Tag Archives: Health

It is a mystery

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Have you ever been a medical mystery? Ever left medical professionals scratching their heads as to what’s wrong with you?

Two years ago, it was only the efforts of a very thorough GP that forced other sceptical medicos to discover the pain I’d been feeling for weeks was due to a pulmonary embolism (blood clot on the lung). To be fair, I didn’t have any of the key symptoms. I was a fit, healthy, normal weight, non-smoker who had not incurred an injury or been overseas within the required window of time. And yet, to the bafflement of many, there it was on the CT scan. It still remains a mystery as to how I got it.

Back in January, I noticed a lump under my left eye. I bet you can guess where this story is going to go…

First best guess was a type of stye called a chalazion. Heat treatment and massage did nothing so off I went to an ophthalmologist to drain this stubborn cyst. He was doubtful of the diagnosis but figured it worth a try. He sent me off to work the next day looking like this (peeling back your eyelid and poking around in it with something sharp will do that):

The Husband was concerned people would think he’d been hitting me but I pointed out that working in Special Ed meant that colleagues were more likely to assume an incident with a student.

Next came blood tests, an ultrasound and an MRI with the revelation that we were dealing with one large mass that spread into my eye socket.

So I was passed on to a second ophthalmologist with the requisite skills for a hospital procedure under general anaesthetic to extract tissue for a biopsy which fortunately ruled out lymphoma after an agonising 6 day wait for results.

Next best guess? Sarcoidosis – an inflammation disease rare in the eyelid and more likely found in the heart and lungs.

More blood tests and a trifecta of scans with the addition of a CT scan of my chest came next.

The contrast dye missed my vein and pumped straight into my arm tissue. It’s one way to gain a large bicep but I don’t recommend it.

There was an on again – off again prescription of high dose steroids until it landed on the off side when the tests came back clear and a respiratory specialist threw cold water on the sarcoidosis diagnosis.

Having exhausted the expertise of my second ophthalmologist, I was referred to another with eyelid specialism at the Eye and Ear Hospital in the state capital.

The answer from that appointment?

So after more than three months of appointments, tests, scans and procedures and consultation with three GPs and three ophthalmologists, I’m left with “Let’s just leave it and see what happens.” To be fair, it’s benign, not painful and since the tissue sample was taken from the most protuberant part of the lump, it no longer impedes my vision so I guess I can live with…

All this is to explain why I’ve hunkered down this year and not been around much {both in the blogosphere and in my real life). All those appointments and procedures without answers take a mental toll and life has become about getting through each day by going to work (my happy place) and then escaping into binge tv on the couch at home. I’m still running but long distance endurance running is a mental game so the latest marathon training has not gone well. I’m ready for a break after this next race in two weeks.

It’s not all bad. I’ve been lucky. Each stage could have revealed a terrible answer but I’ve escaped with a basically harmless if annoying condition. Not everyone is so fortunate.

So what’s your mystery illness story? Feel free to share in the comments.

Gratitude Day

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Today was a Gratitude Day. I didn’t set out to have one, it just kind of developed over the day.

It started when I was making my morning coffee. About six months ago, friends asked me to be in charge of the coffee machine at a birthday party. One of them gave me lessons on the commercial machine I’d be using. I’ve been able to apply those lessons to my own coffee machine at home. Let me tell you how good my milk texturing is now….

Insert coffee

Obviously I didn’t take a photo of this morning’s coffee because I didn’t know I was going to post about it. I’ve just tried to make another coffee to get a photo. Predictably it wasn’t a good one. Just trust me, I know how to texture milk properly. Usually.

Every time I make a coffee, I think about how lucky I am to have had those lessons. This morning I decided that rather than just think my thanks, I would actually send them. So I shot off a message to my friend and thanked him for the accidental gift of better coffee he gave me.

Then I took my coffee up to my little she-shed and sat on my little handmade bench (I made it myself from an old bookcase) in the glorious winter sunshine and thought about just how lucky I am. I have a good home, a job I love, a happy and healthy family, amazing friends and so many opportunities to explore and grow.

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Tipped on its side, with a new back (top) and a coat of paint and voila, a dodgy bookcase turns into the perfect perch. I didn’t make the cushion. I could have but why bother if you can buy one that’s exactly the right size?

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Morning view

I can even find gratitude for my blood clot today. I’m about to embark on an activity that a blood clot would have made very challenging (more about that in a future post). Even though the blood clot meant I couldn’t run the marathon I planned to run, I still had the opportunity to participate in an event and walk an amazing road in beautiful weather and receive a shiny bit of bling at the end. The coming activity would have had no such alternative. So, I’m grateful for the timing.

Over the weekend, I fixed up some bills that had been generated from this particular health issue. I’m so very grateful for our universal healthcare and the fact that multiple tests and scans came to only a few hundred dollars out-of-pocket and not several thousand. I’m also grateful that I am on the mend because I have access to high quality medical care and life-saving drugs.

All of this good feeling inspired me to get some jobs done around my space that have been waiting to be completed for months. I attached some sheer material over the open roof ridge section of my ceiling to catch dust and leaves that blow in when the weather gets wild. I had to climb up and down a ladder. I’m grateful I didn’t fall off. (I have form.)

While I was up there, I attached some prayer flags I brought back from Nepal. I’m grateful to have the means to travel and for the eye-opening and perspective-enhancing opportunities that has given me.

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As with everything this Jack of All Trades does, the job is a bit dodgy but don’t the flags look nice?

I sealed up some gaps around the windows with silicon sealant. I’m grateful I’ll be snug and cosy over winter. I’m also grateful I didn’t get sealant all over myself or the floor. Because, you know, Jack of All Trades and all that.

I cleaned up, swept and washed the floor and cleaned the deck of the verandah. And gave thanks, as I have so many, many times, for this special space of my own.

Finally, on one of my trips to the hardware store (because when I have jobs to do, I never seem to manage to get what I need in one trip), I found some lovely purple and white pansies that would go perfectly in my planter boxes that have been sadly empty for months waiting for some replacement colour. I’m grateful I’ll have some pretty flowers to brighten the winter days ahead.

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Pay no attention to that mass of clover and other weeds around the shed. Let’s just say the landscaping is still a work-in-no-progress-yet.

I’m no saint and I can be a championship whinger and whiner so I don’t want you to think this is me all the time. Sometimes the events align and I can have a day when I see all the gifts. I’m grateful for that.

I hope you manage to find your own Gratitude Day.

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The afternoon view. I’ll never tire of it.

 

Walking Into Reality

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The original name of this post was supposed to be “Running On More of THE Road” as a follow up to my blog a year ago called “Running On THE Road” about the Great Ocean Road Half-Marathon I ran. ‘More of THE Road’ meant running from Lorne to Apollo Bay, the length of the 44km Full Marathon.

“Supposed” to be?

Yeah. Guess what? I didn’t run it.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I possess a very wide stubborn streak. I don’t like giving up. Admittedly, sometimes when something is very challenging I will have a meltdown and declare I can’t do it but usually the melting down also melts down the stress and I pick myself up and get on with it.

And that is exactly how it originally went. One might suppose that scheduling a three week trip to Nepal, closely followed by completing a 100km charity walk and then giving myself six weeks to train for a full marathon was perhaps overdoing it a tad but, you know, shiny things….

Predictably, limited training due to travel and a focus on long-distance walking and then a week’s wait for blisters to heal, did not leave me in prime running condition when I picked up marathon training halfway through the program.

I was slow. Like, a full minute or more per kilometre than I was used to. And an attempted 3.5 hour training run ended after 2.5 hours when I just couldn’t go any further.

Did I consider giving up? You bet. And I think I would have. I could have easily dropped back to run the half-marathon instead except…. well …. been there, done that, got the medal. So nothing for it but to push on.

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Got one of these already

So I did. Slowly my pace picked up and the following weekend, I successfully completed that 3.5 hour run. I was feeling confident again I’d make it to the finish line. Maybe not in a spectacular time but you get the medal whether you’re first or last as long as you finish so no biggy.

But then my body had other ideas.

Getting up off the couch in the early morning after a wee hours insomnia-induced movie watching session, I suddenly felt pain in the left side of my chest and my shoulder. I thought I must have been lying awkwardly. Or maybe it was another version of a similar problem I had three years ago that turned up nothing. So I got on with my usual day.

Yeah, yeah, before you lecture me, I’ve already had that lecture from the doctor. “Next time, if you have pain in your chest and arm, you call the ambulance or get to an emergency department!” Okay, okay.

Two days of pain in my chest and two days of pain in the neck hassling from friends and family sent me off to the doctor only to be told there there was nothing wrong with my heart or lungs and it was muscular. Take some anti-inflammatories and wait for it to get better.

“Poor health is not caused by something you don’t have; it’s caused by disturbing something that you already have. Healthy is not something that you need to get, it’s something you have already if you don’t disturb it.” ~ Dean Ornish

Which it kind of did. Until it didn’t.

A week after the first lot of pain, a new development began. I was now accompanied by a silent, invisible assassin who would stab me in the lower left of my back at random intervals. He/she especially liked cuddling up to me in bed and sticking in the knife every time I moved.

It took me five days to go and see a doctor. I know, I know.

I had to dedicate a whole morning to blood tests, a urine test, ECG and a chest x-ray. I threw in some pre-poll voting while I was at it since it was in the same vicinity and I was going to be away the day of the coming federal election. Such a productive day.

By 5.00pm I was in the Emergency Department. One of the blood tests had indicated the possible presence of a blood clot. The admitting nurse and the consulting doctor both reacted as if my GP was an over-anxious parent with a cold-ridden child convinced she has pneumonia and declared that as I had none of the physical indicators of a clot and the blood test was notoriously often false, I was probably wasting my time. But as I’d been sent there, they had to give me a CT scan.

They found a small blood clot in my left lung. Also inflammation and a small amount of fluid. How embarrassing.

And how mysterious.

Fortunately, a hospital stay was not required and I was sent home with a prescription for blood thinners and an appointment with a haematologist the next day.

The haematologist was just as mystified. I am a fit non-smoker and have not had a virus or an injury. There were no signs a blood clot would be lurking at the bottom of my lung. All he could do was confirm the emergency doctor’s instructions to take blood thinners for three months and I’d be retested at the end of it to see what happens.

“No running for a month,” I was told.

“But I have a race on Sunday! What about…,” I pleaded. “What about I walk the half-marathon? It has a six and a half hour cut off. That’s like less than 5km/h!”

He grudgingly agreed. I had to promise not to run and also not to push too hard and to pull out if I felt unwell.

Yep. Definitely going to do that.

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Goodbye Full Marathon Bib, Hello Half-Marathon Walk Bib. This helped because I told myself I couldn’t run because it was against the rules.

I didn’t run. But I did walk kind of fast. By accident. I swear. It was a lovely day and a stunningly beautiful route and I just got kind of excited. Truly.

I finished in 3 hours and 16 minutes. That’s an hour longer than it took me to run it last year. Under the circumstances, I can be happy with that.

(Those circumstances, by the way, included a migraine the night before the race and almost having to push my way off the bus when we got to the start line because I was about to be sick. One of the tough things about the Great Ocean Road races is that you have to sit on a bus for 30-60 minutes on a windy road to get to the start line. Most challenging race start anywhere, I reckon.)

Unsurprising to other runners who understand, at the end of the race I felt the best I’d felt in weeks. Even during the race, as I found last year, the sheer joy of running walking along one of the most scenic roads in the world lifted my spirits and made me feel whole again.

Too busy looking for my friend who’d already finished and was enjoying a drink at the pub to be watching the finish line.

 

Who wouldn’t want to beg their medical specialist to be allowed to traverse this road?

Waving off the runners
And one of these at the end
This is what greeted us the next morning. So lucky with the weather.

 

Postscript 1: The day after the race, an ultrasound found a blood clot behind my left knee caused by the combination of a varicose vein and an overseas flight (it is assumed). This provides something of an answer to the mysterious clot in my lung. It also appears that this will be an ongoing problem so there are more doctors, tests and procedures in my future.

 

Postscript 2: I’d like to dedicate this post to my friend Rachel who moved to New Zealand via Apollo Bay so we could enjoy this last run together. She also kindly looked after me when I was being a misery guts.

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Two happy half-marathoners