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what do you mean the internet isn’t private?

August 13th, 2010 @ 8:51 pm

Apparently other people can read what I write on this here personal journal I keep. Who knew that? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

In my 6+ years of official blogging I just had the creepiest thing happen to me this week. For those of you who have been paying attention, I posted last Sunday about how much I regret having the lasik procedure done. I wrote about how badly my eyes have been healing and how I still cannot see clearly.

Well.

I left work on Monday at 5PM and as I was walking to the bus terminus with my friend my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but I still answered (and I never do when I don’t recognize the number normally). The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello?
Caller: Hello, may I speak with Catherine, please?
Me: That’s me! (thinking: I don’t want to do a stupid survey, so I am about to hang up on you)
Caller: I’m calling from lasik.
Me: Ok. (thinking they were phoning to reschedule my appointment in September but suddenly wary)
Caller: Well, this is going to seem like an odd question but… we found this blog post on the weekend…
Me: (holy effing crapsticks! what the hell?)
Caller: and it was sent to me as it was maybe from one of our clients in this office and we’re trying to track down the person who wrote it because they seem really discouraged…
Me: Um.. well.. I guess that was me. But I DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING WRONG ABOUT YOU!

(as a lapsed Catholic I have of course still held on to the GUILT and even though I didn’t have any reason to BE guilty it sort of just took over on auto-pilot)

Caller: oh, I know, but we don’t want our clients to feel sad and discouraged and we don’t want you to feel frustrated and sad or regret the procedure!
Me: (AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! WHAT DID I DO??)

Meanwhile I had literally stopped in the middle of St. Catherine street (corner University – so you know, not really the BEST place to stop in the middle of the road during rush hour) and my friend had to pull me out of the street. I was shocked, stunned, embarrassed and just… shocked.

I was asked to come in this week since the surgeon who had done my procedure was in this week and they wanted to look at my eyes and see if they can’t solve my problem. There was no reason to suffer until my appointment in September. Since I had Friday off this week I said I could come in then, but I had reservations – would my face be plastered up in the office with a MOST WANTED written under it? I didn’t want to walk into the office and have everyone stare at me and go “Oh, so SHE’S the ONE!”.

I was assured I would not be targeted with bull’s eyes or singled out, they would just really like to help me not suffer. After all I paid THEM to fix my eyes and it’s supposed to be a wonderful thing to have lasik and be able to see!

So I went in today. I was nervous and I have to say I still feel a little weirded out by the fact that this company must Google Alert anything that is written about them and I stand by my statement that I wasn’t saying anything about them, just that I was frustrated by my lack of healing and not being able to see. It’s not their fault I have super uber dry eyes. And every time I have been there the staff have been beyond helpful and friendly. (My only teeny complaint would be the waiting times for a few of my appointments, not all, but some have been very long. But there are free cookies, so you know, score!)

I now have silicone plugs in the upper tear ducts – which they provided for free (thankfully because there was no way I could afford them at this time and to be honest, I have already dropped more than enough cash on my stupid eyes) – and I have prescriptions for a new allergy eye drop that should hopefully work better than the last one (that DRIED MY EYES as soon as I put it in), a steroid drop (aptly called “FML” I kid you not. That made me laugh, but the Dr didn’t seem to get it. ;) ), and a prescription that I hope my insurance will cover for a new daily drop that will replace my Systane ULTRA because apparently I have been using that so much that it’s increasingly toxic to my eyes. Good to know. Mental note: toss out rest of that stock. Yikes!

I will now be going back for my “6 month” check up on September 8 and not 11 so that I can be there at the same time as my surgeon who would like to follow up with me and make sure this visit provided help. As she does not work on Saturdays I need to go on a weekday, which sort of sucks but at this point I’d rather be there when my original Dr is there for any problems, etc.

Meanwhile whereas my eyes were .25 away from the prescription they should be, I have now regressed to .50 in each eye. That rather sucks, but the dryness is ALSO much worse (allergy season, yo) and it could be effecting it. They can’t tell if my eyes have regressed completely or if it’s the dryness only. So I have to clear up the dry eyes before we can figure it out.

I do know I do not want a “touch up” if my eyes have regressed. The trouble I have been having with the dry eyes so far is more than enough for me in my lifetime. I can’t imagine having the procedure again will not have the same results and I just want to be able to see like I did before – with the glasses on.

We’ll see how that goes when I get to that stage though. At this point I feel like I will never get over the dry eyes hump. I seriously hope that all these new drops will help!

Thank you personal journal, that no one else can see, for being here to listen to me.

Signed,

Me

EDIT: Forgot to mention the Dr had trouble putting the temporary plug in my right eye lid so she tried a permanent one which went in no problem – however my right eye is now constantly dripping tears down my face. I swear I am not Emo! But I think I might audition for a crappy soap opera now since I seem to have perfected that “one single tear” look.

*tear*

health or lack thereof, things that aggravate me     8 comments  

in which i end my perfectly wonderful long weekend with a trip to the hospital

July 4th, 2010 @ 4:59 pm

Some people go to church on Sundays, I go to the ER.

As you all know I have been unwell since the night I got home from NYC. It took over 35 days but that swollen throat and green mucus finally departed this weekend but for almost 2 full weeks my upper abdomen has been swollen and just under my rib cage from middle to right side I have been in immense pain. The first few days I thought it was maybe just a virus or something and since I wasn’t going to the doctor for the throat/sinus problem I wasn’t going for this. It felt like I had a rock in my stomach, or something.

A few sleepless nights last week and then this weekend (including last night where I didn’t sleep AT all) started concerning me because this was a different sort of discomfort and pain than I was used to. So I thought I might go to the walk-in clinic after all, but I didn’t want go Friday because it was my anniversary. And I didn’t want to go Saturday because I was meeting my childhood friend for breakfast. Too many things going on. Until last night.

But first let me backtrack to yesterday morning a little before 7:00 AM. I had gotten up to go to the bathroom, happy to see I still had a couple more hours to sleep should I need to before the alarm went off. The a/c had been going on and off all night and even though it had only gone down to 17C that was unusual and with each time the compressor turned off I’d wake up so when I got back from the bathroom I put my ear plugs in so it wouldn’t bother me for the last few hours.

Cut to twenty minutes later when I woke up out of a doze to realize, hey, the bedroom is REALLY warm. I must have yelled crap louder than I thought because it woke up Shawn. Our power was out. Until Shawn opened the bedroom door and said “but the fan is still on out here!”. So the power in the bedroom was out. Shawn went down to the basement to replace the fuse and came back upstairs, got dressed and stayed up. I tried to sleep for an hour but it didn’t work. I flipped the a/c to fan, opened up the window since there was a breeze and went on about our day.

When we both napped that afternoon the room never really cooled off with the a/c on and Shawn just figured it was because it was so hot outside. But I swear the machine sounds different.

Last night when I went to be with the a/c on because it was still 32C outside I didn’t feel like it was cooling the room at all. In fact it felt WARM. I thought maybe the hose from the machine to the vent came unattached as it has in the past and that’s why the hot air in the room. The hose was still attached but it was beyond hot. I turned the light on to get a better look and POOF. No power. Shawn was still up and I called down to him and he changed the fuse yet again.

We reattached the hose (just in case) and cleaned the air filter and Shawn hoped that would work. It did a little while. I was already feeling crappy and unable to find a comfortable position to sleep in since my stomach hurt at every angle. I think I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep a little after mid-night until Shawn came to bed the first time at 2:18 (I know the time since I woke up looking right at the clock). The room was cool. Aside from my pain and discomfort all was good.

Shawn couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep because of the pain. And then the a/c shut off. Again. And turned right back on as we both sat up in bed. And then turned off. Shawn may have swore a little then, unplugged the a/c and rolled it into the guest room, went down t0 the basement where our second machine is (the one Sears lost and then found again 3 years ago) carried it by himself up two flights of stairs, plugged it in and voila. Working a/c.

But he still couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t sleep and he got back up and went back downstairs and by 4AM I joined him and googled anatomy charts so I could figure out what the hell was hurting me and swelling. We both went back up to bed after 5 AM where I couldn’t sleep and it was getting worse (the pain) and finally I went to tell Shawn I think I needed to go to the ER and he had just fallen asleep. Poor thing. I felt bad.

So about five to six this morning we were pulling out of the driveway and entered the hospital parking lot at 6:17. There was no one in the ER save one other girl and then one person after me at that time. I was triaged fast, seen, blood taken and ultrasound done by 9:30 in the morning. The ER doctor was sure it was my gall bladder. I was actually sort of happy that he made that decision right away and didn’t just tell me I had a flu or something.

Ultra sound and blood tests were all normal. The longest wait was to re-see the doctor to be told that. I was finally put in a room about 10:45 am and then left there until noon without seeing anyone. A nurse did apologize when I asked if I had time to run to the bathroom and said the doctor was busy with other emergencies. I wasn’t complaining one bit. I had a feeling by this time that I was going to be sent home since the doctor who did the ultra sound actually told me she didn’t see any stones and everything looked normal.

Almost exactly 6 hours after we got there I was on my way home with a prescription for a new stomach pill and a referral to see an out patient Emergency GI doctor (they will phone me tomorrow to make an appointment). The very nice ER doctor said there was nothing in the ultrasound but maybe I have some sort of gastric irritation (loosely translated) and he’d like me to be followed up by the GI doctor. I’m ok with what.

I munched on a hospital vending machine chicken sandwich on the way home as I was starving and thirsty since I hadn’t eaten or drank anything yet that day (which was good for the ultrasound) and said to Shawn that I would have been happy to know it was gall stones so that it had been something but knowing that it wasn’t was also a relief and that was the fastest and most pleasant ER trip I have ever done.

I didn’t go to my normal hospital downtown. I went to the Charles Lemoyne hospital near my house. The same one that took care of both my grandparents in their final days. I was beyond impressed with how efficient and organized they were. And young. And friendly and helpful. And I didn’t get sent home right away being told it was nothing. They thought it was something and they checked and didn’t make me feel like a fool for being there and wasting everyone’s time.

I still feel like crap. I still hurt, more now that I have been poked and prodded, but the sort of panic that was in the background over “What the hell is wrong?” is gone so it’s made breathing easier. Maybe the GI will do an upper GI test and look in my stomach. Maybe it is an ulcer or something. It doesn’t feel like the regular burning I have with my acid reflux though.

I slept from 1:30 – 4:25 this afternoon and got up, starving. I have never wanted something sugary in all my life.

With whatever this is I haven’t had much of an appetite  but rather than lose weight that upper abdomen got all distended. Not cool.

So I’ll just wait and see what’s what with this new appointment when I get it. I’m not too worried right now and I am hoping I’ll be able to make it while I’m off for 2 weeks in a week.

I am tired of it never being anything. BUT this is the first time I have had any sort of stomach troubles since I have been to BodyTalk in almost 3 years. This is why I knew it was something different because it felt different. And it’s the first time I have been to the hospital in the ER since…um… 2005? So, this is a huge deal for me.

Also funny? I have not been to this hospital since I lived at home and the registration lady was amused that the medicare card I had on file expired in 1990. So was I, actually. And I had all my address information changed from my parents’ house to my own one now. 1990. Wow, this is a weekend for lifetimes ago, too it seems.

Shawn’s still sleeping. I’ll make sure to get him up soon so that he can sleep tonight as well. And I’ll just finish off my weekend with something light to eat and reading I guess. Thank goodness I have 4.5 days of work and then a two week vacation coming up! (And BodyTalk on Friday afternoon!)

Don’t you wish you knew how to have as much fun with your long weekends as I do?

health or lack thereof     One comment - (Comments are closed)  

doctor’s note

February 2nd, 2010 @ 8:44 pm

Is it sad that I feel like I need an excuse to give my Wii Fit for not using it so far this week? I feel like I should hit up my local CLSC and get a note so that it won’t judge me as harshly as it has been because it’ll be a few days since I have used it.

Dear Wii Fit,

Please excuse Cat from her daily workouts as she has one hell of a cold which has resulted in fever and now respiratory problems. She is not allowed to flail around on your balance board until further notice.

Signed,

A Doctor-type Person

The stupid Wii Fit judges you! It’s horrible! All I want to do is play Rhythm Kung-Fu over and over and yet the Fit feels the need to mock me and my overweight, unbalancedness every time I turn it on! Hmmph.

But none of that is going to happen right now. Monday I left work at noon with a fever and feeling like gravity was just pushing down on me with all its might. This morning I woke up, fever-free but I still felt really weary and then it got difficult to breathe. It feels like my left lung isn’t taking in any air. It is a very uncomfortable feeling. For part of the day I had this weird seal-bark sounding cough, which seems to be less seal-barky now and more dry. But I can’t really talk much without starting to hack. If I still have this pressure on my chest in the morning I guess I will actually drag myself to the CLSC and wait in a waiting room for hours only to be told I have a cold and to go back to work and have some soup or something. I don’t think they’ll give me a note to quell the wrath of my Wii.

Actually, it seems that whenever Shawn and I go look at historical things we get sick. It happened in 2006 when we went to visit Upper Canada Village and we both ended up with The Plague of Yore. And now? We went to see old paintings at the museum on Sunday and I have some sort of respiratory/hacking thing. Since Shawn mentioned he was starting to feel the gravity push thing this morning I wouldn’t be surprised if we both ended up with whatever the heck this is.

In other news… at 4:50pm this afternoon the sky was just so pretty I stepped out the front door on to the porch to try and snap some shots.

If I hadn’t been in my pyjamas I would have wandered out into the street to get a better photo of the sky over the houses. But alas, I was in my jammies and was feeling like crap with messy hair, too! So I did what I could from my balcony.

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exercising my body & mind

January 30th, 2010 @ 2:15 pm

This week was brutal. Work was really busy, I ended up going to Curves 3 days this week, got my WiiFit in and did two nights of working out that way (about an hour each time), plus 40 minutes this morning! I also went to my very first Opera at work (school).

Both my body and my mind feel quite exercised this week. My thighs in particular from all sorts of lunges and wall chairs (aka air chair). I feel good about things. Better than I have in a long time.

Sure, I don’t particularly care for opera, and having seen this production sort of confirmed that (although I do love watching live performances. I just don’t like female soloists.) but I loved watching students that I know perform and seeing why scholarship recipients are worthy of their scholarship (one guy in particular was just fantastic!).

I would have gone to Curves more than 3 times this week but one day I was in desperate need to find pants that weren’t torn, which mine were. I didn’t have any luck but at least I got out at lunch.

The one frustrating thing I discovered this morning while paying bills is that Curves seems to have made a huge mistake and are debiting my credit card TWICE A MONTH! Argh! No wonder my spending has gone up more than I thought. I didn’t catch it in December because I had a bunch of online gifts on the statement, but I caught it with this new bill. I will be going there on Monday (maybe to work out, maybe not) and asking them to reimburse me the 2 extra charges or stop my billing 2 months earlier (personally, I’d like the money back to bring my balance down). I need to make sure this gets fixed before the end of next week because I’m supposed to be billed the 3rd of each month so I’d like only ONE charge to go through in February.

Monday I am going to my very first Highland Dance class. I am nervous, but my friends teach it and another friend goes while her kids are being taught as well. So I thought for $8 why  not check it out? Now that I am in NO pain from these wonder drugs my Rheumatologist gave me in November I am feeling the need to be much more active. Mondays are also my piano day, so when I have piano I won’t go. If I like it I’ll go on non-piano days. ;)

I do have great feelings about 2010, I just hope they last!

One thing about all this activity and work stuff is that I am online a lot less when I am home. I think that’s a good thing for me because I need to spend less time puttering away on the computer and interact with life in a face-to-face sort of way. I really want this year to be my Year of Doing Things. I am going to make a very good effort to not party poop too much.

health or lack thereof     2 comments - (Comments are closed)  

voices in the machine

October 1st, 2009 @ 11:23 am

I wasn’t in hyper-panic mode for nothing. The one and only other MRI that I had was so awful that I had nightmares about it for months after I had it. It was the worse feeling in the world having your arms pinned at your sides and the ceiling half an inch from your face. I hated it, the drugs didn’t work, because when I am in full-blow panic attack mode I’m like a perp on PCP that can be shot 5 times and still keeping coming at you. I don’t do calm very well.

I was useless at work for the 2.5 hours I was there. I was shaking and I could already feel my breath going into hyperventilate mode. I popped two gravol on the way from work to the clinic. Thought, hmm, the more downers I have in my system the better. I got there at noon and I handed them my credit card and $1300 late (ulp) I was sitting in the waiting room, just taking my book out of my bag and .. they call my name! Actually since one of my two MRIs also involved an x-ray the nurse just did it then to get it out of the way. My first MRI was still at 1:30.

And they gave me my two 1mg Ativan while I sat and tried to deep breathe in  my little closet thing with the locker. I was only in my robe and socks (stupidly I picked undies with sparkles in them, I didn’t even think about it, so I asked if it would be a problem and to be safe we went sans undies.). The pills had made my head sort if wobbly, which I took as a good sign. And I let the WONDERFUL doctor (nurse?) doing the test know how terrified I was and she was so kind. I couldn’t have headphones for the first test because my head was in some sort of brace-thing which sent me into more throws of terror. I had earplugs and she gave me a blindfold, which I was grateful for, although I was starting to feel all vertigo-y. Then she pulls off the mask and says “Look, you’re really almost out of the machine on this end, does that make you feel better?” And I was. The tippy top of my head was out and it was all brightly lit and flowy cool air and it made me feel SO. MUCH. BETTER. I kept the blindfold off and I just closed my eyes. Even with my eyes closed it was bright, so I felt like I was in open space. Also the way the machine curves at that end isn’t the same as the other end and I felt so much less claustrophobic. I just closed my eyes, breathed and listened to the weird noises the machine was making. It totally sounds like someone talking in a mic.

Dot dot dot dot knock knock knock knock baby baby baby baby burger burger burger…

And it had rhythm. Which I started to make up songs to. In the end I just hummed Sarah McLachlan songs during the entire thing. I had to laugh when I was listening to a couple of noises, which sounded like the machine was setting up or something and then the nurse says “Are you ok?” Me: Yes “Ok, so the next set of photos will be 5 minutes.” Me: Wait? We’ve started already?? *laughter through speakers* “Yes, we have! Feeling better?” I could hear her smiling. I knew it wasn’t going to be horrible after that. I was also much more comfortable with being allowed to have my hand crossed over my chest and not pinned at my sides.

Oh, and it was only 30 minutes and NOT 50 like they booked me. Apparently as long as there are no problems both tests should be 30 minutes. If there were problems (movement, etc, reshooting) it would be longer. So I was out of there a lot faster than I thought I would be. So when I was back in my closet, drugged out of my mind (wheeeee!) I phoned Shawn to let him know I was doing just fine, so he wouldn’t worry anymore, and that I was going to be finished way before 4:30 like I thought since this was all so fast. I phoned my Mum too to let her know I was ok. 30 minutes later I was back in the machine and this time?

I fell asleep.

I kid you not. Although this way (feet first) I had a huge plastic thing strapped to my body and it wasn’t all that comfortable and with my head in this direction, it was much more similar to my liver MRI only I could have my arms crossed on my chest as well which made all the difference. I had the headphones on this time that pumped in lousy radio music (we don’t have any decent stations up here) and I think I would have preferred to have just had the earplugs again because the music wasn’t really loud enough to hear over the “baby baby baby burger burger burger dotdotdot” and I would have rather hummed my own songs. Either way, I fell asleep and the scariest part about MRI #2 was when they took off my headphones and unhooked my plastic board thing because I didn’t know they were there. All of a sudden I had two women staring down at me and I literally went “Gah!” and they laughed. “Fell asleep, huh?” Me: *mumble*  I guess so!

Shawn had just shown up as I made it out to the waiting room – great timing. I was so sleepy and it wasn’t even 4PM yet! Made it home by 4:22 and I was torn between food and sleep, but sleep won out and next thing you know it was twenty after 6 and the only reason I woke up is because someone rang the doorbell – which confused the hell out of me because I thought I was still in the MRI.

Managed to eat, watch some TV (GLEE!) and then was back in bed, only to wake up at 10:30 this morning. What lovely, lovely, drugs they gave me.

And now, the next time I have one of these things, I will NOT be living in terror and I know to tell them to give me the 2 pills before I go in the machine. If I ever need to do one where my head is in the MIDDLE of the machine, I won’t like it one bit, but as long as I can see out the edge, I’ll be a-OK.

health or lack thereof, the anomaly that is me One comment - (Comments are closed)  
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