Thursday, November 13, 2014

Hazel

We got up early, before dawn, crickets and cicadas vying for your attention.  "Your going to meet your grandmother today Corporal, she's come all the way from California to see us!" my mother said while I ate my bowl of cereal and munched on a ripe mango.  "Where do we go?" I asked.  "To the airport in Panama City.

Illness at 71, bah humbug!

It's the shits, not actually but figuratively. Being ill when you already pined down by age and a certain decrepitness that creeps in is awful.  My whole last 2 weeks has been one damned awful physical mess after another.  It all started two + weeks ago with my right leg being numb below the knee, then my right foot felt like it was on fire top, bottom and sides.  Then my upper leg muscles developed, over a couple of days, a dark, awful, throbbing pain that only handfuls of Ibuprofen would fight back enough so that I could walk, albeit slowly and with a strong limp.  Then went on for a week without end, morning and night.  So I emailed my Doctor, Dr. Blues at Kaiser, he set up an appointment and I went as instructed.  He and a physical therapist thought that I had a pinched nerve in my Lumbar #5 and prescribed Prednisone.  It took a couple of days for the drug to take effect and I was good to go, happy on the drug too...which is a bonus, I've witnessed others taking this particular drug and they sometimes have a difficult time managing their anger and frustration and just generally are "out of sorts".  I was "IN SORTS" lots of energy, little to no pain from the leg, even at night which had caused me to lose a lot of sleep.  When the prescription ran out I supposed that I was not expected to have the damned leg pains return but by the 3rd day I was in the same damned painful situation that I was in before.  At first I didn't fall back on the Ibuprofen but by day 4 I was back to 12 a day.  I emailed my Dr. again and this time he set me up for an MRI.   So off for an MRI I went, a big nothing as far as agony goes and we all waited for the results.  Within hours I got an email saying I had a  Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm.   Shit, shit, shit.  That got our attention!  Kelly sobbed a bit, I felt far sicker than I was...not good news.  So then an appointment with the vascular surgeon was made and once again I was back in Kiaser.  She was very informative, relaxed and generally made us feel much better about the prognosis.  It was but 3.6cm in diameter and they typically do nothing but watch it periodically until it reaches 4.5 to 5cm...then it's surgery time.  Through all of this however I was really ILL, I had a 101 degree fever, sweats at night and felt like hell during the day...even took naps for chrisakes!  I do NOT take naps!  I did though, I was bushed.  I had this left armpit rash that itched like crazy through it all, and still does.  Today the fever dropped to 98.8...I'm normal at 96.8 so I'm still a bit warmer that I should be.  My BP (blood pressure) during this whole two week period rose significantly from the normally low (for me) of 105/75 to 165/95.  Now it has returned to the lower numbers after my Doc upped my prescription.  So there...I'm alive.