On January 29th I had an appointment with an epilepsy doctor. I had been on KEPPRA, the anti seizure drug. I was supposed to be seen at the six month mark, but alas a referral was never made. We go in to the appointment. The doctor comes in, starts doing all kind of tests. Touch your nose, slap my hand, move forward, move back, touch my finger, watch my finger. Alrighty then. Fun times. He went over the MRI that was taken when I had dancing eye. He determined that I didn’t need to be on KEPPRA any longer. You can’t just stop taking it all at one time. He put me on a four week decline of the drug. Yay. One drug down.
Everything was going fine until April 22nd. I woke up with a fever and a painful belly. I know right. You are so surprised. We kept our eye on my temp, but by later that afternoon Brent decided we needed to go to the Emergency Dept. Why Emergency? Because you never ever have an emergency happen on a weekday when you can just go see your regular doctor. Nope, not going to happen. We get there. It’s packed!! Finally they put me in the “pre” room where they do your vitals. They start an IV because of my fever. They go out and we sit in there and wait. All of the sudden they come in and want to check me for the flu. Ok. Whatever floats your boat. Not fun. Hated it. They have no rooms available yet. Because I’m immuno suppressed they put me in a section of the waiting room that is separate from the bigger waiting room.
We are sitting there waiting. Another woman is in there. She’s very quiet. Before long, her husband gets there. The “quiet” lady, becomes the looney lady. She starts sitting on her husbands lap. Starts talking really loud. Starts calling him her pussycat. Then, she asks him if he brought her a drink. What? He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a flask. What the heck!!
The aide comes out to get me. They are going to do an ultrasound. Oh goodie. I go in, have it done and then they take me to my room. But hey, let’s get a urine sample first. Brent went in with me. Along with the nurse, because, you know she must have been afraid he would give her his urine. Weirdo. I showed her how strange my stomach looked. Asked if it was normal. She said no, but didn’t know what it was. Here is a picture of it. It is surrounded by my hands.
After the doctor was able to read the ultrasound he came in the room and told me I had pneumonia. Oh, good times. It was also determined that the large bulge in my stomach was an “incisional hernia”. What the? Apparently some of the liver transplant patients get them. It’s because of where they incise to take out and put in livers, the abdominal wall gets weak. No way. I never get anything that is beyond normal. Stop laughing. Anywho, they put me on antibiotics and send me home.
I know you are all wondering if I had the flu. Because, umm, flu tests come back fast. They never said a word. If you want my honest opinion, I think they actually took a COVID-19 TEST. This was about the time that it was sending people to the hospital. Thank god it was just pneumonia.
I had starting itching like crazy when I had the ERCP done. That was when they put the stent in my bile duct. They also put me on a drug called Ursodeoxycholic. It is a drug to help thin out your bile fluid. My lab tests were showing an increase of my bilirubin. A higher bilirubin amount will make you itch. Also the drug that they put me on will cause itching.
Let’s discuss how awful constant itching is. It’s horrible. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Well, except my sworn enemies. Imagine, your arm starts itching in a certain spot. You scratch it. But wait, your ear is itching, you legs are itching, your toes are itching, your head is itching. It’s AWFUL. No matter where you scratch, another spot will itch before you are done scratching. The only time I wasn’t scratching was when I was asleep. Thank goodness.
On March 12th, I had the stent removed from my liver. In this picture, it is the inside of my esophagus where they were removing the stent. On the image on the right, if any of you know what that green looking stuff is, please let me know. (Yeah, I’m looking at you Celissa).
Brent thinks it looks like guacamole. Excuse me a minute while I spew a little out of my mouth.
Oh my, never a dull moment.
Looks more like brocolli to me.
ReplyDelete