Just keep swimming....

I am still distraught about my Missy.

To make matters worse, her ashes, which I was supposed to have within 2-4 weeks, have not been returned to me, and it has been just over 6 weeks now. This is because THEY LOST HER BODY.
I am freaked out. I can't even function.

I just found out I have osteoarthritis in both hands. The surgery I had a year ago today may well have been unnecessary.

I got a couple other really scary diagnosis but I am not ready to go there yet. I just can't.

My psyche is really fragile right now

There's 7 feet of snow outside and I am trapped in my house. It sucks. Nobody gives a shit if I am alive or if I have heat, electricity, or food, water, insulin....

I will don't apologize for thinking outside of the box.

A certain specialist for a certain thing may have gone ahead and canceled all of my appointments in any way related to this certain thing without my knowledge or consent, the act of which may have rendered 5 months of very hard work and thensome, basically moot.

I may have decided to continue with a certain part of the "training" for this thing yesterday and there may have been a class involved.

Let's say, for sciences' sake, that the class was on "exercise and dehydration" and that there were handouts passed out with information on them. Let's then say that the person "teaching" asked questions, the answers too which were all right there in black and white.  Let's also say that instead of reading the answers in order, exactly as they were on the papers, as answers, when asked for "examples of exercise" I volunteered answers that were nowhere to be seen on the papers, such as "housework" and "caring for/playing with/picking up/chasing after children and/or pets" and I was LAUGHED AT. Yes. Laughed at. Not by the class. By the "teacher". I don't even think that these notions are that far OUT of the box. Have you ever MET a child or a pet? Ever seen one on television? Yeah. I rest my case.

My hands are killing me and I took no medicine today, so I need to go change that. More when I can. I start PT for hand tomorrow.

Pain

I am in so much pain.
I have virrtually no use of my left hand whatsoever, and am told I must keep it above my heart at all times,
It hurts like hell. There is sharp pain, and tingling, and numbness and throbbing, and it feels like my fingers are full of fluid and i have no idea what is normal. The pain meds barely even take the edge off.  I don't know what to do. I feel so helpless,

You put your left hand in....

...and hopefully it comes out feeling better, eventually?

Here's hoping, at least! I going in for surgery on my left hand in a few hours.
I am super nervous, but also very hopeful.

I am also in a lot of pain EVERYWHERE ELSE ON MY ENTIRE BODY and I would really like to know why! At least when I am unconscious from the anesthesia, I won't feel it for a short while! Yay!

I won tickets to see a band that some friends have, that I really love and have not seen in far too long, which ALSO happens today (I entered the contest before I knew I was having surgery and I won om Tuesday afternoon, heh!) and I am hoping to make it.

I think it is going to depend on whether or not I can find a friend with a vehicle to bring me and take me home. We shall see.  Fingers crossed....well, not really...part of why I need surgery, I can't move my fingers...but you know what I mean. ;-)

I did see the throat surgeon today and she says that I don't look infected right now, but we do have to keep an eye on it.  If it DOES keep getting infected, I am going to lose the gland on the left side altogether, and that is scary in and of itself, but even MORE scary because the stone on the RIGHT (which is still in there) is so large that if THAT starts acting up (heaven forbid!) there is NO way to get the stone out without taking the gland out, period. (Taking the gland out means  slicing my neck open by my throat. The mere thought freaks me out.)

Anyway, I should stop thinking about that for now. Have not come to that bridge just yet, thankfully!

I don't even know where I left off...

I went to see a headache specialist today, and left with an appointment for surgery on my left hand for Wednesday. Try wrapping your head around THAT one, eh?

Oy. Currently battling infection on December's surgical site and praying that I don't lose the gland altogether, so there's that....

I see a physiologist on Friday...

I've had an average of 2 appointments per day at least 4 days per week recently. It's maddening, really.

I miss fun. I miss music. I miss shows. I miss performing.  I miss hugs.  I miss being social.  I miss snuggling. I really could use a vacation.

Ball of nerves.

I have not been sleeping very well. I have pretty much not been sleeping at all. The small bits of time when I do sleep, it is frequently interrupted with poor breathing, choking, and worry.

I am having surgery in a matter of days, and I am scared. It is pretty risky. The doctor said she hasn't seen a stone this big before, and that due to the location, there are high chances that I could wind up losing the entire gland, or that the nerve that affects feeling in the tongue could get hit, among other things.

This is a very big deal for me and I am petrified.  It's bad enough that I have to drink drink drink drink all of the time because I am dehydrated every few seconds due to not producing saliva because of these stones, but running high risk of having things that could affect the way I sound, or if I even produce sound at all.... that is what is killing me right now.

I have not opened my mouth to sing since the 22nd of November, and the last thing I "sang" wasn't even really me singing, it was me doing a silly voice that my friend put me up for at a karaoke place I will never go to again.

I haven't really been around friends all that much either. I have had so many appointments.  I had three yesterday alone.  I don't think there was a single day this week that I didn't have at least one appointment, and most days I had more than one, and even when I had one, it was a long one.

My mind is all over the place and I don't really even know what to think.  My house is a mess because when I am here, all I can do is curl up in pain and cry. I had gotten so much cleaning done and now it just looks like hell. Not like anybody ever comes to visit me or anything.

I don't know. I am just rambling I guess.  I went to meet with a bariatric surgeon on Thursday. I don't know if I am going to do it or not. She seemed a bit abrupt with me, for somebody who took me in nearly an hour late, and she shot down my answer for something she asked me, so I just don't know. I'd say we'll see at the next appointment, but she didn't have me make one, and the coordinator didn't call me back, so I guess its more of a "we'll see...whenever...."

Right now, I am just trying to focus on getting out of the pain in my right leg/side/back (sciatic nerve, perhaps, I've been told) and trying to breathe, in general, and to not worry about the 16th...but that is much easier said than done. I am a nervous wreck. I am so damn scared.

So much happening, and so little time/strength to write!

I don't even know where to begin anymore. I guess I can start back up sort of where I left off...
The ENT doc in the ER sent me to a specialist. (or rather, told me to go to one, so I found one, and I did) The specialist agreed that Sjogren's Syndrome was a possibility and that my endocrinologist should order tests.
She did. I do have a positive ANA (Anti-Nuclear Antibody), which had been shown before, but whatever. She says its a "low- positive" or something like that, but she talked to my kidney doc, and he told her to run the test for the Sjogren's antibody. After waiting anxiously for over a month, we found out that I do NOT have said antibody, which is great on one hand, but on the other hand, it kind of puts us back at square one.

The throat doc ordered a neck CT with contrast, and also a vocal therapy evaluation. My next appointment with him was right after my vocal therapy evaluation (at which the vocal therapist said that she would be recommending vocal therapy because I have scarring on my vocal chords) The throat doc said that they found that I have stones in my salivary gland. IN ALL OF MY SALIVARY GLANDS. I didn't even know this was a thing. He said to go see another particular doctor as soon as possible, and he said that only a few people in the world do this surgery, and she is one of them. That was a scary thought. I saw her, and she said that the stone on the left is HUGE and that it is in the duct, completely blocking up the gland. She said that the surgery would be hard, and that she couldn't book me then because despite having been on high dose liquid antibiotics for 10 days, it was massively infected, so she prescribed more.

I went back today, and she said that it is much less swollen, so that is good, but the closest surgery date available is in the middle of December,  so judging by how often this thing has been causing over the past however long its been, I am in for a very long couple of months. Ugh. I am scared out of my mind.

I can not even BEGIN to explain all of the GI stuff, eye stuff, and migraines that are going on at the same time as this. I can't try to tell you why I have gained 15 or so pounds in the past month despite the fact that I am eating relatively well, and exercising a LOT, but I have. I don't get it, and it scares the living daylights out if me. I have been swelling up again too. Nobody can tell me what the heck is going on.
I will try to update more later, but I am freezing, so I need to go try to warm up.