Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Specialist Appointment Tomorrow

Our first appointment with the specialist is tomorrow (Thursday) at 1:15. My best friend asked me what I was hoping to walk away with from the meeting. It was a good question, but hard to answer.

I guess my goal is that we would walk away knowing something. I'll be really frustrated if we waited almost 2 months, did the preliminary exam and a really extensive questionnaire only to arrive tomorrow to have a "Get to know you" meeting. My hope is that we did so much ground work ahead of time so that tomorrow would be productive. I know that we won't have all the answers tomorrow but I will at least like for him to have done some examinations and tests to maybe at least starting us down the road of a diagnosis of the source of the problem. I realize test results don't come back immediately, but if he at least administers some of them tomorrow, then knowing something more concrete could be around the corner. So we'd appreciate your prayers that tomorrow's meeting would be productive, whatever that looks like.

In other small news, I was really sick last night. It really just came out of nowhere. Monday afternoon I got a sore throat and I went to bed having taken some Nyquil. Yesterday morning I was ok, but tired and congested. I got home after class and lay down for a nap. I woke up last night violently ill with horrible nausea and prolonged vomiting, and a persistent high fever. The fever broke around 9:00 this morning and I went to the doctor for my previously scheduled insomnia appointment and he took a look at my current symptoms. He gave me medicine for a sinus infection. I didn't have the presence of mind to ask about the nausea and vomiting. My guess is that he'd blame it on drainage but I've never been that sick. Even smells were inducing vomiting. It certainly felt tenfold worse than the drainage-induced nausea I've had before. I did ok today, struggling again mostly with fatigue (I only got about 2 hours sleep last night) and congestion but just this evening I've been fighting the nausea again and I think a fever, too. If you could pray that I could keep food down and get over the stomach portion of this illness right away, I'd really appreciate it.

On a funny note, there was a fleeting moment when I was sitting on the floor with my head over the ivory throne when I thought "good night, is this anything like morning sickness? Why on earth am I asking for this?" I cursed my thoughts and immediately promised God I'd try to happily endure 9 months of morning sickness, but the thought amused me anyway. My thoughts quickly shifted to "good night, is this what a hangover is like? Why would anyone voluntarily do this?" Ah well. Such are the musings of a sick woman who has nothing better to do but think when in such a situation.

Back to the topic of the initial appointment. The doctor put me on a very low dosage of medication that is well established and has very little short or long term side effects, or risk for dependency. He said the only side effects are mild gastro-intestinal. I thought to myself, "You obviously don't know I take Metformin. Gastro-Intestinal Side Effects are my middle name." I resisted. However he did assure me that the two medications shouldn't compound each other. He said that the insomnia is most likely stress related from all the IF stuff because I can associate this most recent vengeful emergence with our November appointment so he wants to take it a month at a time, and take me off of it when my body is retrained and/or life calms down a little. I felt very comfortable that what he was saying was accurate and dependable, and with the big picture in mind. Tonight is my first test--we shall see how I do!

Hopefully I'll post tomorrow afternoon or evening with some productive news! We'd appreciate your prayers as we go in to this!

3 comments:

  1. Good luck to you - hope you fell better. There is metformin XR that is supposed to help with the gastro -part of the met side effects. you can ask the RE about that

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  2. Best of luck at your appointment. I hope it is very productive. I totally know what you mean about wanting to dig deep instead of just the fluff.

    I also will keep you in my prayers that you feel better soon. There's nothing worse then being sick and feeling so terrible when you're going through a stressful time already. Hopefully it passes soon!

    Definitely let us know how the appointment goes!!

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  3. What IF woman HASN'T had those conflicting thoughts while kneeling over the toilet with a stomach virus?? I know I have!!!

    I hope you get some wonderful news...well, you are probably done with your appt. right now, so I look forward to an update!

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