Health

Ultrasound-off

Yesterday I had my third ultrasound. I have yet to be pregnant.

The first was to nail down what turned out to be a prostate infection. The second was to figure out if the unwelcome lump in my pair of coconuts* was something nasty (it was not).

This time, after a sort-of-diagnosis of possible kidney stone or stones during an Emergency room visit (see the previous entry for the epic tale), I called to arrange the third ultrasound to see if there really might be a kidney stone down there.

My doctor will have the results by the middle of next week. It kind of bugs me that the person doing the ultrasound can see everything plain as day in real-time but can’t say a word while the procedure is being done.

For this one I was given one simple instruction: drink three cups of water an hour before and then don’t pee until after the ultrasound.

I figure this is some kind of test, because while three cups may not sound like a lot, drinking three cups of water in a row is a lot. I felt very bloated. I drank them at work, as I was heading straight to the hospital from there. I made it as far as downtown before I had to pee. This was about twenty minutes. I had a 30+ minute SkyTrain trip ahead of me. By the time I got off at Sapperton station my entire world had been reduced to a mad dash to the nearest toilet.

I went home. I peed. I broke the one ultrasound rule. However, I was running early and still have 45 minutes to go, so I downed another two cups, thinking that would more than compensate, while hoping that I wouldn’t experience the same fierce desire to urinate, having just done so.

On the latter I was wrong.

I needed to pee during the ultrasound, but it wasn’t too bad. The ultrasound was about the same as the others. Well, not quite the same as the second one, as the magic wand was not rubbed all over my testicles in a decidedly non-erotic manner. This time I just had to yank my shirt up a little while the technician pressed (rather firmly at times) the wand into my lower back and adjacent areas. She was very thorough. She mad me take deep breaths and hold them a lot, so it began to take on an almost Zen-like quality. Plus the jelly was nice and warm, unlike the nightmarishly cold stuff of the first ultrasound. What I’m saying is that as hospital experiences go, it was not that bad.

When she completed the ultrasound she said she needed to confirm with the radiologist that the shots were good and this would take a few minutes. By this time I had to pee again very badly. They were a very long few minutes. Fortunately the shots were deemed okay, and the nearest washroom was right outside the ultrasound room. I made liberal use of it.

Ironically, the horrible soreness that caused me to go to the Emergency room has largely disappeared, because my body has decided to be weird and bothersome. But the ultrasound doesn’t lie**, so I should have the results soon.

* clever euphemism
** assuming the foreign object wasn’t some sort of clever alien shapeshifter, of course

That 5+ hour trip to the Emergency room last night

Last night around 6:30 I went to the Emergency room at Royal Columbian. I left shortly before midnight. This might sound like the beginning of a horror story, but it’s actually rather mundane.

I have a cold right now. It started with a tickle in my throat Monday afternoon and evolved into full sore throat/stuffed and/or runny sinuses and coughing since then.

The cold is not why I went to the Emergency room, it was jut an added bonus.

Yesterday morning I awoke to a soreness in my mid-back that felt like I’d been kicked by a horse. Not an accidental kick, either, one where the horse was feeling aggrieved and seeking revenge. I took some Tylenol (and DayQuill for the cold), but by late afternoon it was persisting. I should go to the clinic, I thought. But I delayed, had supper and finally decided I couldn’t ignore it, and by then all of the walk-in clinics were closed, so I had to go to Emergency.

It’s convenient. That’s where the happy part of this ends.

Upon seeing that the check-in area was full, I knew I was not exactly going to be in and out.

Just over half an hour after checking in, I was called to the second station, where I answered a few questions and had my temperature and blood pressure taken. I was not told the results, so I figured they were normal or normal-ish. I sat back down.

The two people I remember most clearly were a man likely in his 50s (not me) with a scruffy beard and one of those always-shouting kind of voices, so whenever he said anything, everyone within a hundred meters could hear. This is how I found out he had some kind of steel in his eye and he wanted to get it out. He chatted with several other people and would sometimes wander off for awhile, then come back and chat some more, his jokes and commentary ringing out like machine gun fire.

He seemed defeated, though, by the barfing girl. An older couple brought in a young girl, perhaps three years old. Cute kid. I looked over and whatever she had eaten earlier began burbling out of her mouth. Then it sluiced out. Then I stopped looking over that way. They got a cute little blue barf pouch for her, but I think it was probably too late. They left for awhile, presumably to clean her up. I didn’t find out why she was throwing up because they spoke in normal tones. The girl herself seemed very chill about the whole thing. I’ve never seen anyone so casually vomit.

Another half hour passed–it was now about 7:41 p.m.–when a nurse came along and took me aside to get a blood sample. This was new, but since I’m fine with blood being taken if I don’t fast for 16 hours first, no big deal. She did a remarkably good job of getting the needle in. Today you can barely see the mark. I was sent back to the check-in area with a taped-down piece of gauze on my right arm.About 40 minutes later I am finally moved to triage, which is as full as check-in. I find a seat near the end and fiddle around on the phone, watching the battery slowly diminish. Most of the people here have no immediately identifiable cause for being here, which is a relief. The girl sitting to my right asks if it’s cold or if she’s dying. That’s not exactly what she said, but she spoke very softly. I told her it sure wasn’t warm, which was true. She talked a bit about why she was there. Something about her eye. I nodded and smiled, hopefully in the right places.

At 9:34 p.m.–almost an hour later– I am finally taken to an exam room, where I am told to take off my shirt and put on a gown. This is later revealed to serve no purpose. The nurse asks some questions, takes my temperature and blood pressure again, but this time she notes that my blood pressure is a little high. I have mystery pain in my back, am suffering from a bad cold and have already been here for three hours, so yes, my blood pressure is a little high. She shrugs it off and leaves.

Nearly an hour later, the doctor arrives and after a few questions, gives me a bottle to pee in. As it turns out, I really had to go, so this is convenient.

I have to wait for someone who seems to take a very long time in the one available washroom. I don’t want to know why he is taking so long. I go in, provide a generous sample, put it on a napkin on the sample table, then return to triage. It is now 10:46 p.m.

About 45 minutes later the doctor comes by to tell me the blood test looks fine, and there is no sign of infection in the urine. All good! But there is a tiny bit of blood in the urine (the amount is too small to be visible). He says this could be due to being older (he is a young doctor and at least he says “older” and not “old”) or a sign of a kidney stone. I am told to wait (ho ho) for someone to give me a form for an ultrasound, after which I will consult with my doctor over the results.

I get the form and leave. It is 11:37 p.m. I get home a few minutes before midnight and eat a Clif Bar because I’m hungry and in a bad mood.

Today I schedule an ultrasound for 3:15 p.m. tomorrow. I am told to drink three cups of water an hour before and to not pee them out until after the ultrasound. The test is conveniently at Royal Columbian. Less conveniently I will be at work, so I will have to leave early.

What’s funny in retrospect is how I didn’t flip out or go squirrelly with how long it took. I think I just knew going in and accepted it. Also, there was only one crying baby, briefly, in the background.

But the next time I feel compelled to get a health issue checked out ASAP, I am not waiting until the walk-in clinics have closed. That, or I’m taking a laptop next time and writing half a novel while I wait.

This is post #31 for the month

Once again I have ended a month in proverbial post crunch mode, having to write half a dozen or more posts in one evening to meet my goal of having at least one post per day for the month.

And again I’ve done it, because once a random thought gets into my head, others tend to follow and I write about them here and presto, goal met!

I am going to celebrate this achievement with NyQuill and sleep.

Good night.

July 2018 weight loss report: Up 0.6 pounds

In what basically comes down to a rounding error, I was up 0.6 pounds for the month, missing actual weight loss due to probably nothing more than a single trip to the loo. Still, up is bad and I feel bad.

It was also a weird month, with two weeks of vacation/travel and irregular eating habits, including the consumption of more fudge than I’ve had since, well, ever. Mmm, fudge. Fortunately the fudge is in Barkerville, which is not exactly an easy day trip.

I remain donut-free, though I indulged in a few cookies.

More positively, my body fat is still modestly down for the year and I’m making a bold prediction: I will finally dip under 160 pounds again before the end of August, provided I do not have any donuts.

July 1: 162.2 pounds
July 31: 162.8 pounds (up 0.6 pounds for the month)

Year to date: From 162.3 to 162.8 pounds (up 0.5 pounds)

And the body fat:

January 1: 18.5% (30.2 pounds of fat)
July 31: 17.9% (29.2 pounds of fat (down 0.8 pounds)

June 2018 weight loss report: Down 1.4 pounds

Although I had no infections or other maladies to assist me, I maintained my losing streak and was down for the month, shedding another 1.4 pounds. I benefited from a massive 2.1 pound drop on the last day of the month (today) but would have still been down regardless, so yay for me. I now stand 11.6 pounds from my official™ goal of 150 pounds. With a week and a bit of travel up north to Barkerville, I would expect the hiking and whatnot will at least let me hold the line, even as we indulge in hot dogs and other yummy but perhaps not calorie-wise camping foods.

For the year to date my weight loss is actually, for the first time, an actual loss, down 0.7 pounds. With the body fat also down, it appears I am finally starting to lose weight for real and getting back to the ultra-sexy form of a few years ago.

I will, as always, resist having a donut to celebrate.

June 1: 163 pounds
June 30: 161.6 pounds (-1.4 pounds for the month)

Year to date: From 162.3 to 161.6 pounds (down 0.7 pounds)

And the body fat:

January 1: 18.5% (30.2 pounds of fat)
June 30: 17.5% (28.4 pounds of fat (down 1.8 pounds)

Kidney and stones

Last Friday, June 15, I finally went in and got my blood work done, including the world famous poop on a stick test (which you have to pay for, because people don’t like handling poop or something).

By Monday the results were in and I got a phone call from the doctor’s office. This was disconcerting because I had previously agreed that they would only call me if there was something up, that a negative report would be treated as “no news is good news” in terms of letting me know. The person told me it was “non urgent” but wanted me to come by in two days to discuss these non-urgent results.

And so I made the many-days excursion to the office in Steveston, but I only arrived just in time, so I couldn’t sight-see, despite the spiffy nice weather.

As it turned out, the doctor was behind schedule by a million years. I sat in the waiting area, plinking away on my phone, using the clinic’s spotty but free Wi-Fi for about half an hour before being let into exam room #6, where I sat for about another half hour. With little else to do, I examined the soles of my shoes and discovered they were embedded with thousands of tiny bits of gravel. I plucked them all out, as shown here:

When boredom strikes in the exam room.

I need better shoes. It’s on my agenda for the week.

When the doctor finally arrived, he confirmed all tests were good–except one. My kidney was apparently not quite up to snuff. When I had the kidney infection the clinic that I went to didn’t seem to update my file, as this was news to him. He admitted the infection could be responsible for the current results, though enough time had elapsed to still raise a flag. I am going to take the kidney test again in mid-July to see if things look normal or wacky. Disturbingly, the affected area has been acting up the last few days, making me wonder if the infection may have simply gone dormant. With a vacation to the north in a week and a half, the timing is awkward, to say the least.

But I’ll have some answers soon enough. Also, my poop is fine.

Here’s to the second half of 2018 being pretty please oh pretty pretty please better health-wise than the first half.

Poopmonsters: 1, Me: 0

Today saw the return of a high pressure ridge and much warmer, summer-like temperatures, just in time for the actual start of summer (in five days).

I had planned on doing some shopping but didn’t want to stay cooped up inside during our first day of truly glorious sunshine in weeks, so I nixed the shopping and went for a walk around Burnaby Lake.

Here are some stats courtesy of the Activity app of my watch:

Total distance: 19.31 km
Total time: 2:57:51
Total calories burned: 909
Average pace: 9:12/km
Average BPM: 124

My knees started out fine, started to get sore partway through, got a bit bothersome some point after that, then came around to feeling not too bad again for the last few km. They don’t feel bad now, but I’m under no illusions. My knees have turned against me after 4400+ km of running.

When I approached the athletic fields I was presented with a dilemma, as illustrated in the photo below.

You shall not pass (without being pecked).

The choice was to plow through and see how the adult geese would react to me indirectly threatening their goslings, or to cut wide onto the field and avoid them altogether.

I chose the latter because having more than a dozen geese chasing and trying to peck me is a little too close to a scene from The Birds for comfort.

After taking the photo (I approached from the opposite side), I passed a woman who was going to face the same predicament. I watched to see if the feathers would fly. She got closer and closer still, then stopped. She took some pictures. She resumed walking and I actually though she was going to try the ol’ “if I just calmly walk through them nothing bad will happen” trick. But instead, she went wide onto the field like I did. Considering this was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, I wonder how many other people were diverted by the goose-stepping blockade.

The rest of the walk was pretty straightforward, though I actually began to sweat a bit toward the end. There was the usual mix of walkers, runners and cyclists pretending they totally didn’t realize they aren’t allowed to ride here. No park workers around to warn/lecture/fine them, however. The cyclists, I mean.

One jogger–who obviously read the forecast–was wearing the legal minimum to stay nice and cool. Or cooler. As I passed through Lower Hume Park another pair of runners went by also wearing the vaguely ridiculous short shorts and nothing else at all. Well, running shoes. And one had a heart strap on, which, when going shirtless, looks like you’ve put your belt on about a foot higher than you meant to. They had perfectly sculpted bodies, of course, just to rub it in.

I’m going to run tomorrow, and will attempt to do so in the morning before it becomes Africa hot. Because I did the mega-walk I am thinking of just a quick run on the river instead of tackling the lake again. We shall see.

My steadily improving vision

Today I got my eyes examined [joke about having head examined here] for the first time in six years.

I didn’t realize it had been that long until the receptionist at the optometrist told me my last visit was in 2012. I felt bad. And lazy. Because I was very lazy.

The good news is my eyes are happy and healthy, and I got to see full color 3D images of them, which was both neat and a little creepy.

I also got the drops that keep your pupils dilated and it was sunny out, so things were a little bright for a few hours after. I should have remembered sunglasses. Except I don’t have any. So what I really need is to remember to buy them first.

The weirdest part of the exam was the doctor confirming something I mentioned at the start of the exam. I told him that I could see distant objects better with the glasses off. He confirmed this–my far distance vision has actually gotten better, defying logic and age. I’m okay with this. The old prescription for the progressive lenses was -75 for distance and is nil for the new prescription.

Near distance is another story, a story that is slightly out of focus. The doctor had me look through a lens mirroring my current prescription and letters were a bit fuzzy. He then switched to the new prescription and they were razor sharp. I actually felt a small thrill of excitement at this. I’m not sure if this makes me nerdy, old or both. But yes, I’m excited about getting new glasses and I’m going to start shopping with my new prescription in hand tomorrow.

And I pinky swear I will not wait six years next time to get my eyes checked.

My knees are amazing

Amazingly sore, that is. So much so that I elected to skip my usual lunch walk today.

Now, I’m not complaining, I’ve come to accept that the combination of age and nine years of jogging has clearly taken their toll on my knees, I’m just surprised that it went from not manifesting in any way while running (or walking) to suddenly doing that on a near-permanent basis. I think I’m also working through the stages of grief at the loss of my old, healthy knees.

Things will no doubt get even more interesting when I reach the bargaining stage, where I’ll start researching kooky, medically unsound fixes and cure-alls. Actually, I think I may be at that stage now, I just haven’t come up with any kooky ideas to pursue yet.

But I will. Oh yes, I will.

May 2018 weight loss report: Down 5.2 pounds

Something weird happened this month.

I lost weight!

True, a large part of it was due to a kidney infection killing my appetite for the better part of a week, which led to an impressive 3.5 pound weight loss over a 24 hour period, but still, I stayed on track even after getting my appetite back. If it wasn’t for a small uptick right in the last two days of the month I would be down even more.

For May I dropped 5.2 pounds. For the year I am still up 0.7 pounds, but that may actually change by the end of June to a negative number. Woo, I say.

I have largely curtailed the snacking and when I do snack, I am sticking to lighter, healthier things like apples and yogurt.

The stats:

May 1: 168.2 pounds
May 31: 163 pounds (-5.2 pounds for the month)

Year to date: From 162.3 to 163 pounds (up 0.7 pounds)

And the body fat:

January 1: 18.5% (30.2 pounds of fat)
May 31: 19% (30.9 pounds of fat–up 0.7 pounds)

Prescription interruptus

That three-day antibiotic treatment for my kidney infection was apparently supposed to be 10 days, but the pharmacy only had three days’ worth of medication on hand (it was a total of six pills). I was expected to come back and get the remaining seven days’ of medication a few days later. They called and left me a message informing me of this.

I never got the message.

I was never told initially that the prescription was incomplete, either.

I’m actually a little ticked, because now I have to pick up the seven days’ of additional antibiotics, start taking them, then let my doctor know in case the lapse in treatment means I need to tack three more days of antibiotics onto thee seven.

And now I’m wondering if I can feel the kidney starting to act up again. Psychosomatic, perhaps. I feel like Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III. “Just when I thought I was out…”

Kidney infection: Now off my bucket list

As you might guess, I never actually had kidney infection on my bucket list. That would be nutty, unless it was an opposite-universe bucket list where every item was something terrible, like “get stung by a swarm of bees” or “get trapped in a landslide” or “be hit by a blimp.” But if I had put kidney infection on my bucket list, I could scratch it off, because I do, right now, have a kidney infection.

In what is shaping up to be my Year of Personal Health Hell™ I experienced the early symptoms on Wednesday (three days ago as I type this). In the morning I suffered an episode of shivering/feeling cold that lasted about ten minutes. Later I felt very warm, but that, too, subsided.

I had been recovering from a sore lower back (see above, YoPHH™) and that was mostly gone at this point, but I did feel one small spot on the right side that was still a bit sore. I was wrong about this. It wasn’t my back.

I went to see my new doctor later that afternoon and since I was feeling fine at the time, said nothing to him. That was mistake #1, as the pain I felt was not in my lower back, but on the other side, in my abdomen. Specifically my kidney. I wasn’t sure so said nothing, which was dumb.

Wednesday evening I spent the night burning up the bed. I felt radioactive. My partner would not cuddle–who wants second degree burns from a hug? This led to mistake #2. I was clearly running a fever at this point, but instead of going to the ER or a walk-in clinic (my doctor is a two hour commute) the next morning I went to work. Later that morning I began feeling the hot/cold thing again, but it was lasting much longer now. By noon it was persistent and I left work early.

Mistake #3 was going straight home to rest instead of going to the ER or walk-in clinic. By this point I knew something was wrong and I’d have to get checked out. But I was weak, and felt terrible and just wanted to shut off.

Thursday night was spent in a weird fugue where sleep came in small snatches as I burned up/froze. By 1 p.m. I summoned the strength to go to a nearby walk-in clinic.

It was uphill all the way. I’m not even joking. It’s on Columbia Street, just off Keary Street, and the latter is all hill. At least it was all downhill coming back.

At the clinic I gave them my info and the woman at the counter told me it would be about 45 minutes. I did not relish this. I sat down and closed my eyes and pretended to be inside a healthy body.

Surprisingly, about ten minutes later I was taken to an exam room and was attended to shortly after by a sexy red-haired doctor. Even in my horrible state I pick up on certain details.

He applied pressure to my kidney. I confirmed it caused much pain. He took my temperature with an ear probe thinger and said it was 38.7ºC. That’s super high. He made me produce a pee sample. I was sent back out to the waiting area while they did a quick analysis. I was then taken to a different exam room, but with the same doctor, so it was only partly disorienting. He confirmed a kidney infection and prescribed antibiotics (you know, those things I’ve proven allergic to over and over). Fortunately this batch is Cipro, which I’ve taken before without sporting a rash after. It’s only six tablets, two per day, but they are what the old-timers called horse pills, which is to say they are big.

On the way to Save-On to get the prescription filled I had to drop my urine sample off at Life Labs for further analysis–a precaution to make sure they were treating the infection as efficiently as possible. Normally a courier would handle this, but he’s apparently off until Tuesday.

The doctor cautioned me that if I felt worse after a few days of treatment to get to the hospital or clinic ASAP because kidney infections can apparently turn very nasty very quickly (he used the phrase “low tolerance”), leading to toxic shock and other equally fun-sounding side effects.

Fortunately, a few hours after taking the first tablet my fever broke and I am feeling much better (though not great) than before. I’ve actually done a few things today, which is way more than I did yesterday. I no longer feel hot or cold, just mildly awful.

The bigger issue now is why did I get two infections within weeks of each other (the broken tooth being the first)? Is my immune system compromised? If so, by what? Something else even more horrible? Considering this is the YOPHH™ there’s a strong chance the answer is yes.

Once I’m done with the latest antibiotics, I’m getting some bloodwork done. Perhaps more answers will be found there, even if they are un-fun answers.

In the meantime, I may have some ice cream today. But I have a specific window for that. These antibiotics can lose their potency with dairy products and also things like calcium, minerals or anything acidic. My solution is to have a two hour window of no food/drink before and after taking a pill. I’m about 45 minutes away from the next window opening up. I’m pretending water is delicious and satisfying in the way a turkey dinner might be.