Here's the deal

I really want to focus on HAWMC Challenge month, but I have so much going on. The start is so much going on at work. I have a 23 person move combined with a department cleaning event to get us into compliance with our records retention schedule and two major meetings all in the same week. Add to that extracurricular meetings for the Health Fair and it was a tight week. But then add the stress of missing four days during that time due to health concerns and you have my life. I can't really focus on HAWMC...I'm sad.

The real challenge is all that's going on medically. I really don't have any answers yet. I saw J at Dr. B's on Tuesday. After listening to all that I had to report and seeing the reports that I presented, she took me off Metformin altogether and told me not to attempt a diet until I was seen by other doctors. She also told me to call Dr. R and let him know what was going on. She suggested that I ask him if he wants me to do anything until I see him. His office responded to continue the aspirin therapy that I'd been on since the hospital and see them at my scheduled appointment in two weeks, which I am glad for. I am not glad to have to go back to Dr. B's or to Dr. K's without knowing what Dr. R has to say. I am doing much better without the Metformin, but I'm also wanting to eat Krispy Kremes...the meds really do help.

I somehow am anxious for and also dread the April 25 appointment with Dr. R. I am equating it with my April 14th breast cancer diagnosis emotion. Dr. Google has me very upset by what I might hear. Researching sludgy blood and thick blood got me to every alternative medicine site on the web. They all have a special diet  along with special supplements that you can't buy anywhere else. And the real beauty is that it will return you to perfect health no matter what health problems you have. It's individualized just for you. Don't forget to read the testimonials of suckers satisfied patients. It wasn't until I picked up the term hypercoaguable states that I got safely back to Mayo.com and Webmd. What I learned is that having thick blood is pretty serious and it is unlikely that anything I'm doing is causing it. The things that people can do to cause it, I don't do, like take birth control pills. So it is most likely being caused by an inherited condition (my sister had a stroke last year) or by an autoimmune condition, which I have several. It could be either or both. From what I'm reading on the web, it's not something that I need. The web tells of disability and death caused by repeated emboli and catastrophic bleeding. Death I'm kind of cool with. I've gotten over the idea of my immortality but I'm having issues with the disabilities. A wonderful blogger and fellow sister survivor writes in her blog Telling Knots about what it's like to live, accepting death but fearing the time when we can no longer take care of ourselves. She eloquently describes what it's like to live this death. I'm terrified of the idea of a major stroke taking away my ability to move or reason or communicate. I don't want to live like that. At the same time after hearing horror stories about coumadin and plavix, I fear taking them. I'm quite happy with the aspirin therapy and I want to leave things the way they are. And as petty as this is, I am humiliated by the list of diagnosis's that I have and don't want Dr. R adding anything else too it. It's not like when I gave it to the paramedics and doctors at the hospital, they took it seriously. Really, it gave them the impression that I am a hypochondriac rather than someone who suffers from multiple chronic illness's. But there is a small part of me that fears that I'm going to walk into Dr. R's office and he's going to say "relax, this is nothing" and not take it seriously. I wish when I was in the hospital I had understood enough about what the ER doctor was saying to ask questions like "just how thick is my blood or how serious is this?" Next time I will ask even if I think it's an odd finding or that they are making something up.