What a Fun Week
No sooner did the air conditioning at work get fixed (and, to their credit, they did close the office after lunch on Tuesday) than all kinds of hell broke loose on the health front. Yippee. Two visits to the urgent care clinic later, including one in which I started throwing up in the waiting room, they are pretty sure I have a gastric ulcer, and, as an added, surprise bonus, are positive that I’m rather hypothyroidal. (The word “goiter” was bandied about. Sexy.) I don’t know the exact levels yet, or which exact thyroid hormones are involved, but when the doctor called, he sounded a little concerned. I think the words “extremely low” were used.
I have apparently flipped straight into middle age: a week ago I had no prescription medicines at all, taking only vitamins and an omega-3 supplement; now I have two prescription acid blockers, an antinausea medication they usually use after surgery or during chemo treatments, and a fairly heavy-duty painkiller, and will pick up the thyroid meds sometime today. The last is something I’ll probably be on for life. Hopefully, I’ll be able to drop the others, or at least not take them on a daily basis, if my probable ulcer responds to antibiotics. Otherwise, I’ll have to start looking for one of those pill organizers with the daily and AM/PM compartments that all the cool kids are carrying.
We’re still waiting for the blood test results for Helicobacter pylori, but the doctor I saw yesterday wants me to go ahead and schedule an endoscopy as soon as possible, to get an idea of what’s down there. Whee: my very first camera-down-a-bodily-orifice test. I’m thrilled.
Well, okay: the upsides are potentially pretty good here. I’ve had sporadic stomach pain of the “feels like someone’s holding my stomach and making a fist, and occasionally digging in with fingernails” sort since high school, and if I can get that under control, that’ll be a vast improvement. At least knowing what it is helps, too. And it’s probable that getting my thyroid hormones back to normal will help with energy levels, and will almost certainly help me get rid of some of the extra weight I’ve mysteriously gained lately.
Anyway, at the moment at least, I seem to be doing okay. Heavily medicated, but okay. There were a bunch of things I’d wanted to do this weekend — Summerfest, the Indie Craft Experience in Centennial Park, and the fundraiser for a local filmmaker — but I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to do any of them. At the very least, I’m a bit nervous about driving if I have to take any of the antinausea or pain meds; also, if I start going downhill again, I’d rather start whimpering, displaying abominably poor posture, and possibly vomiting in the privacy of my own home, rather than out in public.
