#I X-ray ct

[personalized-plates]

I X-RAY CT

[fairycosmos]

i need to know whats going on with my skeleton

[whentherewerebicycles]

my new doctor said that she wouldn’t prescribe the meds I’ve been taking for 12 years until I did a bunch of bloodwork. which okay, fine! I went and did a bunch of bloodwork. then I get a $300 bill because for some reason my insurance deemed this routine set of labs “not medically necessary.” so now I have to go through the whole appeals process, which last time took five months and still left me with a $100 bill for reasons they could not clearly explain to me. it’s just such a racket! like I’m not a doctor! my doctor is my doctor and if she says some procedure is medically necessary I’m going assume she is right! why would I think to call my insurance every single time to verify if every single thing she requests is covered or not covered? esp something like bloodwork where it’s like ??? it’s always been covered before??? why would that suddenly change?? this system is SO STUPID

[general-sleepy]

I have all of my liver donation physical appointments tomorrow. I'm pretty nervous about finding out that I'm not eligible. At least I'm pretty sure that on the day I'll be too busy freaking out trying to get to all of my appointments on time to think about the potential results. Wish me luck!

[arctic-hands]

One of these days they're gonna give me a x-ray and they won't even have to turn on the radiation machine to get an image

[woodfrogs]

does anyone want to help me study for my med phys exam i really dont want to 👉👈

[restinthewest]

Long ramble under the cut about Hallow’s elbow issues/general health stuff

I’ve referenced it a couple times, but here’s the story with Hallow’s elbows: in early February she went in for “just in case” x-rays of all major joints just to see how things were looking. She’d had these two years prior, but her elbows hadn’t been done that time. Aside from a sprain when she was two, she’s never seemed to have issues with her elbows, so I wasn’t really worried.

X-rays revealed that significant spondylosis had formed in the last two years (seriously concerning/disappointing but not unexpected) and… she appears to have significant issues in both elbows.

My first action was to lay in bed crying and being dramatic for days.

My second was to book her with an ortho vet so she could get CTs done and could put together a treatment plan. However, due to the fact that I live a bit of a drive from the practice and there’s been snowstorms every time her appointments been booked/rescheduled, we haven’t made it out there yet.

In the meantime I’d joined groups for canine ED and researched online, and the more time passes, the less certain I am that I want to do really anything at all about her elbows.

I am being serious when I say that Hallow does not limp, head bob, have any of the typical gait markers of ED. The only two things that have ever made me wonder about her elbows are (1) sometimes she curls her front paws under her legs when she’s laying down and (2) she has sloppy confo in her front. Other than that, I would never had guessed there was an issue, even now with hindsight. It’s entirely possible that she has some degree of pain stemming from her elbows, but if she does, it is not significant enough for her to change her behavior. She had an extremely long, eventful, active day over last weekend and she was tired the next day and was weak in the back end but had no apparent issues with her front limbs. I’m stumped.

If CT scans confirm the issue, it’s almost certain that some type of surgical procedure will be recommended. My pause is- what is the risk of causing MORE problems by digging around in those joints, when she’s currently doing ok?

Its all anecdotal, but in my ED groups I have observed a LOT of people worrying about the fact that their dogs have not had improved QOL after various surgical procedures, and in many cases, seem to be in more pain long term post-surgery. This possibility freaks me the fuck out! Conversely, I have heard accounts from people whose dogs have had awful elbows on paper but never took a lame step, never had significant treatment of any kind, and lived full, long, active lives.

Not to mention, elbow surgery almost certainly wouldn’t be covered by her insurance, and whatever that cost would be certainly wouldn’t be small potatoes for me. If I were confident that surgery would help her, I’d figure it out and have it done, in a heartbeat, but the thought that I’d spend all that money and it could cause problems where there aren’t currently problems? Ehhhhhh.

At the same time, I worry that I don’t do the surgery now, when she’s young, and four years down the road she’s crippled with arthritis that can’t be undone, and she’s no longer a good candidate for surgery.

I wish I had a crystal ball!! This is such a tough decision. I haven’t rescheduled her ortho consult from the last time we had to cancel due to snow… and I don’t think I’m going to reschedule it.

I need an adult.

[greenyvertekins]

Woot. Got a suite to myself with tv.

[ktarsims]

Updates on Life and Such

SOOOOOO..... I promised an update a few weeks ago now... This is going to be a bit long, so I’ll post it under the cut.

TLDR: Poor decisions were made. I got first a sinus infection with bronchitis and then Pneumonia. Then my annual physical showed my thyroid continues to veer toward hyperthyroidism, and apparently I currently have high blood pressure. On the plus side, I got laid off with a month’s severance pay week and had a lovely root canal a couple of days ago.

When last we left off, there were rats in the walls and ants everywhere. This led to an abundance of Raid being sprayed in various places in the house (like the kitchen and bathrooms). I also decided to try using incense (eucalyptus and lemon!) in the tiny downstairs bathroom in case this would repel ants.

The incense in particular was poor decision making on my part. I know I’m sensitive to smoke, and my respiratory system tends to be weak, but it somehow made sense at the time, and I figured incense smoke is ‘cleaner’ than other smoke, so maybe it would be okay. Between the Raid and the incense I breathed in, I ended up with a sinus infection and my lungs massively inflamed. I was sick for six weeks, and only really got better when they gave me a steroid inhaler to calm down the lungs. (A really expensive steroid inhaler, I might add.)

I was well for about 2-3 weeks when I got gung-ho with energy and finally replaced the uncomfortable loveseat in a room I spend a lot of time in with a full size couch with two recliner seats. And then got one of those nifty shelving units with the differently sized shelves like I love in my sims homes to have space for all the things I displaced with the larger couch.

In the process of re-arranging the room... on the Friday before Christmas, I was extremely active and productive and at one point went outside to put some empty plant pots in the potting shed. While I was there, I saw dead leaves everywhere on the table, in the pots of the outdoor plants... etc. So I took a few minutes to just get the dead leaves out of the pots and off the table. I noticed a few of the leaves I moved were moldy, but trusted in short-term exposure being fine and didn’t run back into the house for a mask.

This requires explaining that about six years ago now, I had been out in the yard raking up leaves when everything was a bit wet and starting to go to mold and rot... and gave myself pneumonia by inhaling the leaf mold. Eheheh.... Seriously, I was perfectly well with no sign of illness and then less than 36 hours later I was in the emergency room because I could hardly breathe and they were telling me I had pneumonia.

So this was also a poor decision. I presume due to the short term exposure, the symptoms were less severe, but I still ended up with pneumonia. I had a second round of antibiotics, but had to use the steroid inhaler again to actually get things to calm down and feel well again.

All I can say here is I think I was feeling pretty stressed, depressed, and anxious because I was so unhappy with my job, but kept failing to find time to seriously search for a new job. Poor mental health leads to poor decisions.

I finally felt well again near the end of January. Then I had my rescheduled dentist appointment to deal with a tooth that’s been causing me lots of pain for 10+ years. It was a thing where they put on a crown, and when they were trying to put on the permanent crown, I objected and said it was hurting far too much and something was wrong. That particular dentist told me it was fine and the pain would go away briefly. But it wasn’t my first crown and I knew the pain level was too high. Anyhow, they overruled me and put it on anyways. It’s been a major source of pain ever since, though I lost my insurance by the time I was certain I’d been right, so I never got it fixed. I stopped chewing on that side of my mouth and just lived with it.

My current dentist is pretty fantastic. I told her about this tooth (we left it to last and fixed everything else first). She cut the crown off and drilled out some minor decay, and said she couldn’t ‘see’ anything else, but that we’d see if it was still giving me pain with the new temp crown on because maybe there was something underneath she couldn’t see. It was still giving me pain, so she referred me to an endodontist for a CT scan.

A few days later, when I hadn’t yet heard back from the endodontist on getting an appointment, I got messages one morning to not go into work because my assignment had been terminated. My first instant reaction was relief that I didn’t need to go to work that day. TBH, a month of severance is fairly generous for a contract job, and I’m fairly elated that I don’t need to keep going back to that job. I consider this great for my mental health.

A couple of hours later, I got a call from the Endodontist office to schedule my appointment. I love this endodontist. The CT scan showed that there was infection at the tips of the roots of that tooth and that the roots were dead. Yes, this means it’s probably been infected in that pocket between the tooth and jaw for 10+ years and just waxing and waning.

A little insert here. I had an annual physical with a new primary care doctor mid-january, and he asked me to see a psychiatrist to look over my anxiety medications. So I had that appointment (video call) the day before I got laid off. While I was at the Endodontist office later that week, waiting for the doctor to come in and talk to me, I was browsing the ‘notes’ attached to my video call with the psychiatrist. It was really confusing until I realized the name on those notes was NOT MINE. (Major confidentiality breach there.) I had to notify them about this, and then they fixed it, but... MAJOR violation of HIPPA there. Just like, wow. Anyways...

Monday, I went in for the root canal. The endodontist found the tooth actually had a third root that was still live, in addition to the two dead ones that were surrounded by infection. ALL cleared out. Today, I’m feeling relieved I don’t have to go back to the job I’d come to hate, extremely relieved that a long-time source of pain has been resolved, and I’m also looking forward to changing my medical insurance away from Kaiser because this last experience has solidified for me that I want nothing more to do with Kaiser.

I’m on blood pressure medication for now, and working to put more potassium back into my diet. It’s dropped a little, though not enough to satisfy my doctors yet. I think whoever my next doctor is will have to follow up on that and the hyperthyroid.

I still have a lot of things to catch up on at the moment, things that didn’t get done while I was sick, paperwork with the loss of the job, getting the permanent crown put on now that the root canal is done, etc. I’m hoping though, that life will calm down a bit, and between no longer needing to deal with that job and the resolution of something that’s been causing me a lot of pain over the years, I think mental health with improve and I can hopefully get back to things like Sims again. <3 I miss my games.

[cookiescr]

Man it's so hard to save. I feel like I'm not making progress at all like the money keeps decreasing

[claudeleine]

anyway post covid symptoms strike again but this is mostly me bleeding into the IV after the saline bag ran out of fluid and my heart rate after I sneezed

[j-rodthexrayguy]

Night 5 of 10 in the ER 🤪

[threadmonster]

Random advice: if you have a surgery involving bones and surgical hardware (screws, plates, etc..) and you're worried something is wrong, ask for a CT scan. You want a CT scan. Push for a CT scan.

[thehmn]

A lot of Danes I’ve talked to express guilt at “taking advantage” of our universal healthcare and I sometimes wonder if it’s based on the knowledge that it’s not a universal right everywhere? Because these people are never “taking advantage” of it. They feel sick so they go see a doctor who then tell them there’s nothing wrong and they can relax. Stress less.

I have to see the doctor every month due to other illness which I don’t feel the least bit bad about but I fell victim to this feeling too once. At one point I started feeling pain in my chest, arm and neck and got really worried I was experiencing a hart attack or blood clot. At the same time I worried I was overreacting but my housemate convinced me to call Lægevagten, which isn’t the alarm center but more like a group of on-call doctors you can call if you have questions or worries. I told her about my symptoms and suddenly she said “Are you calling from this address?” having clearly looked it up on some sort of location gps system from my phone. I confirmed and she just said “Okay, I’m sending an ambulance” and within minutes two paramedics were at my door. They decided to take me to the nearest hospital where I spent the night going through all sorts of tests, from blood work, having radiation pumped into my lungs for a CT scan and several other X-ray images.

Nothing. They found nothing.

I felt so SO bad but before I even said anything they assured me “This is good. We’d rather people come here and nothing is wrong than people not come here when something is wrong and they end up dying. Now you don’t have to stress about this”

A few days later I realized the pain came from a sliiightly dislocated rib that randomly popped back into place while I was riding my bike.

I felt so silly but my friends reminded me that I didn’t make a huge fuss about it at the time. I just told the doctor my symptoms and she set the whole thing in motion. Like the doctors said, this is what universal healthcare is for. People need to feel like they can call for help even at the slightest sign of illness so it can be caught early. This is how you keep a population healthy.

But yeah, it’s such a silly feeling. We pay taxes to have universal healthcare so there’s no reason to feel guilty about using it. We just can’t help ourselves I suppose. (Let’s not even get into the fact my doctor diagnosed me with early diabetes “just to be on the safe side” that seemed to vanish almost immediately but it still means I get free yearly vaccinations and I have very mixed feelings about it)

[iero]

So update from home now: Most of the blood is (embarrassingly) because my period started 10+ days early we believe. HOWEVER, there is still blood in my urine from how the blood and the urine test results came back. No UTI and nothing wrong with my kidneys, somehow, so now I get to wait MORE time because I have to see a urologist to get a cystoscopy to find out if something is wrong with my bladder… Yay ��️

Back in the ER this morning because I’m officially pissing blood!