medical things

I'm going to do a medical update for right now, that will be updated again in a couple of weeks when I go in for a full evaluation with my doctors, and get a series of bloodwork and new MRI and ultrasounds done. But for right now, this is more or less what's going on:

I'm having headaches again, and sometimes they're migraines, and sometimes they're just headaches. I'll be having them checked out by my neurologist when I go see him, and until that time there isn't anything I can do about it but handle things as best I can, so I haven't been mentioning it overmuch to anybody, and I'll continue going about my day-to-day routine until I can get some sort of answers from him.

My weight is still dropping, and I'm incorporating some other exercise routines in, because I need to vary things now, or I'm afraid it's going to come to a standstill, although I think I'll be okay with it if I do stall out at this point, because I actually feel better now than I have in years physically, and so I'm not going to complain if my weight remains where I am. I'm shocked at where I am, and can't really complain too much about how things stand right now. I'd be delighted to have more come off, but at the same time, am very pleased with things the way they are.

My lupus flares are getting worse, although for those of you who have seen me recently, obviously the makeup that I'm wearing is hiding the most visible of the rashes across my face, because no one has commented on it to me. Thanks, because I was very worried about it being visible. I'll be having my medications tweaked the next time I'm in with the doctors, I suspect my dosages need to be adjusted, because the flares are getting more frequent, as I was holding steady for quite a while, and that it's getting worse now doesn't necessarily bode evil, it simply means that I need to have my bloodwork checked, and see if things need to be upped.

My fibromyalgia is getting worse. There's no way around it, and I'm going to be adapting as best I can. The more weight I lose, the worse it's going to be. Unfortunately for me, the better my range of motion, and the better I move, the more pain I'm going to be in, and I refuse to take more pain medication, simply because it interferes too much with my lupus meds. So I'm trying to find middle ground, and it's difficult. I'm adjusting. I don't know what else I can do.

I was warned that because of my hip injury, and the fact that I refused surgery to fuse it, that between that injury and my FM, I was in for hell if I ever dropped a substantial amount of weight, and that has proven true. The chronic fatigue and the FM together, are doing quite a number on me, and I'm battling it back, because there are too many other things I want to be doing, and I refuse to give in. I'm stubborn that way.

It seems that for right now, I have my immune system holding more or less steady, which is a good thing. While I was in Bakersfield a couple of weeks ago visiting Shawn & Sissa, everyone else *except* me managed to get sick, so obviously I'm actually doing reasonably well for a change in that regard. I'm still taking the supplements, and boosters, to keep everything running, and they're doing their job.

I've been religiously taking the hormones to try and shrink down the cysts in my left ovary, and I won't know until they run the next ultrasound whether or not it's working, but I haven't missed taking anything that was prescribed to me, so I'm cautiously hopeful. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do if it doesn't work. I'll know more in about three weeks.

They'll be checking out my liver again then, as well, along with running more tests to check all the levels and make sure that the mass doses of hormones aren't sending everything completely out of whack that way. I can only imagine the amount of blood they'll be taking when I go in this time. My "normal" pull is nine vials. Wonder what they're going to want now?

I got a letter from my insurance company, telling me that I've now gone into what's known as "catastrophic coverage", which tells me that from now until the end of the year, I no longer have to pay out the horrendous co-pays for out-of-pocket costs for my prescriptions, because I hit the limit. I didn't even know there was one, but evidently because of what my medications were costing to cover the therapies to treat the cysts, it bumped me into the next tier group, and so they're finally going to be paying for the hormones to help shrink the cysts, if they can be shrunk. That will help me out, a lot. I was grateful, once it sunk in what it all meant. And they tell me there's no limit on what the insurance will pay out through the end of the year. In January I have to start paying it myself again, but until then, they'll pick up the tab.

Yay? Yes, yay. I'm grateful, even if "catastrophic" sounds awful.

So those are my updates for right now, until I can get back some more concrete answers. That's what's going on with me right now.