so Friday I had my appointment with trauma once again. They have a new resident and new attending each time I go in. So the resident comes in and starts by saying, "so, tell me what happened, whats your story" Obviously he had not reviewed my file. I started in on my story and he goes "wait, are you a resident here" I was like yeah, he goes "internal medicine, right, I heard about you" That was the same response I got last time. i think the whole hospital knows my story now. So I waited and waited around then for the attending. By 10:35, 1 hr and 20 mins after my appointment time, and 5 mins late now for my OT appointment, he comes rushing, listening to the residents story of me as they are coming down the hall, puts his hands on my chest and asks me to take a deep breath in, then proceeds to tell me that my left side doesnt rise as well as my right so I need a chest x-ray now to make sure I dont have fluid in my lungs. I proceeded to tell him yeah, there is scare tissue there from broken ribs and surgery and why would I have fluid on my lungs after 2 months and even if I did, I was asymptomatic so they wouldnt do anything about it anyway, we would just watch it to make sure it reabsorbs. I asked if I could just get it done next Wed when I have to get x-rays of my back for my neurosurgery appointment for which he said, no it must be done today (so urgent, I mean I was dying of not breathing right there) but I could refuse them if I want. I told him, no I would do it but after my therapy appoint as I was already late. So I went to my therapy appoint and then went and got the x-ray and went back to trauma for the results and what did they find..........scar tissue, big surprise. what a waste of resourses. Then the resident was pondering when to see me back. I said how bout prn (as needed). I told them there was no point for their followup as I had no tubes anymore and was feeling fine from a surgical stand point. On a non medical point, I finished the 2nd book in the twilight series today. 560+ pages in the book and I started it Wednesday night. It is seriously that good I couldnt put it down. I have now started the 3rd. 600+ pages this time. We will see how fast I read this one.

So some of you want to know about my boring life right now. I went to the gym finally yesterday and plan to make it a routine. I am trying to get myself back into shape. I finally finished the 1st book in the twilight series. It is so good I couldn't put it down these last few days. After I finished it, I went straight to the movie store and rented the movie and watched it right away. Is it bad I was so envolved in the movie I didnt want to stop it to go pick up my kid from daycare. The movie was good but the book is so much better. Today I went and bought the next 2 books in the series and if I finish them soon, I will have to buy the 4th in hard cover as they told my it won't be in soft cover till well after christmas. I highly recommend it to you all to read. My son has a nasty cold and coughed and fussed last night so I held him upright and rocked him for half an hour while he slept in my arms and let the congestion drain down. He is the most adorable thing ever and I wish I could take his cold away from him. Today I mowed the lawn in segments as we have a push mower that is not self propelled so it was tiring but I did it. It was good exercise for the day. This weekend I plan on going tailgating for a while. If you want to join me, just let me know. That is all for my boring life now. I am ready to go back to work, I just wish my back and stamina was.

Just letting you know I am still here and kicking. Nothing new to report. Still going to therapy 3 times a week for my arm and it is slowly progressing.

one less med

Well I have decided to completely get off the anti depression med completely. I feel like m PTSD was almost entirely composed of the anxiety component and not the depression component and my anxiety has basically resolved. I told my therapist that we will see how things progress once I am off of it and if I feel I am getting worse then we will discuss something different. Other than that, not much new to report. I am slowly seeing progress with my hand each week. This last week I gained function in extending my middle finger. Not quite sure why only just that finger can be extended and not any other ones as anatomically based on how the nerves go it doesn't make sense why just that one has come back and not the others and the orthopedic surgeon didn't have any good answer but hey I will take any progress I can get. I can kind of flip people off now, maybe that was god's purpose in giving me that function back first. Who knows.

I think I solved the headaches

So I think I solved the headache situation as I have now had 2 headache free days. I hope I am not jinxing myself. About a week and a half ago I met with my therapist again and once again she mentioned using an SSRI (a type of depression med) for my PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) She felt it would give me energy and also it had a side effect of weight gain. I finally said well lets just give it a shot and see. These meds you cant just start at a dose, you have to build yourself up. She wanted me at 20mg, that is what she starts people at. I took 5mg for 5 days, then 10mg for 5 days, and the 20 mg. On the 10 mg I was feeling the best I ever had, with lots of energy. After having one of the worst headaches on Sat night I sat down and thought of what had changed. I had slowly weaned myself down from my anxiety meds and my pain meds and I didnt think a rebound headache would last this long. Then I realized that the time the headaches started was the time I went from 10mg to 20mg on my anti-depressant. I looked up the side effects and discovered that headaches were a side effect along with insomnia which I had recently developed and orthostatic hypotension (blood pressure droping when standing up and getting lightheaded), also something I recently developed. So Sunday I went back down to 10mg and I have not had a headache since. and the insomnia and hypotension have improved. Hopefully I remain headache free. We'll see on Wednesday at my next appointment whether she wants me to stay on this or switch.

The drain is out!!!

So today I had my appointment with trauma. The attending was in surgery so the intern was just talking to him on the phone. He came back into the room and told me he was going to pull the drain. I questioned him as I had just been to interventional radiology on Wed, the ones that put it in, and they didnt want to pull it because they wanted the drainage to be less than 20ml per day and it had only been like that for 1 day. Trauma however said they pull it if it is less than 50ml. I made the intern call the attending back and tell him that IR didnt want to pull it on Wed so was he sure he wanted to pull it and he said he was. I got no happy juice for him to pull it, he just went ahead and pull. Oh yeah, need I mention it was stuck on something which I think was my pancreas. He kept pulling and I felt like my insides were going to come out of the whole. I could feel it coming from my back and then I felt a rip and it came out. Didnt actually hurt that bad but felt incredibly weird. I did ask him how many of these he had done before. I know how it is like to be the intern and need experience but I wasnt about to be a guinea pig without an attending there watching but he assured me he had done several of these. I am suppose to call if I have any pain, which I do now but it was just pulled so I am expecting some pain and it is tolerable. I will call if it gets worse or lasts all weekend. Hopefully everything heals up nicely. On a good note, I have been off my anxiety meds for a week now and also off my strong pain meds for 4 days. I am only on tylenol now. I have had a headache all week since Sunday that has not been touched by tylenol, advil, or even Percocet. I told trauma about it and they want to send me to neurology. I will go but I also decided to try a chiropracter today since I figured something may have been twisted in my neck from the fall to the concrete. I told her she was not to touch my back which she highly agreed, and even took x-rays of my neck first before touching my neck to make sure there were no fractures. My headache starts small in the morning and usually by 6pm it is kinda bad. I am happy to report that it is still minimal at this time and I havent taken tylenol in a while so I am hoping a couploe tylenol will nix it. She also has this new technique that she uses these tools to get under scars and break them up. I said I was all for that, anything to try to get my hand back I will try. She did a little today but was hesitent to do too much without seeing the x-rays and knowing what was under it so I signed a form to reloease my x-rays to her and will return on Tuesday. All in all I had a very busy day. Time to relax now.

CT Scan

Well the CT scan went well today. It was non-contrast so I thank goodness I didnt have to drink that nasty contrast. It showed all pockets of fluid are gone but since I am still having outputs more than 20 ml they are going to leave it in and re-check next week and possibly pull it next week. That's all to report today.