Category: medicine

This mouth is completely cleansed

My upper denture was getting lonely

After several changes in appointment times and a change of surgeon, it finally happened yesterday! I had all of my lower teeth extracted. So now I literally have no teeth. I will be sure to take photos of my brand new lower denture as soon as it’s comfortable enough for me to do so. The upper denture was a much easier transition for me physically than the lower one. I was able to wear the upper denture immediately after surgery . the lower denture is a very different story .

Dentures are something that I’ve known were in my future since I was a kid when my gorgeous grandmother used to rattle hers around in her mouth to my young delight . Before the age of 3, I was fascinated by her false teeth, even hooking my index finger onto her lower denture and pulling it right out of her  mouth as I giggled uncontrollably.  She’d had all of her teeth removed by the age of 50.

Then came the next generation. My father had all of his teeth removed in his 40s. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t handle the pain well. He stayed in bed for the better part of a month.

When my uppers were cleansed, I was very pleasantly surprised by the amount of pain that accompanied the surgery. I only needed one of 20 Tylenol 3s that were prescribed, and by day two,  I was eating solid food  comfortably with my new denture. But I’ve never had an issue with pain in my gums and can tough it out with little to no medication.

It’s now day two without my lower teeth, and the surgeon warned me that it would be more painful and take longer to heal .It was more painful as I’ve taken two of the 20 Tylenol 3s that were prescribed, and having the denture placed in my mouth immediately was only tolerable for about a half hour after surgery.  But today, I’m only taking liquid Advil for the swelling as there’s not much real pain.  My next appointment with the surgeon is in 2 weeks, and I’m expected to be healed by then . After that appointment, it’s off to the denturist to have the upper relined and the lower denture fitted. Then it’s relines every few years . Beats seeing the dentist twice a year.

I only hope that now that all of the rotted teeth are gone and I’m not swallowing all of the poison they were creating, my overall health will improve. I harbor no illusion that my brain issues will improve, but it would be nice to have fewer bladder infections .

Well, now I’ve done it.

I know that many of you will have negative opinions on what I’ve done, but you likely don’t live in a body that has permanent paralysis. I’ve been closely following the progress of Neuralink and have been amazed by the results so far. So, I finally decided to sign onto their patient registry,something that recently became available for Canadians. Now, the wait begins for them to start working with hemiplegia patients. The fingers of my right or non-paralized hand are crossed that it will be sooner than later.

No matter what you think about Elon Musk, it’s not like he’s performing the implantation. I trust that he has hired competent people who have expertise in the field. I have to trust that because, on August 24th, it will be 9 years of living with paralysis and if you have any idea of what that’s like, you’ll cheer me on .

The piece of myxoma tumor that lodged in my brain is still non operable, so I don’t have another option to get use of my left arm and hand back. As for my left leg, I would be walking without a cane and an AFO by now if I only had some trustable balance and more energy. So, I’m hopeful that the chip might address balance issues as well .

It’s still early stages, and they aren’t working with hemiplegia patients yet and I don’t want to be the first one, so it will probably take 5 to 10 years before I’m even notified, and I can change my mind at any point of the process, but there’s hope and that is more than what I have had.

While still several years away, it’s looking like a cure for HIV is within sight.

I won’t waste your time introducing the video from the BBC, just watch

70 percent of Alzheimers patients are women. Women’s brain health day

Unfortunately, doctors still know very little about the brain as anyone undergoing treatment for brain cancer or even multiple benign aneurysms will lament ad nauseum . This report from CTV news in Canada has some very interesting tidbits.

Bad news and…

I’ve just arrived home from a 3 day stint in hospital, where everything I did I had someone up my ass… literally. You can now add colitis to my chart. At least it gives me something in common with the girl in the song Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Unfortunately, it means I’ve had my first full colonoscopy. Let’s just say that I’m not a fan.

And…

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE ROLLING STONES are playing in Vancouver likely on the day after my death,but will I get tickets? Or die trying?

Place your bets now.

Great video explaining the difference in Health care between the USA and Canada. Spoiler alert it’s all financial

If you’ve been with me for a while, you already know that I’m currently dealing with disability and that I used to live in Los Angeles before I became disabled. While I lived there, I was lucky enough that the priciest thing I needed medically was having the cysts that grew in my breasts drained a couple of times per year at costs ranging from 900 to 2000 dollars. The thing that brought me back to Canada was something that would have bankrupted me, but because I never became an American citizen, I still had the ability to come home to Canada and only pay 80 dollars per month for the provincial health insurance, which is pricey for Canada . The surgery that was required and the following treatment came to a grand total of ZERO DOLLARS. I was smart enough to stay here in Canada because just a few years later, my whole world changed because I had a massive stroke caused by an atrial myxoma tumor that had been growing in my heart for 25 plus years. The emergency cardiac surgery and the 6 months of in-hospital stroke recovery came to a total of ZERO DOLLARS.

I’m about to go into the hospital to have a cyst drained on the 13th, and it will cost me NOTHING . I have no idea what the stroke or cardiac surgery would have cost in the states ,but I can safely say that I’m happy to be home where you’re not treated like an ATM for being sick.

Covid update

Update on the covid situation in the house. The hubby’s has tested negative for covid for several days, while I still don’t feel like I’m over all of the symptoms yet, I’m still blowing my nose frequently and my fever came back, I tested negative for the first time today. So I guess the low grade fever and the stuffy nose and the thick phlegm that I cough up is symptomatic of something else or the test didn’t work. Right now, my biggest fear is long covid, because it’s a possibility, though not a probability (I hope). I’m really not a hypochondriac, I swear! Just a likely overinformed person with nothing but time on my hands and an addiction to researching things on my tablet.

The really good news is that I must have a fairly strong immune system, because my covid symptoms were only a little worse than hubby’s . Either that or his immune system is lacking due to his smoking.

OR BOTH

I got some bad news today

This past Friday night my husband had a bad chill and was fatigued, but by Sunday night night the chill was gone and his energy levels were better. Unfortunately, for me, by Sunday night I had chills and a fever and slept most of today away, so hubby broke open the covid tests and within a half hour we had the results. Hubby has covid and… so do I. If you’ve been with me for awhile, then you understand what is terrifying me about the news, even though I’m fully vaccinated.

I AM IMMUNOCOMPROMISED. When I had my stroke 7 plus years ago, it did a number on my throat (wasn’t allowed to swallow, even my own spit, for a month with af eeding tube down my throat) and my lungs (a couple of months with chest tubes draining the water and orange juice that the good Samaritans had given me, because everything I swallowed ended up in my lungs.. several years later just after covid19 was a thing and I was about to get my first vaccine, my neurologist wrote a letter to warn my Healthcare providers. The one sentence he wrote that I can’t get out of my head is. She is IMMUNOCOMPROMISED. As we should know by now, a large percentage of the people who have died from this virus, had an underlying issue.

While this news is absolutely not good news for me, it’s not as terrifying as it could be, if only because I’ve already lived 7 years and and 2 months of borrowed time (because the stroke should have killed me) and have lived through a horrible diagnosis of metastatic myxoma of the cerebellum, that I thought every day for a year was going to kill me, until the same neurologist explained that death was still fairly far off. The experience of that year was helpful because I was able to make my peace with my death, even finding the doctor who would help when the time comes.

I’ve been VERY CAREFUL about the pandemic and this is my first time with covid. I’m trying not to overreact, but I’m scared. 57 is definitely too young to die, but I’ve lived a life and no matter what this virus brings, I’m alright with it. Still crossing my fingers that it’s not the worst that could happen, but these last 7 years and 2 months have been some of the happiest of my life and if it has to end, at least I had that.

Dangers of opiates

Prince Died From Accidental Overdose of Opioid Painkiller http://nyti.ms/1RRwNyx

After 6 plus months of hospitalization, I have an education in pain killers, I never thought I’d have. I understand debilitating pain after my stroke severely intensified a rotator cuff tendinitis that was pre-existing. Unfortunately Tylenol affects me negatively, and doctors don’t want to give ibuprofen, so I allowed myself to be talked into trying morphine  … a horrid, out of control feeling, and finally dilaudid. Dilaudid is a powerful opiate, so you don’t need much. I was taking no more than 2 milligrams at one time, 2 to 3 times per day. Almost impossible to get addicted at that level. The weening off was easy. But that’s me,a control freak with trust issues regarding prescription drugs.
In my 3rd month at hospital, I was in a ward with 3 other women, one of whom was a nurse with a heavy addiction to more than 6 separate  pain killers including methadone ,that she was now getting free whenever she wanted.  Not to mention the 3 types of opiates she brought from home that they trusted her to mention when she took one (misplaced trust ). I counted her pain pill intake one day as 63. This is the kind of dangerous situation that is ripe for legal minds.
Since coming home, I have found the best pain killer for me is half of one gummy bear made with medical Marijuana. Takes away the pain completely and I still function well.
Message here ask what they want to give you for pain or sleep, research the potential dangers and decide for yourself if it’s worth the risk. Though
I’m still greatly saddened by the sudden  loss of such a musical genius , his beautiful music lives on.

image

I