Wow I Fail

So, I haven't updated this thing in several months. I guess that's a good thing. Over the rest of the summer I really wasn't that symptomatic. Oh, there were days, but not as many.

I'm a member of the marching band at my university. Band camp was in mid August and consisted of 5 days of intense marching and playing. During 2007 at band camp I had a LOT of problems. I'd have to sit out entire practice sessions due to symptoms flares. This is was before I discovered the wonders of compression tights. This year to band camp I didn't have to sit out at all. There were practices where I'd have to lie down and stick my legs up in the air to get the blood out, but that was the extent of it. Performing in band really isn't an issue with me. As long as I'm continuously moving I don't have a lot of POTS problems. Standing in one place for a period of time is what gets me. So practice, especially drill setting days, are the worst for me. Thankfully my class schedule has it to where I miss the days that we normally set drill, so I just learn it as I go along the following day.

If you're interested in seeing what we as a band do, just go to youtube and look up "Pitt Band." Or you can check out of this nifty video that a fan shot of our latest halftime show, which was Guitar Hero (the song is "Through the Fire and Flames" by Dragonforce:



Lately I've been having cyclical stomach problems. They seem to get worse just before my time of the month and subside afterwards. I went to a gastroenterologist a few weeks ago to inquire about this. The doctor was a royal douchebag and was belittling my symptoms. I was this close to up and walking out of the appointment and calling him a douchebag. Towards the end of the appointment he seemed to attempting to redeam himself but not very well. A blood test indicated to that I had a slightly high liver enzyme which indicated fat in my liver, so I went in for an ultrasound the following week. The ultrasound was clean, so I guess the liver enzyme was a fluke.

The past two weeks I've been sick in one capacity or another. I finally got over everything on Wednesday. I had a cold followed by a stomach bug. The stomach bug caused me to miss an exam for a class so I had to go to student health to get a doctor's note so I can make up said exam. The doctor I saw has the most impressive bedside manner that I've seen in a long time. When he asked me for my medications I listed them off. He asked me what I took the atenolol for and I told him POTS (but in long form). He KNEW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT!!! Granted, he wasn't an expert on it but he KNEW!! I seriously wanted to reach out and hug him. With all my bad crazy doctor experiences, it made my day.

Woo doctor's appointment!

I went to the gynecologist (actually she was a nurse practitioner, but whatever) about the lump. She found it and thinks it's more than likely a lymph node acting up. But, to ere on the side of caution, I have an ultrasound on Tuesday.

The funniest thing was when I called to set up my appointment, the receptionist was just going out of her way to see if I had any questions or concerns and said everything really empathically, until she said rather sternly that I couldn't bring children to the facility. I found the contrast amusing, as well as the way she just went out of her way to be sensitive and nice. Most receptionists deal with things sort of matter of factly, which doesn't bother me since I'm used to that manner and I know they deal with this shit everyday.

My mom's friend who had a pretty rough case of lymphoma said that if my lump is tender it's actually a good sign.

Doctor's Appointment

I went to my Internist appointment on Friday morning. All systems are pretty much a go. The Atenolol is working wonders. I still use my tights, but that's a small price to pay for being able to move and not get tired. I told him about the stones and that I have yet to set a urologist appointment. Yeah, I really need to get on that, but when you have roughly 45-50 pages of written work to do in less than a month which will dictate your grad school admission (in social work, if you get a B or better in all your core classes then you get to skip the foundation year of grad school and get "advanced standing" meaning that you'll have a master's degree in only a year).

So yeah, I'll set that up sometime this week.

However, this week (and next week) is pretty packed. I have a concert Sunday, a community meeting which I HAVE to attend for one of my papers on Monday, a final on Tuesday, a paper due on Wednesday and a paper due on Thursday. The Wednesday and Thursday papers are more or less done (I have about one more additional page for the Wednesday paper). Next week I present and turn in the paper related to that community meeting on Monday, present and turn in a paper on Tuesday, present on Wednesday and I'm basically done. I say basically because I have an extension on another paper to an as of yet undetermined date... my professor and I are going to talk about that on Tuesday.

After all this is said and done my friends and I are taking an "end of the year" trip to Maine to camp for a little while. Should be fun.

Atenolol

So I went into the doc's office today to discuss my tilt table results. I got a copy of the results (hell yeah! Concrete proof!) and under the section where it summarizes this called "Impression" it says:

"This is an abnormal study. This is borderline evidence for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. This was no orthostatic hypotension. This is borderline post ganglionic sympathetic sudomotor dysfunction as well.

These findings may be seen in patients with POTS of relatively mild severity."

Ok. I have mild POTS. I knew that. People with severe POTS generally speaking can barely leave their house. I still go to school, work, and have an active life, just sometimes it's a bitch to do so. BTW- that postgangilionic thing basically means my feet don't sweat a lot... apparently this is also a POTS trait.

So what's the solution? Atenolol.

This drug is a beta blocker that blocks too much adrenaline. It also lowers blood pressure... today my doc said that for a woman my age my blood pressure was on the high side today. I've never been told that.

I'm also going off the Florinef. Sorry florinef, you and I had a good run, but it's time for me to move on. Going off the Florinef could decrease my blood pressure (it's supposed to raise it). I could also lose some weight in this process because Florinef makes you retain water. The plan is to stop with the Florinef for a week to give my body and chance to cool off and then start with the Atenolol.

I could also be going off the Paxil CR because he doesn't agree with me being on it indefinitely and neither do I but we both agree that this isn't the time to try and withdraw.

So we shall see how this medical saga plays out.