24 posts tagged “medications”

In almost these words my neuro told me he's n00b to Neurology ;)  But he was very nice and was sure to ask the boss about stuff.  Once again they said I had tremor on left side.  Weaker left side.  Several tests for Babinski's sign on left side compared to right, don't think they get a response on left side or something. 

The smell thing -- He said it's fairly normal for people with brain issues basically and I'm not crazy.  His boss is ordering an EEG to test for seizure activity.  I didn't bring up that what I'd found online seemed to be saying seizures though, just described what I've been having happen.  But now I know it's either normal for MS and other neuro conditions and/or could be seizure activity.  Their secretary said it usually takes a year to get an EEG scheduled but since it was the main Neuro ordering it then it usually happens much sooner.  I hope so otherwise may have them postpone the November appointment they made for after the EEG gets scheduled.  Because frankly getting there at 8 am and getting home at 2 is  major suck.  The noises and crowds and uncomfy seats when you can get one leave me in so much pain and just tired and frustrated as I sleep during the day so now I'm beat as I didn't sleep.

He was going to sign thing saying I have MS so I can try to get out of Jury Duty in December since we so far haven't regulated headaches, sleep, exhaustion when awake, now new smells issue, etc.  It wouldn't say much more than I have MS and those documented issues and then court decides if I get out of it.  But the boss guy told him after he started doing it they can't fill those out and that I have to tell the court those things myself as they can't do it medically... or something.  I guess because there is no test to prove I suffer from sleep probs, exhaustion, headaches, all what I tell them.  So they can treat me for it, prescribe meds for it, they just can't tell a judge I have it? Which sort of makes sense with all I heard about working in a hospital but sheesh.

Even though UCLA pumps out some great doctors, even their n00b ones, Brian is thinking that since I only have to see a neuro every 6 months or so it may be worth finding a private doctor.  He's willing to pay the $400 or so evey 6 months to avoid losing nearly a day of work + being annoyed by the wait + after being seen you wait another 1/2 hour - 1 hour to see secretary if you get a refill or new rx, etc.  This could be an issue when tests get ordered though.  Hmm..

Oh yeah they upped my Topamax dose.

Ferris Wheel:
If you've seen movies with a pier/boardwalk in it which has a ferris wheel, you've likely seen Santa Monica Pier.  The old ferris wheel (I believe last seen in Iron Man) has been replaced and the grand opening was tonight.  LEDs, computer run light show on it at night, still solar powered.  Sooo pretty now.  You can see it here.  Of course looking at it on the webcam is probably only cool when it's night here.

More on sharps:
I've been reading up.  California law changes in September, but until then so long as I throw my needles away in a plastic or metal container with a secured (duct taped lid) and clearly mark it as sharps and not to be recycled I can place it in the garbage so long as it's a garbage bin and not a recycling one! BINGO!  My apartment doesn't have a recycling bin only garbage.  Soooo Ha!  Once this needle snipper arrives the sharps container is going in the garbage, after being duct taped up really well.  And if the needle snipper doesn't work (it says it's for 28g-31g needles and copaxone is 27) then I'm talking Brian into spending the big bucks on the Needle disintegrator.

Ok, I'm not.  But having MS and deciding that Avonex made me too ill meant Copaxone was my drug of choice.  MS + Copaxone = 1 shot a day to keep the brain aliens away.. HA!  Ok, not away, but in theory they'd be much worse if I didn't stab myself with this stuff everyday.  The problem with that?  No one either in Portland, then in Santa Maria, now in Los Angeles knows how to dispose of my sharps containers as a private party with a dumpster provided by her landlord nor do they know where to find sharps containers.  So I order sharps containers online and keep my "biohazard waste" in my apartment.  Even in drug stores when I ask "Do you sell sharps containers?" they look at me like I'm a junkie and suggest that medical supply stores MIGHT sell them (that's if they're older wiser employees, younger ones just look at me like I'm on crack). 

Needless to say, my container has been full, beyond full for weeks, as I keep hoping the sharps container fairy will deliver one to me.  Time to order one online me thinks.  Ladies and Gentlemen, while I do complain about the brain aliens, I try not to WHINE, not to really boo hoo poor ME I have MS waaaah too often, but here you go... a boo hoo poor me moment, the cold hard facts -- this is what life with MS means.  Ignore the dusty  container, I don't go out of my way to clean it as it's out of the way and I don't care about it to be honest since it just holds biohazard medical waste ;)

Had the root canal.  Took longer than they thought as it was complicated because it was a longer root than they thought or something.  They said usually it's the back teeth that take longer as they have more roots, but sometimes these front teeth do have longer ones, as mine did.  So they couldn't do the mold today.  Two more appointments.  One to shave the tooth down / get the mold.  Then two weeks after that to put the permanent cap on.

I did figure out something odd about me and dentists though.  Drills and all of that doesn't bother me. The things that bother me are  the  bigger  non tools that don't really do anything that  important.  You know the bigger plastic tubes types of tools like suction tubes, those I hate.  The drills make noise, drill into your teeth, etc you're supposed to hate those,  but they're small and they numb me enough I don't care about those.  But big tubes in my mouth I'm not a fan of.  When she was just doing the root canal I was fine.  But when it got the filling part of it which is almost like a filling, with the water tubes, suction, etc, all of the tubes in my mouth, I hated it.  I'm weird. 

Then again, I hate tubes being in my mouth so badly, that when I had my lung biopsy and had a choice between the camera + whatever going down my nose or in my mouth I chose nose.   Which in the end was far more painful than the scope I had done in my mouth in the past for my gall bladder.  And while I never want another scope done again, if I had to choose, I would still chose nose because it hurts more in the end but there's no gagging on a tube in your mouth :P  Hmm actually I wonder if it hurt more because it was in my nose or because the one in my mouth was just a scope but the one in my nose was a biopsy?  So that means they had to bring up a piece of lung through my nose then?  I never thought of that before now.  Ewwwwwww.

Anyway 7 days of antibiotics and 5 days of prescription strength ibruprophen which is a bonus, not much pain so far, but hey been having killer not totally worthy of migraine med headaches for days now and that's what I used to take for that!  In fact when I see neuro in July might ask for that again if I keep getting these not full on migraines but bad headaches more often.

[Me] heard what sounded like my window shattering today but it was fine so just thought neighbors dropped something glass
[Me] then tonight what I thought was totally unrelated my neighbor called
[Me] asked if my stove and hot water worked
[Me] so I turn on my stove, yup works
[Me] he said weird his didn't and he thought he smelled gas
[Me] turns out it was his upstairs window that fell and landed on gas meter and caused a gas leak in his and one other apt all day / night
[Me] that they just found, turned off their gas, opened all of the windows and will fix tomorrow
[T] ouch
[Me] so I turned on my stove with two apts around me full of gas :/
[Me] freaked me out once I found out how bad it was :P

So yeah I feel kind of guilty I didn't explore the glass sound more.  But eh even my neighbor didn't realize his own window had broken when he got home tonight.  And Brian pointed out in the rain we had me going to explore the side of the building when no one else seemed to be reacting seemed pointless.  Needless to say even though my apt wasn't affected I have had my window opened all night since we found out, just in case, as the apt next to me and the one above me were filling with gas for a good 5 hours or so before the gas company figured it out and shut it off.   The whole experience has had me a bit on edge tonight.  Gas company says it is ok and they'll fix the two affected apts tomorrow but ugh, I have a severe fire phobia, I kept expecting our building to blow up or catch on fire. 

In other news... Sinus infection from hell for days now so am living off of decongestants -- which I had to show ID for and sign a statement, which I guess is me agreeing I'm not using it to make meth with?   Well probably agreeing I'm using for intended purposes but yeah I'm pretty sure they want to make me promise not to cook up meth in my apartment. 

My shots were to be delivered today.  We know of my sleep issues.  Namely my ever changing sleep schedule.  I knew if I went to sleep I'd miss the delivery, especially not knowing what time of day to expect it.  I waited up.  And waited.  And waited.   And now.. .pharmacy calls and tells me fed ex just called them and said they can't deliver this refrigerated medication overnight shipment after all as they have too many holiday packages to deliver :/  So they'll try tomorrow but if too busy then they'll deliver it Monday...

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!  I DO NOT LIKE FED EX. I mean seriously I know it's Christmas time but this is a large box full of 3 months worth of shots that are supposed to be refrigerated, signature required, and if I remember right always has all kind of special labels etc all over it.  They accepted the package for overnight delivery. Now I get to wait all day Saturday too oh and if it doesn't show up then wait for us Monday too?  You know what happens then?  Then the ice packs it's shipped with to keep it cold MELT and the boxes the shots come in, which are sealed in plastic bags still get SOAKED, as do most if not all of the individual shot container things.  Because yes when I was on the shots before this happened once before.  It doesn't ruin the shots, they can be at room temp in emergencies for 30 days, but are supposed to be refrigerated.  So it still becomes a big hassle.  Not to mention the expect me to sit around waiting all day for three days for a package they promised overnight delivery on, Christmas season or not.

NOT AMUSED.

On the bright side, Pat's painting almost done and had fun talking to T.  On not bright side, see above + no sleep making MS / brain fog stuff sooo bad I'm almost not functioning at all at this point.  In fact I had to re-type virtually every word in this post so if it's still a mess, well, oh well.  Spell check only catches so much, it's not grammar checker or mind reading this is the word she meant to type checker!

Time to send toys to kids stuck in the hospital at Christmas time!  Go on, you know you want to!  No kid should be in a hospital at Christmas without cool stuff!  And parents have enough to worry about.  So go buy some kids something!  Or you're just a grinch! :P  Child's Play

I missed a phone call today about NORD, but I also got a letter from them saying I was approved for my shots...   So I assume the call was to work out them setting up the prescription  so we can then set up the shipments.  So... Erm... YAY for getting to stab myself daily with a needle again!  Just have to pay for the shipping costs.  Can't really stress what a YAY this is.  No medical insurance.  No money.  Going retail pharmacy rates of these shots?  When I lived in Portland, OR rent on our 4 bedroom house was cheaper.  Now in West LA rent on our 1 bedroom apt is cheaper.  Don't worry Portland is cheaper than LA but that example isn't saying much as we got a realllly good deal on that place in PDX.  But yeah we can't really afford monthly medicine costs that are more than rent when we already pay several hundred $$s a month for me to have 6 migraine pills and 2 anti-seizure pills a day then every 3 months or so pay $60 or $300 (don't ask why it's $60 OR $300, I don't know) to see the neuro.  Soooo... w00t!

Also in the mail, a cute holiday card from Melissa (Kenna), too many Melissas!  BTW, Brian says the way you wrote boys looked like bugs ;)

Now, I'm gonna go try to sleep so I can try to be up to call about my shots in time today.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sent in my NORD app.  So in the next few weeks, should know if I get to start stabbing myself daily with Copaxone shots again or not.

Got a $25 Amazon gift card from my credit card in the mail today.  So I spoiled myself and ordered: How to Draw and Paint Fairies  and Batman: Year One

My body is still in exhaustion mode.  I guess the MS is really grumpy that I was sick.  It let me recover from the actual sickness but it won't let me recover strength / energy almost a week later :|  Therefore I'm not keeping up with much, aka am barely even skimming VOX and LJ.  Mom is keeping me up with life in PDX though.  Karina and Mike broke up again.  I told mom that Karina should take up a hobby or maybe just enjoy the holiday season with Keegan instead of worrying about Mike.