Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Update: Now What?

I finally got some data today on what is causing my physical problems. As always, it is a good news/bad news situation.

First, I had my monthly appointment with my psychologist, Dr. Nielsen. He got a tearful earful on what has been going on. He asked good questions, was pissed off at the ER doc, and reassured me that it wasn't my fault I had no pain management. Yes, I forgot to ask during the doctor appointment last Tuesday, but he said it should have been part of the plan when I told the doctor that my pain was at an 8. Dr. Nielsen is also an MD - he started out his career as an ER doc and got his psych degree later in life - and he said it was OK and safe to increase the dosage of my Tramadol. He said if that didn't work and I still hadn't heard from my regular doctor that he would get me a prescription for Lortab or whatever we felt was needed to control the pain. 

Note: the increase has done some good. I still have twinges and some aches, but it is in the tolerable range. We'll see. 

After getting home from my appointment with him, I called my regular doctor and left another message. I am impressed with myself that I managed to not sound pissy. Years of customer service jobs still come in handy. I heard back fairly quickly. It turned out that the imaging results never got to his office so they had to make calls and such to get a copy. And here is where the good news/bad news kicks in. There was actually something on the CT scan that can cause my kind of pain. I know it is weird to be excited by that, but I have had far too many tests come back "there is nothing wrong" that I am thrilled to have something show up that isn't "normal." The bad news is, the abnormality is two sections of bowel with thickening in the walls. It doesn't sound like much, but the list of causes don't include anything good. 

So, the next step is a colonoscopy (apparently they don't even buy me dinner first) to find out the cause. Then we go from there. My doctor supported the increase in Tramadol dosage and added that he would also be willing to prescribe something stronger if needed. He also put me on MiriLAX to hopefully make by bowels a little less cranky. 

By the way, Cranky Bowels would be a great name for a Death Metal cover band. 

So, we know something is wrong. Hopefully it was caught early enough to find out what it is and treat it before it gets nasty. I am trying not to dwell on the fact that if that (enter expletive here) ER doctor had done his job and gotten me a CT scan last Sunday we could have found all this out a week ago. But my pain is down and we'll see how that goes. Oh, and my kidneys are still awesome (high 5). 

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