It is Wednesday May 21, 2008.
Instead of recounting from the last week or so to know I'm in a start with today and then kind of work my way backwards as I can remember them recall what happened, so let's get started...
When I woke up this morning, I wasn't feeling as well as I have the past few days when I have woken up in the morning and I thought that to be kind of strange. I was hoping that I would feel better than that I would be able to get some things accomplished, but that was not to be today. I was able to be up in time to see Missy and Josh off to school; that always makes me feel much better and helps me to begin my day in good spirits. After seeing them off to school. I had some breakfast, which was primarily Georgianna eggs that CC had made a few days back. Georgianna eggs is an egg casserole with some different cheeses and in eggs and some milk, and it is wonderful, though often made with chilies and peppers for those that like the spicy food. I, however, am boring and terribly Caucasian and often simply choose plain and Georgianna eggs, which I think taste wonderful and are a good source of protein in the morning. Surely after breakfast I was feeling tired, so I figured that I would head up into my office and look at some e-mails and see what I could get done by just sitting instead of walking around in doing things. While I was working on some e-mails, I noticed that I began to sweat like crazy and became very, very tired. I headed to bed and lay down for a little while. Kind of napping on and off for a bit and then felt better once I got up and I went back to the computer and finished out the e-mails that I wanted to work on.
CC called from work on her break and we touched bases like we normally do when she is at work. This time, she shared with me that during the night, I had suffered an attack of spasms. I didn't wake up from them. She woke up because of them and she monitored me until they stopped. Once they stopped, I apparently realized that I did not have my CPAP machine on. So I reached up, put the mask on, turned on the machine and went back to sleep; this was all around 3:15 AM this morning. So I guess I know why I feel as yucky as I do (or did). She shared with me that that's not an uncommon occurrence at night. I don't have any log for nighttime attacks after I've gone to sleep, although I have suspected that I was having attacks during the night. There have been a few times that I have woken up paralyzed, unable to move, not able to speak and breathing very shallow. I have also woken up in complete fits of spasms that only let up once I warm up and or I have become completely exhausted. The days that follow those types of attacks during the night are hellish and painful days to get through. Today was kind of one of those days.
My mom came up on Monday and has been here helping out with most of the issues that I deal with; helping me to get snacks, fruit, groceries and, from time to time, helping me get dressed and driving me from one location to another location. Most often, my aunt Judy comes over and helps with all of these things that in the times that she is busy and unavailable. My mom looks to see if she can come up and help in her place. Their help and intervention in my needs, makes it so that CC can focus on the kids and their needs directly, and be less overwhelmed.
Around midday today, my mom left to go and get a couple errands done that we had talked about getting accomplished, and it was during her errand to run that another attack began while I was down in the kitchen cutting up some apple slices for a snack; my legs began to vibrate and my shoulders and my hands began to spasm as well and my eyes were having a very difficult time being able to stay focused on the apple and the knife while I was trying to cut it into small pieces. Fortunately I didn't cut myself. However, I did stop what I was doing, took the food that I had prepared and very slowly made it up the stairs and into my bedroom. Once there, I saw my cell phone, grabbed it, and pushed the one button that dials my mom's phone number and let her know what was going on. She finished out where she was and came straight back and helped get me situated on my bed, and brought me the different medicine to help shut it down. Roughly 3 hours later, I wake up and CC is making dinner. Life has moved along, and all the while, my mom has come in and checked on me every so often to see how I was doing and to make sure I was still asleep.
The attack today, and the attack last night are undoubtedly due to drops in my potassium levels. This afternoon's attack, reminded me of several of the attacks that I had had at FOPC when I was working there alone in my office. Those attacks, like this one, spooked me. Unfortunately, we need to add up the attack from last night, the attack from today, the attack yesterday evening, the attack last Sunday, the attack last Saturday, the few attacks that happened during that preceding week and the attack that I noted in the blog entry before this one, in which I was coming out of the movie theater when things started going south for me. All of these attacks, pretty much all of these attacks, are rooted in my potassium levels, and the drop in my potassium levels, and possibly there could be some relationship with my liver and all of this as well, but I'm putting my money on the potassium. Last Friday's attack as well as the following Saturday and Sunday attacks were a combination of paralysis as well as muscle spasms and in each of those attacks I was unable to speak and unable to open my mouth due to my jaw being locked shut and the muscles being clamped down so that I couldn't open it. I learned a new definition of scared; when you can think what you want to say, but your body will refuse to allow you to say it to the very one you love the very most. It scared me bad. They all did.
We do have a doctor who was helping us with my liver and trying to figure out why my liver enzyme numbers are all whacked out and high. People that have high liver numbers tend to have a definite problem with their liver, and I have had high liver numbers since the middle of the 1990s, when we found out just before my back surgery, that there was an issue with me having high liver counts. The doctors at that time, and since that time, have simply given it the generic term “You have a fatty liver" which means that they don't know what's wrong with the liver and they're not going to do any more investigation into it to figure it out, other than some simple labs. Well, at this point in my life, simple labs simply will not do. We must know what the heck is going on inside my body so that we can take steps to correct it. The next planned steps that we hope to pursue, include having a liver biopsy done in the next few weeks, which should provide conclusive evidence for the doctors to research, to find and clarify what the issues are with the liver. They told me that during the biopsy I won't be completely out, however, I won't care due to the medicines don't give me in advance. Let's all pray for really good medicines, okay?
Well, I digress. What I was starting out to say was, that Hollis and I were part of the same staff at MPPC. Hollis was brought on to work as an associate with Bob March in our IT department, while I was the Chief Audio Director the Media Technologies Department. Hollis wrote to me that he was able to track me down via Google, and from there, sent me an e-mail. Hollis, if you're reading this, please know that I hope to get back to you within a couple of days or so.
Peace.
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