Showing posts with label this sucks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label this sucks. Show all posts

Thursday, January 14, 2021

It's still not a banana

But it probably is Meniere’s disease. Which isn’t really a disease, any more than the reactive airway disease I have is a disease. (I don't have asthma, pinky promise.)

Way back in 2014, I got my ears thoroughly checked out by both an ENT and an audiologist. I had some mild low frequency hearing loss, also fullness in the ears but I hadn’t yet had any vertigo or much tinnitus. I mean, let’s face it—as I’ve said elsewhere, I was a military musician for years and you cannot perform the 1812 Overture with real howitzers and not have some tinnitus. But it wasn’t bad, not yet anyway.

About a year later, I was back with the same issues: very full ears that actually aren’t full but sure feel that way, very mild tinnitus and increased lower frequency hearing loss. At that same visit, my ENT uncovered some pretty severe sinus infection issues I’d had for years; I ended up having sinus surgery which helped so much. And I also ended up with a hearing aid—I posted then that I gasped when I heard in stereo again, it had been so long.

But less than a year later my hearing resolved, which I did not expect. That’s when Meniere’s was first suggested and I pushed back hard. I felt like that was a BS diagnosis, and that people who are diagnosed with that tend to get slotted into the crazy, crackpot, difficult patient. No thanks.

I don’t remember exactly when I had the episodes of vertigo (probably because I don’t want to remember) but they were brutal. The world tilted and rotated; I couldn’t walk but had to crawl to the bathroom to puke my guts out for a couple of hours. That happened oh maybe three or four times and then vanished. (Yes, another Meniere’s symptom which I didn’t want to acknowledge.)

In the last six months, my hearing in my left ear has deteriorated a lot, the pressure in both ears is immense and the tinnitus in my left ear is more like standing right next to a Boing 767 engine roaring along on an international flight. It’s loud and it hurts

Then this last Saturday, I had an absolutely brutal episode of vertigo, complete with throwing up for several hours. I still feel the vertigo lingering at the edges but God willing, I’m not at the fall down and need to puke stage.

But that got me off my butt and I called my audiologist again, who said oh hey you have to see the ENT first. But he’s just going to send me to you! Yes, but you have to go to him first. And in a nice piece of luck, he had a cancelation the very next morning, which was yesterday. 

And yes, my hearing has deteriorated again. My audiologist reprogrammed my hearing aid for me on the spot, so now I’m hearing in stereo again. The ENT was great, did a really thorough review of my records with him and discussed everything in detail. Since I’m now presenting with all four symptoms, it’s pretty much a certainty that this is Meniere’s. He suggested considering a brain MRI since it’s been a few years (how sad is that that I’ve had more than one?) but doesn’t expect that will show anything. I don’t either but I agreed to get one because I also said I didn’t have melanoma, argued with my orthopedist that my pelvis was not fractured and didn’t really believe my oncologist that I had breast cancer.

So. Clearly I had better rely on my medical partners rather than my own opinion.

Here's my results from 2015 (dots show from 2014, the lines were from that day's test):


And from yesterday (dots are from 2018, the lines are from yesterday):


The right ear (which is weirdly on the left) now shows some typical high frequency hearing loss which generally happens to us all. It's the reverse slope hearing loss in the left ear that's the stumper.

The MRI is scheduled for January 28 so more to come. 


Thursday, August 9, 2018

It's only going to get harder

My follow up appointment with the orthopedist was just over two weeks ago. As I expected, he had another x-ray taken to see how the break is healing and then basically told me no, I still can’t do much of anything. No walking for exercise, no strength work, no yoga, definitely no running, nothing. Oh OK, he said, I could do some light swimming. He was very clear that I wasn’t to spend hours in the pool, and then had me schedule another follow up appointment six weeks later. He did show me what he called the "fluffy bone callus" where the break is healing. I don't know that I'd have described bone as fluffy but I did see it on the x-ray.

The day after that appointment, I ditched the crutches at work and in typical Elizabeth fashion, promptly overdid it by including some stairs as I walked from meeting to meeting. While the pain never rose to the same level as when the break was diagnosed, I was pretty uncomfortable even while just sitting still. I called the orthopedist that day and asked for guidance (because yes, apparently I am that woman who needs to be told to stop doing something) and was told to stop weight bearing until I could do it with no pain. Well, OK, I went back on the crutches until this last weekend. I’ve been able to go without them at work this week, although I still have weird, random times when that fracture site just gets seriously annoyed. I wish I could figure out what the common denominator was, but honestly there doesn’t seem to be one.

Plastic Birks so I don't slip
and fall at the pool
I’ve also started light swimming. I took swim lessons for years as a kid—I’ve got fond memories of the YMCA in Bryn Mawr and I’ve always loved the water. It’s good for me right now because it’s non-weight bearing, I can get my heart rate up and get a bit of a cardio workout.

But at the same time, it doesn’t have the same positive mental impact on me that running does. With running, I think differently and I’m outside seeing things, noticing the neighborhood, it’s quiet and lovely and my own private time. I worked for years on my running form and had reached the point where I didn’t need to focus on my form every minute of my run. I could get in a zone and just go with it. Swimming though, isn’t nearly so automatic. There’s so much to think about and focus on, it’s noisy what with all the exhaling under water and I’m not especially good at it. I miss having something I excel in.

I hope I’m cleared for some more activity in early September, although I fear I won’t be. I mean, at this point he hasn’t even brought up physical therapy, which is discouraging. And I think I’m moving into the really tough part of recovery, where I’m going to be pain-free or mostly pain-free but still not cleared to do anything.

About the photo on the left: I use two different types of goggles because they both leave serious marks on my face and this way, I'm distributing those marks. And that swim cap works pretty well. While some of my hair does get wet, the cap keeps water out of my ears which I think is pretty amazing.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Establishing that mind/body connection

I mentioned in my update post that my orthopedist told me I need to rethink the mind/body connection so that I pay attention to signals my body sends when something’s wrong. It would be more accurate to say I need to start paying attention. I’ve spent my entire life disassociated from my body, so I can’t rethink something I’ve never done. Unfortunately, I’m a pro at ignoring signals from my body.

For instance:

  • I took a hard fall from the top of a pretty tall slide when I was 9. Remember, I was a child in the dark ages when our playground equipment had zero safety features, and the playgrounds were hard-packed dirt, not the cushy stuff used today. I landed flat on my back and knocked the wind out of myself. My lower back felt awful, sort of unstable, but I didn’t tell anyone I’d fallen or that my back hurt. That night I remember lying on the daybed in our basement in Bryn Mawr watching the moon landing and thinking I wish my back weren’t hurting. It’s pretty much hurt ever since.*  
  • When I was 19, I had all the symptoms of appendicitis for three weeks. I finally went to the clinic because I threw up (hate, hate, hate to throw up) and was in surgery three hours later. My surgeon later told me that if I’d waited one more day, I would have died. My small intestine was compromised, I had an NG tube for about 5 days and a 7-inch long incision.
  • I went on to have four abdominal surgeries in five years and had a fair amount of pain and discomfort in my lower back (same place from that fall). But what’s the prevailing advice if you have back pain? Do more core work, you’ve got a weak core and once that’s strong, then your back will be good to go. I cannot tell you how much ab work I’ve done over the years. Point in fact, my core is rock solid. That back pain never went away, and I never thought to mention it to any doctor I ever saw. More about that in a moment.
  • I had an MRI a few years ago to see why my ears were always plugged up. When I met with my ENT to discuss the results, he asked me how often I had sinus infections. Never, I said. He told me that I had a raging sinus infection right then and showed it to me on the MRI. That was a recalibration exercise for me right there as I realized the face melting headaches I’d had all my life were in fact sinus infections. That particular sinus infection took two rounds of antibiotics to cure.
  • About that back pain. The same MRI that diagnosed my pelvic fracture also diagnosed mild degenerative disc disease in L4-L3. Guess where that is? Yup, the same spot that’s been hurting me all these years.
  • And of course, I ran a 10K on Memorial Day this year with a fractured pelvis. Yes, I was in pain—enough pain that I had to walk a fair amount, enough pain that my average pace was 90 seconds more a mile than usual, enough pain that I was nearly puking the whole way through. I still didn't stop. Once I ran across the finish line, that was it. I haven’t walked normally since then.

Right this second, I’m trying to pay attention. I say trying because this is hard. Now I feel all the aches and pains, all the discomfort and it’s not pleasant. OK that’s an understatement. I’m in pain and not just from the fracture. I don’t like this at all and to be honest, I long for that disassociation because at least then I don’t hurt.

I’m sure if you aren’t wired this way, I sound utterly insane.




*By the way, I'm not dissing today’s playgrounds—I couldn’t have taken the fall I did if the slide had been both shorter and made of that industrial plastic used today. I was basically skiing down the slide with sand under my shoes. I didn't get enough sand for that trip, caught an edge of my sneaker at the top of the slide and flipped right over. I don't think you can ski down today's slides that way.

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

An update

I saw the orthopedist yesterday afternoon. This was the first time I’d seen him (I saw the physician’s assistant in the urgent orthopedic clinic on May 29, which is also when I had the x-ray taken—I had the MRI on June 1).

Good news:

No proximal femur fracture or stress reaction, no right hip effusion, hip cartilage is normal, ligaments are good, and gluteal tendon attachments are good.

Not so good news:

I’ve got a nondisplaced transverse fracture of the right inferior pubic ramus with extensive bone marrow edema and adjacent edema in the inferior fibers of the right obturator externus muscle (which is consistent with a low-grade muscle strain). I also have mild right hamstrings origin tendinosis and left hamstrings origin tendinosis, both with no tearing.




What’s next?

Well this is the hard part. No exercise, zero exercise for the next six weeks. I think I probably blanched at that part. He was really clear though. He told me that I won’t be running for three months (best case) and that I need to rethink and reconnect with the signals my body sends me. No running through pain, no ignoring it because next time, it might be far more catastrophic and completely end running for me. He just did a hip replacement on a 28 year old female, he said, who ran through the pain. Yeah, I don’t want to be that woman. And to be honest, this is about what I expected. The internet is a wonderful resource, and Dr. Google had warned me this would almost certainly be a lengthy recovery.

He’ll take more x-rays in six weeks to see how the bone is healing and I may be cleared then for some very light exercise (think upper body). But yeah, no running, he said, unless I’m being chased by a rabid dog.

For now, I’m on crutches as I need them. I can sort of gimp around the house on one crutch but it’s dicey at work—people don’t always realize I need a bit more clearance coming through. But I expect to be off them in a couple of weeks. I can put weight on the leg now which is a huge improvement. What hurts is bringing my leg forward, or doing anything that involves moving left or right.

Stay tuned. I’m determined to recover completely from this and in the meantime, I guess I’ll have to learn to be patient.