Category Archives: Health

Update on Yesterday’s Prayer Request

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About 8:00 last night (after going upstairs to get a Harry Potter book and choking for 5 minutes), I told Jon that I wanted to go to the E.R. NOW.Â? We went in and thankfully the doc that knows me best was on call.Â? All I had to do was have him examine me and tell him that my peak flow was 300 (about 60% of what my norm is) and he got me hooked up to a nebulizer.Â? 10-15 minutes of nebulizer treatment opened everything up again and we were out of there by 9:30.

Right now, I’m doing fairly well — still not able to do a lot physically but that’s due more to the &^%$#%$ smoke from the forest fires west and south of us (ah… summer in Montana) that’s blowing this direction.Â? They gave me some surgical masks to wear for those times when I have to go outside and I have a feeling that I’m going to get some stares while walking to church tomorrow.Â? 😛

Prayer Request

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Do me a favor:

Please pray that my asthma problems and the nausea abate so that I don’t end up in the ER or admitted to the hospital tonight.Â? I’ve been having problems all day with breathing and dizziness and nausea.

Thanks

Gah!

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I thought that my loopiness from yesterday would be gone today.Â? Umm… no.Â? I took 2 Benadryl last night to fight the nasty itchy feeling in my face from allergies and smoke from the Skyland Fire in East Glacier which made me wake up in no shape to drive myself to the doctor today.Â? (I feel like someone is taking my head, shaking it like a snow globe, and putting it back on.)Â? Apparently, all the Benadryl from last week is still in my system and I have at least another day of being completely useless to anyone.Â? (I had to have someone drive me into town to give Jon spare keys last night when his set got locked in the car.)Â? I also have a raging sinus infection among other things and my doctor thinks that the ER doc in Kalispell was a moron for telling me that I wasn’t allergic.Â? (I am so getting a recommendation to an allergist in Great Falls to get everything straightened out with my allergies and asthma and to find out WHAT venom stings I’m allergic to so that I know whether or not I actually need an Epi-Pen.)

Oh yes… did I mention that they’re doing road construction in town so that driving anywhere and parking on Main Street is a freaking mess (as well as the town reeking of tar and asphalt)?Â? And that it was in the 90’s again (it’s been in the high 80’s and upwards for a months now with no break)?

Then I get home and find out that the local hospital entered the wrong amount for a payment and caused a snowball of things to mess up my bank account.Â? (I was on the phone for 45 minutes with my bank fixing it.)Â? Oh yes… I also have a stomach that is rejecting everything put in it so I’m incredibly nauseous and in pain while doing this.

The rest of the day has followed suit.Â? I have an itchy face again, it’s bloody hot, there’s smoke from the Skyland fire (meaning that opening windows is not an option), and I’m just incredibly uncomfortable.Â? The heat is so bad that I have liquid streaming down my face and my stomach — we’re talking going through shirts because they get so nasty from the sweat and of course… we have no freaking A/C (apparently we don’t *NEED* it here — uh huh… right…) so there’s not exactly much that can be done.

Today is soooooo fired!!!! This Benadryl had better get itself the heck out of my system so I can actually *TAKE* my antibiotics and a decongestant tomorrow.

Pleurisy

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I called in this morning and told them that I needed to be seen because it hurt to breathe.Â? I would probably have gotten a quicker appointment than 2:00 pm if I’d mentioned that I was severely asthmatic but oh well.Â? The FNP listened to me and went to check with her MD who told her that it was probably pleurisy but to do an EKG in case it was pericarditis.Â? The EKG was stunningly good so… lots of albuterol and some Aleve to make the pain go away.Â? I expected them to nebulize me but that will probably happen if it gets worse.

According to Pisco, all I need is consumption and cholera and I’ll be a true Victorian-era invalid.Â? Oh yes… I also need to practice holding my wrist to my forehead and fainting onto settees.Â? Given that in Victorian times I’d be wearing a corset, I could soooooo see that happening!

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Issues of Conscience and Arrogance

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Great Falls Tribune: Pharmacy draws fire for stopping the sale of birth control pills.

OK…Â? the problem at hand is that the new owners of the pharmacy feel that stocking oral contraceptives is detrimental to their consciences and plan to stop stocking them… AFTER THEIR CURRENT SUPPLY RUNS OUT!!!

Yeah… I can understand making the decision not to stock them and it’s their right.Â? However… after putting an ad in the newspaper on Mother’s Day announcing this and claiming that it’s because such meds are sinful, isn’t it a bit hypocritical of them to keep dispensing the meds regardless of their supply?

I read a story about a pharmacist who just felt it was wrong that he was selling these expensive cancer meds while his pharmacy also sold cigarettes.Â? So… he took all the tobacco out to the parking lot and ran over it until it was all smushed.Â? He lost at least a few thousand dollars in stock but he made his point and stood up for his beliefs.

So should the Andersons and Depners take their supplies of Ortho-Cyclen and Levlen and grind the pills into powder?Â? Not necessarily but they should just take the loss and stop selling it immediately if their consciences are so burdened by the sale of these meds rather than putting a self-righteous ad in the Trib and acting like capitalist morons.

(Thank you to Jack, my wonderful independent pharmacist who chats with me about my cats and researches drug interactions for me in addition to answering my many questions.Â? You rock my world.)

Grrrr. Stampa Stampa!

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They put me BACK on niacin, telling me to take it at night when I go to bed so that the flushing will happen while I sleep.

Uh… no.Â? It happened while I was GOING TO SLEEP, causing some very unkind things to be thought as I had to adjust myself into a position which would keep my leg hair from stabbing me and my skin from touching anything that wasn’t light or soft.

(I also wasn’t particularly happy about having a cat walk across the flushing areas but Edda is a love so she is forgiven.)