I developed a sinus infection a few weeks ago, and despite my determination to ignore it, it didn't go away. So on Monday I called my primary care physician and convinced her to prescribe me an antibiotic for it without coming in to see her. I felt a little guilty about playing up my leg situation for her, but this is my week off, and I'm not getting up off of the couch unless I absolutely have to.
She called in a prescription for Levaquin, which is vogue in sinus infection treatment these days. I swear she's prescribed it for me once before, and I didn't have any side effects then, but perhaps because I'm also taking Erthromycin for the pin site infection who will not die (which I forgot to mention to my doctor), I had crazy side effects this time.
Immediately after taking it, I felt tremendously dizzy and lightheaded. It was kind of like that very first Vicodin (oh, the memories!) After about two hours, the dizziness went away, but I was now wide awake. Like I was on speed wide awake. I tried to go to bed, but I just laid there, having bizarre thoughts, which I can't really describe other than to say that they didn't feel like thoughts I would have, but rather thoughts a crazy person would have.
So I was up until 4 in the morning, high on antibiotics. When I called my doctor the next day to get a different antibiotic, her receptionist tried to convince me that my side effects were only because I didn't eat enough food with it. But I did eat right before I took it. You have to eat a lot, she said. But it kept me up for hours and made me feel crazy! Okay, fine, she said, and finally put me on with my doctor.
My doctor apologized for the side effects. Yeah, that can happen with that drug, she said. Thanks for the warning! She prescribed me Augmentin, the name brand for Amoxicillin, which I have taken many times and have never had side effects from. I finally told her about the Erthromycin for the pin site infection, and she told me to check with my leg doctor to see if I didn't need to take both. And I checked with him, and he told me to take both.
So now I'm on a parade of antibiotics. Anything living in my body, good or bad, should be dead by the end of the week. And let's just hope that I'm not building up some sort of super immunity to antibiotics. I'm going to need them for when the bird flu comes.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
THE PIN SITE WHO WOULD NOT DIE
The pin site infection lives on. It was better, but not completely better, when I lowered my antibiotic dosage. So it decided to get bad again. Now it's getting better, again, and is producing all kinds of cool yellow pus.
You know you want to enlarge this picture:
You know you want to enlarge this picture:
Monday, August 20, 2007
TICK TOCK
Nothing to do now but watch the clock. And watch movies. And read. And learn how to count to 100 in French. Pretty much anything to distract myself from the fact that I still have the fixator attached to my leg which, quite possibly because there's nothing else to obsess about now, I can't stop obsessing about.
During my pre-surgery internet searching, I came across a guy who had leg lengthening surgery who opted to have a rod put in his leg so that when the lengthening was over, the fixator was able to come off and the rod held his leg together while the bone healed. The guy had three months of lengthening, which I cannot even imagine, but he said that after three months of the wearing the fixator, he was ready to yank it off himself.
That's about the point I'm at, too. But I'm hoping that my next doctor's appointment on September 11 will be encouraging. I'll have been done with the lengthening for two and a half months by then. How much more time does my stupid bone need to grow?
Kelly's mom and sister came over for dinner last week. Here they are, with Kelly's mom covering her face since she doesn't want her picture on this crazy interweb thing that's all the rave with the kids these days:
And here's a picture of me, Kelly, and He Who Shall Remain Nameless (I decided my fixator doesn't deserve a cute name like Frank) at Heather's housewarming party last weekend:
During my pre-surgery internet searching, I came across a guy who had leg lengthening surgery who opted to have a rod put in his leg so that when the lengthening was over, the fixator was able to come off and the rod held his leg together while the bone healed. The guy had three months of lengthening, which I cannot even imagine, but he said that after three months of the wearing the fixator, he was ready to yank it off himself.
That's about the point I'm at, too. But I'm hoping that my next doctor's appointment on September 11 will be encouraging. I'll have been done with the lengthening for two and a half months by then. How much more time does my stupid bone need to grow?
Kelly's mom and sister came over for dinner last week. Here they are, with Kelly's mom covering her face since she doesn't want her picture on this crazy interweb thing that's all the rave with the kids these days:
And here's a picture of me, Kelly, and He Who Shall Remain Nameless (I decided my fixator doesn't deserve a cute name like Frank) at Heather's housewarming party last weekend:
Sunday, August 12, 2007
OFF THE STICKS, OFF THE SMACK
It's been over 60 hours since I have had any Vicodin, which is the longest I've gone in my quest to rid my body of the drug. The withdrawal symptoms over that time haven't been too horrible, so I think I am finally, officially off the smack!
It's really a toss-up which was worse: the lengthening pain, or the Vicodin withdrawal. The lengthening lasted about four weeks. The Vicodin withdrawal lasted a month and a half. I certainly couldn't have gotten through the lengthening without the Vicodin, but it seems like a terrible trade-off. My advice to anyone undergoing a long stint with pain is to take as little pain medication as possible, and watch out for that tolerance point. That's when you know you're in trouble.
Also, I've been off of the crutches for over a week now. The progress of this week has been rather remarkable. I started out the week off the crutches, but still walking very awkwardly and tentatively, and trying to limit my walking as much as possible. Now my walk is almost normal looking, and I find myself getting up to get things that in the past I would have either asked someone to get me or just lived without.
And after almost two weeks of increased antibiotics, my pin site infection has cleared up, and now I know that any pain I experience around my pin sites is the beginnings of an infection. It took me a week to realize that I had one because I thought the pain I was having was dry skin pain, not infection pain, and in that time the infection got worse. So hopefully, knowing what I know now, I won't get an infection this bad again.
So now my only concerns are taking care of my pin sites, walking as much as possible, building up my strength and trying to get back to my normal life. Last night was the first time in two months that I've left the apartment for a reason other than a doctor's appointment or to go to work. We went to Heather and Jessie's housewarming party, taking a cab both ways and only staying for a couple of hours, but just sitting in a chair in their backyard wiped me out.
But it felt good to do something normal again, and with the pace of my progress lately, I'm hoping for more social outings in the coming weeks. It's going to be a slow road back to a normal life, but at least now it's starting to feel like I've finally begun that journey.
Oh, and one of my new co-workers told me last week that Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer, had leg lengthening surgery! Here's a picture of the freak like me:
And here's what his Wikipedia page has to say about it:
Cuomo was born with his left leg 44 mm (1 3/4 in) shorter than his right leg. After the success of The Blue Album, Cuomo underwent a procedure to correct the condition. This involved the surgical breaking of the bone in his leg, followed by several months of wearing a steel brace which required self-administered "stretching" of the leg 4 times daily; Cuomo likened the ordeal to "crucifying (his) leg". An x-ray of the leg is part of the album art for "The Good Life" single, and the experience inspired him to write the song. Cuomo can be seen wearing the brace on an episode of The Late Show with David Letterman, which can be found on their DVD "Video Capture Device".
It's really a toss-up which was worse: the lengthening pain, or the Vicodin withdrawal. The lengthening lasted about four weeks. The Vicodin withdrawal lasted a month and a half. I certainly couldn't have gotten through the lengthening without the Vicodin, but it seems like a terrible trade-off. My advice to anyone undergoing a long stint with pain is to take as little pain medication as possible, and watch out for that tolerance point. That's when you know you're in trouble.
Also, I've been off of the crutches for over a week now. The progress of this week has been rather remarkable. I started out the week off the crutches, but still walking very awkwardly and tentatively, and trying to limit my walking as much as possible. Now my walk is almost normal looking, and I find myself getting up to get things that in the past I would have either asked someone to get me or just lived without.
And after almost two weeks of increased antibiotics, my pin site infection has cleared up, and now I know that any pain I experience around my pin sites is the beginnings of an infection. It took me a week to realize that I had one because I thought the pain I was having was dry skin pain, not infection pain, and in that time the infection got worse. So hopefully, knowing what I know now, I won't get an infection this bad again.
So now my only concerns are taking care of my pin sites, walking as much as possible, building up my strength and trying to get back to my normal life. Last night was the first time in two months that I've left the apartment for a reason other than a doctor's appointment or to go to work. We went to Heather and Jessie's housewarming party, taking a cab both ways and only staying for a couple of hours, but just sitting in a chair in their backyard wiped me out.
But it felt good to do something normal again, and with the pace of my progress lately, I'm hoping for more social outings in the coming weeks. It's going to be a slow road back to a normal life, but at least now it's starting to feel like I've finally begun that journey.
Oh, and one of my new co-workers told me last week that Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer, had leg lengthening surgery! Here's a picture of the freak like me:
And here's what his Wikipedia page has to say about it:
Cuomo was born with his left leg 44 mm (1 3/4 in) shorter than his right leg. After the success of The Blue Album, Cuomo underwent a procedure to correct the condition. This involved the surgical breaking of the bone in his leg, followed by several months of wearing a steel brace which required self-administered "stretching" of the leg 4 times daily; Cuomo likened the ordeal to "crucifying (his) leg". An x-ray of the leg is part of the album art for "The Good Life" single, and the experience inspired him to write the song. Cuomo can be seen wearing the brace on an episode of The Late Show with David Letterman, which can be found on their DVD "Video Capture Device".
Monday, August 6, 2007
FRANKIE SAYS RELAX
I suppose "Frank" is the winner of the name that fixator contest. Personally I'd rather call it "that thing that's getting removed at the end of August like my doctor originally promised me," but that's no longer factually accurate.
Of course I can see on the xrays that my bones are nowhere near healed, and of course I can understand that it's going to take two more months, at least, for them to be ready to stand on their own.
But what I can't understand is why my doctor didn't know that before we started this whole thing. The only other option is that he did and he just straight out lied to me. Like he lied to me about how much the lengthening was going to hurt. Hm, I'm starting to see a pattern here...
Since there's not much that I can do about it at this point, I'm just trying to relax and plan out what I want to do with myself for the next two months plus.
We rented Shortbus on Saturday, and the chick at the video store asked Kelly if she knew what it was, then told her it really belonged in the adult section.
Which it probably does. It's front-loaded with sex acts, perhaps solely to shock and jar, and because you aren't yet emotionally invested in the characters, it is indeed shocking and jarring, but as the film goes on and you start to become more emotionally invested in the characters, the sex acts somehow seem less shocking and more just part of the narrative. It's not as good as Hedwig but I think it's worth a viewing for fans of Hedwig. Or fans of porn.
After trying to rent Weeds from the same video store, and having it already be checked out, and then being left with nothing to watch except the horrible War of the Worlds on HBO (really, there's not one redeeming thing about that movie), I finally decided to get Netflix.
Weeds is apparently shipping to me today. I've added Battlestar Galatica and a few random movies to my queue, but I need suggestions, and lots of them, for two more months of viewing.
Help, please.
Of course I can see on the xrays that my bones are nowhere near healed, and of course I can understand that it's going to take two more months, at least, for them to be ready to stand on their own.
But what I can't understand is why my doctor didn't know that before we started this whole thing. The only other option is that he did and he just straight out lied to me. Like he lied to me about how much the lengthening was going to hurt. Hm, I'm starting to see a pattern here...
Since there's not much that I can do about it at this point, I'm just trying to relax and plan out what I want to do with myself for the next two months plus.
We rented Shortbus on Saturday, and the chick at the video store asked Kelly if she knew what it was, then told her it really belonged in the adult section.
Which it probably does. It's front-loaded with sex acts, perhaps solely to shock and jar, and because you aren't yet emotionally invested in the characters, it is indeed shocking and jarring, but as the film goes on and you start to become more emotionally invested in the characters, the sex acts somehow seem less shocking and more just part of the narrative. It's not as good as Hedwig but I think it's worth a viewing for fans of Hedwig. Or fans of porn.
After trying to rent Weeds from the same video store, and having it already be checked out, and then being left with nothing to watch except the horrible War of the Worlds on HBO (really, there's not one redeeming thing about that movie), I finally decided to get Netflix.
Weeds is apparently shipping to me today. I've added Battlestar Galatica and a few random movies to my queue, but I need suggestions, and lots of them, for two more months of viewing.
Help, please.
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