Thursday, January 22, 2009

It's cold

seriously cold, there was a hard frost this am. I hate the cold. The ramped up Ranexa is making me dizzy. Hopefully, it's a temporary side effect and will mostly vanish with time. I got the refill today at Walgreens. A thirty day supply after my co pay of 15.00, I saved $514.00. Hell. At this rate I'll be capped out before June. I can do $200.00 a month but not $500. The price of medicine is very discouraging. Right now, I don't have the physical endurance to work full time. I am easily fatigued and if I work longer hours the angina returns. I am covered by my husbands insurance. He is 70. If something happened to him, I would have no insurance. No prescription coverage. WTF would I do? Even if I applied for disability and was approved, medicare wouldnt kick in for a year. Now, I ask you, seriously, does that make any sense? The doctors all agree someone is medically disabled. They have a serious health condition. They are not working, but they must wait one year to apply for medicare health insurance. Does that make any kind of sense at all? Maybe they hope that after a year with no medical coverage, the list of people needing insurance will be a lot lower due to the number of people that surely must die without medical attention. I hate politics.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Brrr - it's cold

and going to get colder. I didn't make it to the gym but I did see the cardiologist. He upped my ranexa and mentioned if my heart rate stays the way it's been I'm gonna need a pacemaker later in the year. Joy. However, I have woken up with a hr of 39 after walking around, visiting the bathroom, etc. and that doesn't thrill me either. When I was in the hospital recently and hooked up to telemetry it dropped down to 39 and set off all kinds of scary alarms. He also mentioned there is some new procedure they are doing on bad veins in the legs he may recommend a little later in the year. He wants my legs higher than my heart. My gasto guy wants my head and chest elevated. I have tried doing this with pillows and such but it really doesn't work. My ankles swell horribly from gravity. Now even the lasix on a triple dose is ineffective. I am going to ask about a hospital bed. My INR was LOW! It just makes me crazy. I took another lab today and I'm seeing my family Dr. manana. Let's see what he says. Then the week after next The Gasto guy, Dr K. My New Year's goal are to try and work more hours. I went from full time to 20 hours and I have been ok with that, but it's not paying the bills. I need to squeeze 8 - 10 more hours into my schedule that won't give me angina or make my feet and legs too swollen. I have very flexible hours at work and I'm thinking of trying a split shift. Four hours in the morning and 3 at night. But I need to try it before I commit to it. I could do it Mon Tues and Fri and then work 11-7 on Sunday. If I could handle that, and things got bad, I could always add one more day as a last resort. My concern is the price of the Ranexa. I'm up to 1000 mg BID, that's about $400. a month. I have 7 other medications and my husband has a few, the insurance cap is 3500. I won't make it. I haven't heard from my son, he must have fell into some money because he has never given up asking me for some. New Years goals - wasn't I speaking about that? So more hours, pay down the debt, and try and lose some more weight and keep going to the gym. There. Done. Finis.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

This and that

Got a postcard in the mail today, Dr wants to discuss my labs. I've started bruising again so I know the INR is too high, especially after the bleeding incident the other day. Pittsburgh won today - Yay! Go Steelers! I have had company since Tuesday, J a friend of my hubby's from NY. J didn't feel good yesterday and asked me to drive him to the ER. Turns out he had a mild stroke. But he is blaming everything he ate! The fact that he has really bad, not under control, blood pressure has nothing to do with it. Nor does the fact that he forgot his meds 2x that I know of since he was here. I think I won't miss him so much when he goes this time. I saw the pix of Capt Phil in the wheelhouse of the Cornelia Marie and it just seemed so right. Even if he was on his way to drydock. Artic low from Alaska coming our way, will drop temps into the 30's and 40's here. I need to find some gloves. I am still feeling really tired. I'm surprised because after the iron transfusion, I should feel better. I am going to try and make it to the gym Mon. I need to be able to tell my cardio guy just how things have deteriorated. Off to walk the dog.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

getting old sucks

I found the owner of the trike and returned it to him. He was leaving for a cruise and said "Thank you" and left. I kinda wish he would have shaken my hand or something, sorta felt like a servant that did her job, no more no less. But, it doesn't matter. I'd do the same thing all over again in a heartbeat. I went to my hematologist, Dr Z today. We were both pretty shocked when my bloodwork showed my hemoglobin at 8.7 even lower than last month when I had 2 iron tranfusions. Like wtf?? So I have to go see my gastroenterologist Dr K. and I think he's hoping for a endoscopy and colenoscopy to rule out some type of internal bleeding. Dr Z also had a iron transfusion done today which messed up the office schedule a bit. To make matters worse, the 1st IV had problems and my arm started blowing up. The second one, after I left and was going down in the elevator, I felt something wet dripping down my hand. Yep, it was blood. Yuck. All over my wallet, the floor, disgusting. I went back and had it taken care of. Makes me think maybe my INR is high. Does it ever end? Getting old sucks. On the bright side, Gators tonight against Oklahoma. GO GATORS!!!!

Sunday, January 4, 2009

what a difference a day makes or to stop a thief

Today I am feeling very positive. I worked all day without any chest pain, shortness of breath is remaining an issue, though. I don't understand, 2 weeks ago I had no sob and now, even a short walk raises my bp and heart rate to discomfort levels. But now, let me describe my exciting evening. There was nothing on tv as usual and I had nothing to read except the paper. I watched some DC I had tivo'd from last week and then decided to take the dog out and go to bed early. Usually, at night and since I have been having sob issues, I drive down to the dog park. Tonight I decided to walk up half a block and take the dog near the dumpster. We walking nice, minding our business but not doing any when a kid on a trike sails down my street hauling another trike! Adult 3 wheel bike theft is huge down here. It's not so much dangerous as very annoying. New trikes run about $400 and up. Really really old beat up ones are 75. I go after him and holler "hey" but he never stopped. I hightailed it back to my house and saw my neighbor out. "Bob- did you see that?" I yelled. Bob was on it, he'd already called 911. Bob is in his 70's has one leg and is a very ill man just home from the hospital, but he was on the job. I got in my car and decided to follow and see where he went. I live off a service rd that is one way so naturally he turned the direction I couldn't drive. But I drove around the long way and spotted him. I put down the window and confronted him. He had some sorry sack of shit story, his friend gave it to him. I said "Oh no - it's stolen. The cops know and they're on their way." He got off undid it and took off on the other trike. That's probably stolen too but half a loaf is better than none and the trike I saved is a Schwinn. I don't have a cell phone it was now 10:30 pm and I'm on a service rd with nothing open, not even the crack motel. So I parked my car by a closed pizza place and rode the trike home. Then I had to walk back. That was a challenge. It took me between 15-20 minutes to walk back appx 1 mile and I stopped so many times to catch my breath and let my heart rate slow a little. But, I made it. I stopped in the dog park where Trixie immediately did her business. And I can go to sleep knowing someone in my mobile home community is going to be very happy when they find their stolen bike was recovered. Yay for the good guys!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Grrr

I made it thru New Years but I am not so sure my husband will make it thru the day. It's a good thing he has gone or I would have to find ways to make him go, permanently! He pissed me off so bad, I am so annoyed. It's trivial but I am still greatly pissed. We went shopping for a few groceries. He was doing his lotto tickets when I saw the flyer had a $5.00 off coupon if you spent 30.00. I quickly determined we were a bit short so I plopped the flyer with the BIG $5.00 off coupon under his nose, told him there's a 5.00 off coupon, I'm going to get some chicken cutlets. He replied they had no chicken cutlets, I told him I'd be right back with something. He didn't read the flyer, he didn't listen to me so knew nothing about the coupon. He didn't wait for me and he didn't look for me. He checked out and lit a cigarette, also annoyed I wasn't waiting for him. He doesn't drive you see and won't carry car keys "because I don't need them." The only good thing about this spat is he pays for the groceries and he is the cheapest man on the planet. For him to miss out on $5.00 has to just be killing him. Especially when I explained I had 2 beautiful sirloin steaks, buy one get one free. He would have had them both practically for free, but he didn't listen to me so now he gets shit.