and mine is still driving me crazy. Unfortunately mine is right at the waistline and gets irritated by everything. Yuck! Both of ours came back benign. Hooray!! No skin cancer this time. :-)

I had my first week back at work this week. I feel as though I got hit by a mack truck. Unfortunately, I am still having the low-grade fever and the headaches daily. Though they seem to be starting earlier in the day. I have had three blood tests (all of which came back "normal") and we still have no idea what is going on. My new doctor has recommended that I see a neurologist. So I am seeing him on Tuesday afternoon. Lovely. Already I have to leave work to go to the doctor. They had an opening for Monday, but I can't leave on the first day of school!!! Sheesh. I hope we figure this out soon. It has now been three months of the daily headaches. Someone else asked me if maybe I had something wrong with my vertebrae in my neck. What an interesting thought. Well if the neurologist doesn't find something, maybe I will go back to the spine doctor and have it checked out. Couldn't hurt right?

Newest Developments

I called the doctor's office today to let them know that my symptoms have remained unchanged despite the newest antibiotic round. I know that they are probably getting sick of me at this point, but I really just want some answers. I am prepared for anything at this point, so I will take whatever comes, but I just want to know what I am dealing with. The first time the nurse called me I was just about to hop in the shower so I quickly listened to what she told me and got off of the phone. The idea was that the doctor wanted to refer me to an ENT. While in the shower I started thinking about it and wondered what the heck an ENT was going to do for me? My thoughts went to wondering what it could be if it wasn't a virus or bacteria. The idea came to concentrate on what would make my body temperature be so weird. So I decided to look up information on what controls body temperature. I resolved to call the nurse back after I looked up the information to ask about the reason for the ENT referral and to ask for a copy of the real lab report so I could see exactly what they tested me for and the numbers they got rather than just the word normal.

So apparently the body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus in the brain. It has some other functions such as hormones, taste and smell, and giving the feeling of hunger. The interesting thing I found out is that if you had a tumor on the hypothalamus, it would not have originated there. It would have to have come from some other source first. Well the information just didn't really fit, but it was good to learn something new.

So I revisited the list of possibles that I got from WebMD. The one that the doctor wouldn't consider 5 weeks ago was lymphoma. He said that most doctors would not consider it until the pain and/or swelling had been in the lymph node for at least 4-6 weeks. Well here it is 5 weeks later and just about everything else on the list has been explored. I went back to the information I found on lymphomas and started reading it again. Maybe it is time to consider the possibility.

I called the doctor's office back and talked to the nurse again. She said she would send me a copy of the actual report from the bloodwork in the mail, so hopefully I will have that soon. When I asked her about the ENT referral she told me that with the cold symptoms I was showing that the doctor thought it might be good for me to see the ENT. First of all, I already see an allergist for that sort of stuff because I do in fact have allergies. I offered to go see her instead of having to go through the hassle of doing a referral and all of that. However, I argued with her that I did not in fact have cold symptoms...no sneezing, stuffiness, coughing, runny nose, etc. I only have the elevated temperature, the headaches, and the pain in the lymph node. I asked her about autoimmune diseases and she said they checked for those. I suggested that perhaps we needed to revisit the lymphoma idea again. She said that she would talk to the doctor and get back to me. I really don't like being a pest, but I would rather be pesty than to go to a doctor unnecessarily and waste everyone's time and money.

The nurse did finally call back after 5:30...which was pretty late for a doctor's office. Apparently, my doctor wants to send me on a surgery consult to do a biopsy of the lymph node. Holy crap! That involves a very large needle and me being awake. I was really not expecting that to be the answer even though I knew it was a possibility. Hooray. This summer just keeps getting better and better. So now I am in wait to hear mode. Not worried about the results, no matter what I will handle it. Granny had lymphoma twice and beat it twice. The prognosis for someone my age is very good if it is caught early. Mostly, I am worried about the biopsy. Go figure.

Jen's Eye

Three years ago at a routine eye exam the doctor told me that I have a "freckle" on my retina. It isn't too big, but I have to have it checked by an ophthalmologist every year. I go in, they put drops in my eyes (too many if you ask me!), make me wait for twenty minutes or so, and then take me into a small room with a large camera. They take a picture of the back of my eye! I wish I could say that this is a thrilling experience, but it's not. If you think you get spots from a regular camera...you should try this sometime. This time the boys got to come with me. Nathan and Grayson have now seen the inside of me from my eye to my back to my tummy. Anyway, I go back every year so they can photograph it and decide if it has changed or not. They call it a Choroidal Nevus. The link will give you a pretty good idea of what it is and show you a picture. Mine kind of looks like a space-ship...pointy at one end and two spikes at the other. Even my retina is "spacey". This year the doctor told me that we will watch it yearly for five years and then if it hasn't changed, we can go to every other year. I keep my fingers crossed every time I go because just like your regular skin, you can develop skin cancer even in your eye. I don't relish the idea of them telling me that one day.

Randy GI Update

Well, Randy went back to the GI specialist yesterday. The doctor said he looked well and to keep taking the medications he prescribed. He is still not allowed any "strenuous" activity for at least another week. No heavy lifting still for a while too. He forgot to ask about the diet...sure wish I could have gone with him. So we are still doing the low residue/low fiber diet for now until he talks to the doctor again. He is scheduled for the second endoscopy for the end of July (about 6 weeks from now) for the biopsy of the "cells" he saw last week. He ran some more blood tests. I will be interested to know what comes from them. No word yet on the genetics test that was run and no idea how long it should take to get the results. I detest non-specifics.

Both of the boys are scheduled for their yearly check-ups in early July. I am anxious to talk to the pediatrician about several issues that have been accumulating, but not pressing enough to make a specific appointment for. I worry about Grayson's hearing and his lack of weight-gain. I worry about Nathan's GI issues, which could be related to his urinary issues as well. All of these items can be addressed with the doctor at that time. There are plenty more appointments to be made. I like to do as much of the medical things as I can during the summer where there are no time limits or scheduling conflicts. Eye check-ups for vision, yearly physicals to get the boys ready for school, my retina issue (more on that later), allergy issues for all of us, and dermatology issues for Randy and I.

I am too young to be this old!