And then...things changed...

Ok.  Things changed a tinsy bit last night.  And, being the good blogger of full disclosure, and since my puppy is asleep, I am filling you all in.  Puppy wakes up, and all bets are off, dude.

I'm sure we all remember the "incident" of Weds night/Thursday, with the high fevers and all?  It might or might not be connected to something bigger.

Since then, I've had random incidences of high fever.  I have also had random incidences of slight lymphedema-ish swelling, mainly in my genital and pubic area.

Friday morning, in the shower, logically enough, I discovered that my genital area was swollen.  REALLY seriously Frankenstein, scare me enough to actually call my husband to show him in terror swollen.  There was also swelling in the pubic area, the entire mons pubis and a little bit of the creases of my legs in the ilioinguinal area.  Swelling, but no pain in either place, no redness to speak of, nothing else really.  So, I put on my happy $90 pants to compress the area properly and went about my day.

Sometime later, in the afternoon, I discovered I had a low-grade fever, 100.2-ish.  Ok.  More Advil.

Bedtime came, and I discovered that the pants had done their job fabulously in the genital area, almost entirely de-swelling me there, but the higher mons area was still really swollen.  I got the BRILLIANT idea of turning the pants around backwards for the night, since the widest, biggest area of the compression foam was in the back--right where it makes the most sense if one is actually a bicyle rider using the pants for their intended purpose.  What a concept!  But even more shockingly, my brilliant idea worked.  Wearing the pants backward compressed things properly, and when I woke up, all was well.

Somewhere well into the evening yesterday, I looked down at my ankles and almost went into cardiac arrest.  I think they were roughly the size of telephone poles.  Or a little bigger.  My legs were swollen up, my feet, ankles, knees, thighs.........you get the point.

Legs up the wall yoga poses and lymphatic drainage massage had little effect.  I had measured around my ankle and a bit higher and kept checking it, but very little change.  Great.............

I must say, I *almost* broke my own cardinal rule......but I finally broke down and called the emergency number for the cancer center and Dr. Mazj told me very directly NOT to panic.  So I didn't panic.  Ok.

{Ok, I give up.  I gave it a good shot, but I can't stay awake any longer...continued tomorrow}

Tuesday now--I had to go to sleep.  When I nod off over the computer, it's never a good thing.

Anyway, I was deep into massive lymphedema land, where my entire lower body was filled with fluid, and it came on so suddenly, Dr. Mazj started automatically scheduling tests.

I was already supposed to go in yesterday for a pulmonary function test, as a result of the whatever-it-is in my lung, so I did that, then I went and got stitches pulled out of my jaw, stopped by the lymphedema clinic where my therapist was not in.  Shit.  Called her, got ahold of her down in Chico.  She was massively upset to hear that I had developed all of this, and so fast.  She advised me to stop the massage until we got the results of my tests from Dr. Mazj, just in case....because yes, of course the thing Dr. Mazj is worried about is a blood clot, and to keep working on compression using layers of tights, leggings, etc, to keep my swelling down.  

After I talked to Mary and got some great advice on how to proceed, and WHEN to panic, aka when to go to the ER, I felt much better, and then it was time to go back to the hospital.  I had to go pick up nasty barium contrast for the CT scan that I'll be having tomorrow to make sure that there is nothing nasty lurking in my pelvic or abdominal area.  Then I went upstairs and had a Doppler scan on my legs, which I found out is a sophisticated version of an ultrasound.

THEN I was finally done.  I headed home, with a quick stop at Walmart in Oroville to grab some more compression stuff for me, and Iams canned puppy food for the little monster here, and then I came home, propped my feet high in the air, and collapsed.  Oh, and chased Stella, walked Stella, played with Stella, fed Stella, chased Stella some more, took Stella potty, etc.  Since Anna had been at school all day for the first time since getting a puppy, she was feeling deprived of some puppy love time, I convinced her (with almost zero work!) that she needed to puppysit so I could watch "Chuck" on tv.  It got me a break to put my feet up and stay still for at least a little while anyway.

It was a hell of a day.  As I told the kids, I got suffocated, hyperventilated, shut in a little plastic box and had blood drawn straight from an artery (pulmo tests); had things cut out of my mouth with sharp scissors (dentist); picked up some poison to drink (barium); and had strange things done to my leg arteries (Doppler).  It was a hell of a day...and I still have to go back for the CT scan & chest x-ray tomorrow and see Dr. Batin (the pulmonologist) on Thursday.

The GOOOOOOOOOOOD news, which reached home before I even did, is that I do not have any blood clots in my legs, according to the Doppler scan.  Yay!!

Ok.  

You are all now completely caught up, and no one (mother......) can accuse me of not keeping them updated, it just took me some time because I was too tired to type and kept passing out.  Minor detail.

Today, we get to take our beautiful puppy to the vet for her first exam.  She's had her first shots, so it's time for our well-puppy exam and scheduling her vaccines and spaying.

After that, it's resting time.  I desperately need some resting time, especially since the little one had me up at 6:30, and I went to bed after 1, when I finally put this thing down and gave up.  

I think it's time to wrap this multi-day post up and go zone out to some wildlife in Botswana for a while.