There\u2019s a reason I have not been as active here as I usually am \u2013 and that I would like to be.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it\u2019s medical in origin.<\/p>\n
My Atrial Fibrillation (AF) had been acting up recently, so after seeing my regular cardiologist I got to repeat my 6-week long Cardiac Monitor ordeal.<\/p>\n
Subsequently he wanted to change a main cardiac med I take because he thought it was the culprit.\u00a0 But since the new med requires hospitalization for at least three days to be sure I don\u2019t have a fatal cardiac arrest, he referred me to an electrophysiology cardiologist for input.<\/p>\n
The electrophysiology cardiologist said I don\u2019t meet the criteria for the new med, so we\u2019re back to square one and living w\/ careful monitoring.<\/p>\n
Additionally, I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve mentioned I\u2019ve been battling a \u201chole\u201d in my left big toe for almost a half-year.\u00a0 The Wound Clinic doctor (finally) agreed to do an MRI of it.\u00a0 And sure enough \u2013 I have an osteomyelitis in both the distal and proximal phalanges (the only two bones in our big toe).<\/p>\n
This usually requires amputation because osteomyelitis is so difficult to treat in any bone, but particularly so in the toes.\u00a0 That\u2019s because while bones make red blood cells, they themselves have a terrible circulation, making it difficult for antibiotics to reach the infection.<\/p>\n
I was referred to an Infectious Disease specialist.\u00a0 He said because: [1] I am not a diabetic; [2] he assessed & felt I have good circulation;\u00a0 [3] there are no other ulcers or sores on either foot; [4] my CBC was unremarkable; [5] my C-Reactive Protein (CRP) was normal; & [6] my Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR) was only 19 (usually close to 100 in most osteomyelitis) that there is a 75% chance of curing it with long-term IV treatment.<\/p>\n
[CRP & EST are both acute phase reactants that give a measure to the amount of inflammation going on.]<\/p>\n
So, this past week I had a PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line placed. \u00a0(It\u2019s inserted in a vein in your right arm and then is threaded into the superior vena cava.) \u00a0\u00a0And now I have to go in every day (weekends included) for my infusion therapy.<\/p>\n
It takes about half-hour to get to the Infusion Center, and the infusion itself takes about 45 minutes IF they have the medicine mixed up \u2013 which they usually don\u2019t.\u00a0 And it takes almost an hour to mix it up.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t really blame them too much: Because it\u2019s a very expensive<\/u><\/strong> medicine they typically don\u2019t mix it up until they \u201csee the whites of your eyes\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n We now have a setup that I call them an hour before my treatment to tell them I\u2019m coming, so they can start the process.\u00a0 Hopefully that will cut down on some of the time involved.<\/p>\n Bottom line: It all takes up about a good half-day of time \u2013 every day for the next six weeks.<\/p>\n So, I\u2019ll probably be fairly scarce as far as actually posting new things.\u00a0 I\u2019ll try to keep up participation-wise, but it\u2019s a good-sized chunk of time that I \u201close\u201d every day.<\/p>\n I\u2019m hopeful this will save my toe, because the big toe is the most important toe.\u00a0 It\u2019s the one you push off with when you walk.<\/p>\n Between the cardiac & infectious disease issues, bear with me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a reason I have not been as active here as I usually am \u2013 and that I would like to be.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it\u2019s medical in origin. My Atrial Fibrillation (AF) had been acting up recently, so after seeing my regular cardiologist I got to repeat my 6-week long Cardiac Monitor ordeal. Subsequently he wanted […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5064,5065,5066],"class_list":["post-48816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-atrial-fibrillation","tag-osteomyelitis","tag-picc-line","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}