JazzyOne9254

Send Message

Block

Add Friend

I love Earth Wind and Fire!  Their music in general is so positive and uplifting!  They have a number of songs that are great soundtracks for self-affirmation.  I've been a little lax in that area lately.

I'm frustrated that my quest to become a Bariatric RD was sidelined for my skin reduction surgery.  I would have been finished with classroom studies and on my way to internship this past spring had it not been, but then again, I would still be saddled with the excess skin and attendant problems. I'm guessing it was about ten pounds worth, but I don't remember what I weighed in at on the day of surgery.  I'll ask my surgeon to look it up in my records.  It took three years of clearing obstacles to surgery day, and that totally sidelined my Voc-Rehab efforts.  In my state, you have to attend in person, and you can only do online classes if you are also physically enrolled in classes.

Meantime, I'm dealing with an issue that is medical, but not WLS related.

Back in March, I fell in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant, when I went inside to get a sandwich for my sister, whom I'd picked up from a substitute teaching assignment.  The restaurant was near the school, and the drive-thru line was *way* too long, as school had just dismissed, and parents were taking their children to get after-school snacks.  This particular restaurant has large painted yellow circles on the pavement to indicate the drive-thru lane.  It was drizzling rain that day, and the pavement was wet.  I had on rubber clogs, which were totally appropriate for that kind of weather.   In fact, they were chef's shoes, made with non-slip soles, that I bought for school.  (Dietetics students also have to do food, biology and chemistry labs, and non-skid soles are required in those areas.)

I was walking back to my car, which was parked in a space beside the drive-thru.  I was crossing the lane when I stepped onto a big yellow circle sign painted on the pavement.  I slipped and fell, and when I tried to get up, I couldn't!  Another customer who was coming out of the sme door helped me up and to my car.  My right leg was OK, so I simply drove myself to the ER at the hospital I use, near where I live.

Long story shore I had a torn meniscus, a tendon that runs through the center of the knee joint, to hold it together.  I needed surgery to repair it, which I did.   I have one of the best orthos in the city.  He is a team doctor/surgeon for a highly-respected university where I live.

Anyhow, the restaurant is involved in paying the medical bills, which the manager didn't file an incident report on.  They got in contact with me, and I now have an attorney handling the case. 

This is a pure headache!  If it were not for the prominence of the restaurant, I don't think any of this would be happening. Also, If they used the same material that the city uses for striping and marking, I don't  think I would have fallen.  Its surface is kind of like sandpaper.  It's a pure pain in the butt, gathering old bills to give to my attorney, going around to every place I was treated, to sign and give him access to my medical and financial records. 

The knee surgery was done two weeks before my skin removal, so my entire left leg was involved in the healing process over the winter.  To top that off, I had to take an ambulance back to the hospital (two hour drive) to deal with a complication of the incision. Nobody local would touch it, which is usually the case if a different doctor has worked on a patient.  And...the day I went back to the hospital, we were riding ahead of the huge polar freeze that crippled half the nation last winter! I always wonder if the paramedics had trouble driving through that on the way back, or if they got stuck somewhere, like everybody else when the highways were shut down.

Hope I can get this issue solved quickly.

The other major issue...my car needs a valve job.  I still have to drive it, which I know is causing further damage, but I'm trying to raise the money e to get it done. The estimate was over a thousand dollrs.  If I pinch off my disability check, it will take four months to raise.  Credit is hit from so many medical expenses, so I can't borrow.

Wondering why it is that extremely difficult circumstances always seem to find me, and derail my efforts to get off disability and do some good for the world, and myself. 

I hate the state my life is in, especially when I have to go to social service agencies for help. They treat you like you're the lowest life form on the planet!  I actually told off a caseworker once, telling her that I went to college, too!  She was basically looking down her nose at me.  The other caseworker there is a very unpleasant man.  He has a disability himself.  He is blind, but he takes much delight in making you feel like dirt and will go above and beyond to make sure you don't get any assistance.  If it were me, I would show some empathy toward the clients, instead of making them feel like less than nothing.

OK..rant over.

Going to drop my sister off at church.  I worship on Saturday, so this is a day of rest for me.

Rest...HA!

The itching, burning and peeling of cellulitis has calmed down.  Actually it looked more like an allergic reaction to something, but I didn't use anything new on my skin.  I'll keep a close watch on it.

My appetite seems to have disappeared.  That could be a good thing, but I've gotten to the point where I don't want to eat *anything* - I'm force feeding myself and doing protein shakes. Perhaps it's because of the latest round of antibiotics with the cellulitis. It's very odd for me not to be appropriately hungry, I usually stay on that 3 hour feeding cycle like white on rice!

Incisions from plastics all healed up, and I've been trying to figure out a way to raise the money for "the girls" and a brachioplasty.  I think hosting a fundraiser on my own behalf might be perceived as a bit tacky where I live, so I'm not really sure what to do.  I tried posting on the fundraiser boards, to no avail.  I guess my reasons for wanting the surgery are too trivial.  I need to have all of it done before I get back to my Voc-Rehab program, but the other thing is, I'm 56 years old.  If I were younger, I think I'd get a better response.  Nobody wants to help an old lady re-invent herself.  (sigh)

Perhaps the Supreme Being is trying to tell me that my goal of becoming a bariatric RD (Registered Dietitian) is too lofty.  After all, I am a journalist by trade, and writing has been my life's work.  Perhaps I'm just supposed to use what I've got on *one* project, the book I'm writing, and not try to multitask.

Lots of musings in this post.  Sorry for that, but then, isn't that what a blog is for?

I welcome any and all commentary, good, bad or indifferent.

OK, so part of this weight loss deal was to stop the cellulitis attacks that I was getting almost every other month.

Guess who's been taking antibiotics like there's no tomorrow?

Yep...it's BAAAAaaaack!  Cellulitis for the first time in two years!

First, I got a prescription for Keflex, which is the usual treatment, and it got rid of some, but not all of the infection.

Up next, doxycycline.  Uhhh....no.

Antibiotic number three...azithromycin for five days, starting today, 9/5/14.

Prior to this, I got a call from someone at the hospital ER I went to when I popped a couple staples from the skin removal surgery, telling me I had staph, strep and, as she put it "a little bit of MRSA". The ER doctor ordered a wound culture before they re-stitched the incision where the staples popped, on the back of my left thigh.

Here's why I have a problem with this:

First of all, why call me and not my doctor? Believe me, if I could have written my own prescription, I would have.

Second, how can one have "a little bit of MRSA"?  That's like being "a little bit pregnant".  Either you have it or you don't.

I'm at a loss as to how this latest infection could have happened, since I no longer have any half-healed incisions, my skin is not dry or cracked (unless it's one of those teeny-tiny invisible cracks), and I'm very careful about sanitizing my tub/shower.  I scrub it, then I swab it down with alcohol.

This time, it started in my left ankle, and upon further examination, it looks like some kind of insect bite, perhaps from when I was sitting outside one evening.  By day three, both legs were involved.

So...riding the antibiotic train again...but if the pills don't do it, I might have to go the infusion route.

Hoping to stop this madness this once and for all!

GRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr!

Thanks to everyone for your uplifting comments!  You are truly appreciated!

Made my visit to my plastic surgeon, and the incisions from my thigh reduction surgery are healed.  The back side is still lumpy, and will need more surgery, but the frontal view is beautiful!  There is some darker inner thigh skin showing at the groin area, but it could not be helped, because placing the scar all the way into my groin would have been difficult, if not impossible to heal. the straight vertical incision was not a choice for my thighplasty, because of the amount of skin. Also, the insurance only approved skin excision, not a thigh lift.  The scars only matter when I'm "nekkid" or wearing a swimsuit, and I had already decided that the knee-length Fastskin competition swimsuit would be OK with me, for swimming and hiding most of the scars.  They have a great ability to hold "things" in place and prevent jiggling, too!  A lot of my thigh skin was very damaged from stretching, and I'm guessing that's why he decided to take the inner-thigh semi-spiral approach.

Now for the ones that will always be visible.

I had a lipoma (benign fatty tumor or deposit) on my left calf, just after the bend in my knee, that made my calves asymmetrical.  The surgeon sculped the fatty tumor to the same size and shape of my right calf.  He went with that, instead of complete removal, as that area is loaded with lymph nodes, and since I already have a llittle lymphedema, that would have just made it worse. The surgeon also removed skin from the inside of both knees, and those scars turned out to be hyper-pigmented (dark) and hypertrophic, which stops just short of becoming keloid.  I may have to get shots of cortisone in the scars to flatten them out and lighten them, if OTC methods fail.

So now, attention turns to getting...and funding...plastics for the top half.  I most definitely need new "girls", and the skin on my arms flaps like I'm trying to take flight! The estimate I got totals $15,000 dollars and change, at the surgeon's in-office surgical suite, and probably doubles inpatient at the hospital.

All in all, I feel so much better with all the skin gone, and size 12 pants  now fit with no problem! I'm close to wearing one size all over - 8-10 Misses!

I'm having a fitful sleep...more fit than sleep.. and at 3:52 AM, Friday August 1, 2014...

100 of us DSers have connected just on my blog alone! 

Thank you to everyone who follows my blog, and has shared my jubilation along with my down days.

I'm going to try to check in on each and every one of you one-on-one from time to time.

I can't promise daily...because I'm in the process of a major life change...

much like I was when Dr. Inman hooked me up with "The Freight Train" five years ago.

Stay tuned....

Except for a tiny spot on the back of my left thigh, I am almost completely healed from Phase Two of my thigh skin reduction.  I see my plastic surgeon August 4th to discuss, and possibly plan Phase 3, which will likely include reconstruct to put some "junk in the trunk".  I had gotten out of the practice of looking at my body in a full-length mirror from my SMO days, but I got a look a few days ago, and I've got no "badunk-a-dunk" in my lower cheeks. This explains why I feel my bones when I'm sitting.

I *so* hope my insurance will approve this.  If not..booty pads, here I come!

If you've been following my blog during my skin reduction process, you know that my lower half is getting the attention right now, primarily because there were medical issues that led to the necessary removal of skin. 

Well...I just got a look in a full length mirror (or rather, I just paid attention for the first time post-op!), and I have *DEFLATED* !

There is no "junk in the trunk"! 

Perhaps this is going to be Phase 3...I have an appointment with my PS (plastic surgeon) in August,  so I'll clarify at that time. 

If not..then I'll have to get one of those padded booty things!

Well!!!

The healing is coming along fantastically for this second phase of skin removal.  I have a nurse come in at home every day to clean and dress the surgical wounds, and a bath aide who comes for sponge baths twice a week.

Instead of completely removing the lipoma on my leg, the surgeon decided to sculpt it to match my other calf.  I do have some discoloration where the incision is, probably from the staples,  all of which were removed on June 16th.  There is also some hypergranulation on a small incisional area, which my nurse said may turn into a keloid.  No surprise there..but HUGE surprise that it didn't happen anywhere else, since I'm prone to keloids and raised scars.  I know they can be flattened out with cortisone injections, because that has been done in the past , and was done to flatten the scar from my DS, which was done open.

I did have a surprise surgery a couple weeks before the Phase II skin reduction -

I slipped and fell in a McDonald's parking lot - the painted signs on the pavement were slick from the rain - and ended up with a torn meniscus in my left knee.  It was arthroscopic surgery, but under general anesthesia.

So...How am I going to celebrate when I'm fully healed?

I'm going to take a nice, long shower!!!!!  ;-)

Tomorrow, 5/19/2014, will be Stage Two of my excess skin removal.  The work is still on the thighs, to get the side and back skin reduced, and to remove a lipoma (fatty tumor) on my left leg, situated just below the bend of my knee.

Keep me in your positive thoughts at noon, when the surgery is scheduled.