Lenny the Magical Polyp

I am sorry for not proofing and posting anything I’ve had in cue. Quite simply, I still feel like crap. Well, I mean, I feel like crap if crap had a twin that came to visit while crap was already inhabiting me. Did that make sense to anyone but myself? Either way, I thought I would update you all on what’s going on so you wouldn’t think I was just a lazy piece.

I am mostly writing this to apologize to anyone who may have tried to talk to me this week without a satisfactory answer. I.E., I either didn’t respond for several days, or it was a short, albeit cranky response. I know this sounds like a line, but it was honestly me, not you. I am sorry. When I really don’t feel well, I tend to not want to deal with anything, and when I have to, I get cranky. As to not take the cranky out on anyone else, I either don’t answer their pending emails in a timely manner, until I feel I can somewhat deal with life, and / or, when I do, they are short and not up to par with my regular emails. Again, I apologize.

I touched briefly on what was going on with my health in the last post, in which you can tell I obviously wasn’t feeling well since I spelled vacation wrong in the title. I mean, level with me here, guys. How sick do you have to be to spell vacation wrong and not even notice after proofreading? Yes, I changed it, but it was a blaring error that was staring me right smack in the face and I couldn’t take it anymore. However, you still have my permission to laugh at me just knowing that I spelled vacation as vacatioin. I don’t know what a vacatioin is, but maybe I should consider taking one.

Anyway, to touch on it a little less briefly, which I realize sounds dirty but go with me here, I shall give you an easy rundown on what’s been going on. Basically, as I mentioned previously, I started out having a sore throat, but then it turned into what most would think was a cold, only I could tell it wasn’t a cold. Something was up, and if anything, I thought I had a viral infection. The reason being that with my sneezing and coughing came a sharp, inflammatory like pain in my middle back. This pain was also driving my stomach up a wall. I have been prone to viral infections in my back before, which often cause cold like symptoms, and chalked it up to most likely being that. I hate when I’m wrong.

Not that you all need or want to know this, but on top of that I was having issues with burning after I went number one. Not before or during, but after. I know that’s not the mature way to put it, but probably the least grotesque. I had a test done to check for urinary issues and viruses, per the doctor's request, thinking they would show what was up and she could just give me antibiotics. They all came back negative, so I went to the doctor, still thinking I would end up on a round of antibiotics in the end.

She looked me over and felt around on my back and what not, already knowing that I didn’t have any viruses per the prior testing. The one major thing she saw that was wrong was that my back was hot and heavily inflamed. The pain I’m having is nothing like muscle pain. It goes deeper than that and makes it hard to sit back against it or stand for any amount of time. Basically, I can lay on my side or my stomach, not move a lot and ice it pretty consistently. Freaking dance party, right?

Because of where the pain and swelling are located, and the post urination burning, she believes it’s a kidney problem. However, after some additional evaluation, it doesn’t seem as if I have kidney stones. She ordered more tests to find out for sure.

Also, I know I’ve mentioned before that the doctors are positive, because of my symptoms and a pre-cursor disorder, that I have an autoimmune disorder. The problem with those disorders is that they can often take years to declare themselves in blood tests. Being that I literally had twenty six tests done last year alone, not counting the blood test, and close to fifty in the last three years, they’re positive there is nothing else going on that could cause the symptoms I’m having. Yes, I do have a condition with my heart, but it’s not one that would cause all the issues I’m having.

So, if this ends up not being a kidney disorder, we have to chalk it up to having to do with the autoimmune disorder, which is good and bad. It’s good, because it may be another piece in the puzzle to finding out exactly what is going on with my body to treat it. This may be the disorder declaring itself. However, if it does have to do with that disorder and it does not declare itself, they really don’t know what to give me to treat it. They have to be careful when they give me medications, because without knowing what I have, some medications make certain kinds of autoimmune conditions angrier than they already are. They are pretty sure they know what’s going on, but since they don’t have it on a lock, it’s pretty frustrating.

Also, the way that I understand, certain autoimmune disorders are also considered connective tissue disorders. They believe fully that what I have is connective tissue. That being said, apparently that means my tissue is already preempt to swell. So, overall, this issue could be simply that. I could have a mass of tissue swelling around my kidneys, as well as where the sun doesn’t shine, which will cause burning after going to the potty.

Another possibility is something that I’ve mentioned before. I have a polyp in my gallbladder. This was found due to me having severe pain in my right side and back, around the same area where my pain is now, only now it’s on both sides, and the whole burning after going potty thing is totally new. When said polyp, which I shall now refer to as Lenny, since it’s annoying and obviously has to be a boy, was first discovered, they had the concern that it could be cancerous because of the kind of polyp it was and where it was located in the gallbladder.

I had to wait six months to get another ultrasound done. I was told one of two things would happen with said ultrasound. Lenny would either grow, and if he did, they would go in and remove him and test him to see if he was cancerous, since he was too small to test as was. And, most likely, if he did grow, he was cancerous. Or, Lenny would not grow at all, and if he didn’t, they would know for sure he wasn’t cancerous. This seemed simple enough, although the six month wait sucked monkeys. I mean no offense to monkeys.

I go back in for the scan and what does Lenny do? Lenny shrinks. Apparently this was a really rare occurrence and mostly unheard of for a polyp. Four doctors ended up in the room marveling over a shrunken Lenny. No one knew what to make of him. I just thought he was magic.

It had already been mentioned that I would have to have my gallbladder taken out since I was prone to polyps, and strange ones at that. He wanted to wait until we got whatever autoimmune issue that was going on at bay, since it can be an adjustment to lose a gallbladder. A few months ago, said gallbladder started hurting me pretty badly and he suspected he may have to take it sooner rather than later.

I made an appointment to go in, but a lot of bad weather happened and what not, making my appointment get pushed back to next month. It’s been a long, hard winter, folks. Then, with my car dying and having to work around my mom’s schedule, that just didn’t help things any. Either way, it’s possible this is a gallbladder issue. I knew prior to now that I was going to that appointment basically to find out if I would be having the gallbladder surgery sooner than later. If this all ends up being because of my gallbladder, and things have gotten this bad because I had to keep canceling my appointment and rescheduling, Lenny and I are going to have to have a pretty hefty talk about his self righteousness.

The ironic thing about all of this is that my grandma had an autoimmune disorder. This is mostly why they believe I have one, too, because they believe they are hereditary, but can skip a generation. As time went on, I started to notice my symptoms were mimicking my grandmother’s, which is why I chose to go to the same doctor as her. And as that doctor would say, we are both certainly her weird patients. She can never predict what our bodies are going to pull. Even with grandma having passed, I’m noticing more symptoms and more similarities to her condition. I have literally had every single test that she had done, only five years after her. She also had her gallbladder removed a few years back for similar symptoms that they originally believed was a kidney condition.

Considering what she had, and them thinking I have it, too, I am not amused. If I do have what she has, it will be the thing that kills me. That’s not to say I will die tomorrow; I could live a full, long life, but unless I die in a freak accident, it’s guaranteed that will be what kills me like it did her. She got it when she was older and was in remission for ten years prior to her death. I really hope I don’t have what she had. No offense, Gram.

Along with that long, drawn out explanation of understanding, I also hope that answered Zoe’s question, as she asked me how they could not know what’s wrong with me. That’s the basic reason. Also, Zoe, I am glad you did not get sick and that you had a great time at the Paul McCartney concert. I want to hop on over to your blog and see if you wrote about the experience just as soon as I’m only half cranky and don’t have my phasers fully set to crank. I am totally appreciating your imaginary cards. I also promise to put up a snippet of my novel as soon as I know the copyright is taken care of. I am equally excited to see some of your very own work!

Tuesday I had my blood work done. I should have the results tomorrow or Friday. I also have a script to have an ultrasound done to check out my kidneys and the surrounding area. If everything comes out clean, they’re going to do a cat scan.

This is where my story of the day comes in. Oh, you thought I was just writing this to complain about how sucky I feel? Heck no. I dang near got myself a story, folks. Sorry. I’m sure you could have gotten the point without me going all southern on you.

As I just mentioned, I have to have an ultrasound done. I know I’ve expressed before that I always go to a set of hospitals and doctors forty five minutes to an hour and a half away from here, depending on traffic. It’s a long way to travel just for an ultrasound, I know. I also know I’ve said several times that I won’t use the doctors around here, but never explained why. Well, for those of you who have wondered, today is your lucky day.

Let’s go back a few years when I was having issues with my heart beating rapidly, passing out because of it, chest pain, etc. I was going to a neurologist at that time for a foot injury, and he’s the one that ended up finding out I had a PFO in my heart. At first we thought the symptoms I was having were neurological because of the nerve damage to my foot, but after the tests confirmed that was not so, he suspected my heart. He gets a point. Him I like.

Naturally, because I am in an area where they are four hospitals within twenty to twenty five minutes from here, and we are polluted with doctor’s offices, I went to a doctor at a local, well known hospital. I took all the tests that had been done, along with a list of my symptoms, and a referral from my neurologist saying he suspected there was also an underlying issue with my heart causing it to act the way it has been, which is like a three year old child with incurable ADHD.

I got in the office, was called back a half an hour after my appointment, waited forty five more minutes for the doctor and then he finally arrived. He got in his chair, looked at all my previous records and then looked at me, laughed, and said the following. “I’ve never had anyone come to me that doesn’t actually have anything wrong with them.” He then walked out of the room. He didn’t even examine me. What’s so great about this was it was the hospital he worked for that did the test that found the PFO in my heart, since my awesome doctor referred me there for testing. This was strike one for this particular group of health care services, Excela Health. They excel at suck.

Being that Excela ran almost all the doctors offices in the area, I went to another doctor. The other doctor said I did have an issue with my heart, but she was unsure what to do about it, or how to find out what was going on exactly. You’re a cardiologist. How do you not know how to find out? I was pretty frustrated at this point.

Not two months after this, I had a TIA. Only, when I went to the same hospital I started out at for this, all they did was drug test me. Yes, you heard me. They drug tested me down to Tylenol, despite the fact that there were three adults there telling them I did not do drugs. When they couldn’t even find Tylenol in my system, they sent me home, but did nothing to help me except they had given me a sugar water drip while I was there. Then, they billed me $5000 in drug testing. I refused to pay, found out that by law, they could not just drug test me like that with three people there saying I did not do drugs, and without looking into any other issue. I threatened legal action and suddenly they told me not to worry about paying that bill. Funny how that works.

I realize most of you are wondering why I went to that particular hospital, given my issues with Excela. The reason was my mom was not home, nor did she have a cell phone at the time. It was Aunt Bev’s ex-husband who happened to call here and realize something was wrong because I couldn’t form any words correctly. He came and got me and took me to the closest hospital. This shouldn’t have been a problem since they were the ones who discovered the PFO in my heart, and had all of my records since the doctors I had gone to were within their health care system.

This is when we realized we would have to go to the doctors in the health care group further away. I can not say enough good things about the doctors outside of Excela, and how it's more than worth the drive. I really can not. I got a new cardiologist, who literally went into my heart and realized I had a few issues going on. I also went to gram’s doctor and she discovered my blood disorder. When they put them together, they realized I was a perfect candidate for a TIA, and they were both positive that’s what I had that day.

They sent me to another doctor who specializes in this issue. He is currently monitoring my heart on a consistent basis. The reason being, with the PFO and the blood disorder, it is possible for my blood to get thick and stick in the PFO, since it is but a small hole. If that happens, it will cause me to have a TIA, or a full blown stroke. Right now, the PFO is just under the FDA regulation size for them to be able to fix it, and even if it wasn’t, with the other issues I have with my heart, they don’t know if they would be able to do the procedure without actually doing open heart and stopping my heart to install the umbrellas, which is total overkill for the procedure.

However, I have arrhythmia, meaning my heart could speed up at anytime while trying to install the umbrella if they do the procedure without opening up my chest and temporarily stopping my heart, breaking off a piece of said umbrella and dropping it into my blood stream. This is bad enough, because it could cause a blood clot, but with my blood disorder, it’s almost guaranteed that that’s what would happen. If it does, and they were unable to repair the PFO because the umbrella broke, it’s possible the blood clot could go through that PFO and to my brain. It’s one big circle, but he still wants to monitor my heart, because there’s the concern that one day I will get a clot, or my blood will get thick enough that it does stick in that hole, and I won’t just have a TIA; I have a full blown stroke. That’s what we’re trying to prevent.

If this information wasn’t enough to discredit Excela, who ignored me, drug tested me, and told me I was fine, my grandma had to get an MRI done. Because she could no longer drive herself and we were the only ones willing to take her to the other group of doctors further away, she decided to have the MRI done at the same hospital I had the issues with. After all, how badly could they screw up her MRI?

The MRI was of her brain, and shortly after getting it done, we got a panicked call from her saying they found a tumor in her brain, and it was large. This wasn’t what they had gone in looking for, but this is what they had found. We made an emergency appointment to go see the awesome doctor who had requested the MRI, only to have her redo the MRI since Gram had no symptoms leading her to believe there was a brain tumor. She found that what she suspected was going on, and had sent my grandma in to get tested for, was correct, and my gram did NOT have a brain tumor. The machine malfunctioned, but after the hospital found that out, they didn’t feel it necessary to call and tell her doctor that their machine malfunctioned that day. No, the doctor had to call them and tell them they did another MRI and there was no tumor, only to be told by them that they knew this, their machine had malfunctioned. FAIL!

I know you’re wondering why I’m also telling you all of this, so I will get to that now. Recently, Excela bought out the other two hospitals that were not previously owned by them, as well as any health facilities in the area. I was aware they had bought out the hospitals, but not the facilities.

I decided that, instead of going the whole way out to the great hospital to get an ultrasound done, I would simply go to this one medical complex twelve minutes away that I had gone to previously for such things. It was easier and they were efficient. I went to pull up their number, only to find that now it was a 1-800 number, which confused me. That was until I called.

Imagine my surprise when I was alerted that the complex was now owned by Excela, and I did not, in fact, call that complex. Oh no, I had called a main line for that Excela, and would no longer be able to just call that complex. I would have to call Excela, and they would take care of all scheduling from now on in. This was going to go wrong somewhere, I could feel it, so I did the only thing I could; I groaned, but decided to stick it out, because I had gone there before, liked the employees, assumed they were the same, and thought that I would be okay to go there. This was stupid on my part, I know.

The first person I got said she was just an operator and transferred me. I waited another three minutes for someone else to pick up. When they did, I told them the situation. The lady on the phone asked me several times to read the script to her. I did. She asked me several more times. Then she put me on hold to call and talk to the complex that I could no longer call, because she couldn’t figure out what kind of ultrasound I needed done. I was ready to hang up, but I hung in there. No pun intended, promise.

After seven minutes, she got back to me and told me she still couldn’t figure out what kind of ultrasound I wanted, and she would have to call my doctor's office. Then she hung up. At this point, I knew I would not be going there and would be going further away to the hospital I trusted to have this test done. I mean, everything on the script was in medical coding, meaning it should go into the system and even if she didn’t know what kind of ultrasound I was getting, the place where I was getting it would. I had never had this problem with this complex before...until, you guessed it, Excela took over.

I called, told the hospital I normally go to what was on my script, and got an appointment in less than three minutes on the phone. No fuss, no mess, no issues. They knew what I needed done.

A little while later, the lady from Excela calls me back, tells me that she called my doctor's office and they had no record of the script or anything about me, for that matter. That was funny, because I was holding the script in my hand. And that’s when I realized it; she never bothered to get a phone number or anything for my doctor off of me. She asked me what doctor I went to, but there is more than one doctor with that same last name in the area. Who knows who in the hell she called. One thing is for sure, not only are the people in Excela incompetent, but the people who work for them probably need someone to feed them, too. No, I don’t feel this is mean. It’s their job to know this stuff.

I will keep you all updated on what is going on as soon as I know, and am not cranky. Let me note I am also having a ton of random swelling in my gums, and if I don't keep them iced, I am in serious pain no matter what I take. This really makes me cranky. So I apologize for the crankiness.

Vivi Ann, if you ever come to the US, you are welcomed to visit me. I also hope to proof and have a special post about you up very soon.