The Email to My Doctor

Wednesday, 3/11/09, my son Desi had his 18 month check-up. Our family doctor sees all four of us (as well as my brother and my cousin, and he's a colleague of my mom.) When we saw him on Wednesday, Mini was with me because she had been home sick all week with a nasty cold. Her asthma was aggravated by the cold, and she was in rough shape. Desi, Mini and I all had the same cold that we got on Saturday or Sunday. At the appointment, Dr S also examined Mini briefly out of concern for her asthma acting up. After the visit, he asked me several times emphatically to email him Thursday night or Friday morning with an update on the health of everyone in the household. I asked him what exactly he wanted to know, and he replied, "everything."

This is the exact email I sent to him last night/this morning at 1 something A.M. edited only for privacy by removing actual names and birth dates.

Rib
Rib says that his hands are as good as they've been in months. He says he is doing a new thing with the new medicine. When he first wakes up in the morning around 6, he puts on regular lotion and applies it every two hours. At noon, he puts on the new medicine and lets it soak in. Then he keeps putting on the lotion every two hours, and puts the new medicine on again before bed. He says this is working pretty well for him. There is still some splitting and there are some bumps, but he isn't too bothered by the itchiness. The cracks are mostly on his pinkies and thumbs. Rib says he can live with this though. All in all, he is pleased with the condition of his hands. The cold that has ravaged through our household started with him, and he is almost 100% again. He has a little cough here and there, but for the most part, you couldn't tell he was recently sick unless you had prior knowledge of it.

Desi
Desi has a cold, but he is tolerating it really well. He started to show cold symptoms on Saturday, 3/7. His nose is constantly running, and he sounds stuffy when he is sleeping. The runny nose doesn't seem to bother him too badly until we try to wipe it. The mucous is clear and pretty runny. His cheeks have been pretty rosy and his head often feels warm to me, but he hasn't had a fever at all (not even a mild one.) He does have a cough, but his cough isn't as bad as Mini's or mine is. It doesn't seem to get worse when he lays down for bedtime. He wakes up in the morning and from his naps coughing, and I hear him a little bit once or twice in the night, but that's about it. He has been sleeping a little worse than usual (waking up an hour or two earlier than normal which equates to two or three hours earlier than his internal clock since daylight savings time started last week.) For example, he usually wakes up at 9am every morning (before and after the time change.) But the last couple days he has woken up at 7:00am and at 7:50am, which is really early for him. This morning when he woke up he was very cold, and his feet were purplish. We keep our house pretty cool at night, so it was only about 61 degrees in here at that time of day, but he was in plenty of layers for warmth and he had warm blankets too. I was concerned about him being so cold, but he was fine and ate breakfast fine and acted fine and warmed up once he started playing. Despite his cold, he has been in great spirits and has shown no indication of lethargy. He plays all day and has still been eating, although his appetite isn't quite as good as it was before he got the cold. He hasn't had a BM since Tuesday 3/10 when we had to help him go by opening up his anus for him. That one was about 8" in length and close to an inch in circumference. Today he didn't act at all like he had to go or that he was holding anything in. We started 2 teaspoons of Miralax instead of just one teaspoon today. We haven't added Benefiber yet. We thought we'd try one thing at a time. We are also giving him a wide variety of foods including apples, apple juice, pineapple, yogurt, and oatmeal. I try not to give him too many binding foods, but I don't want to completely avoid cheese and (brown) rice and bananas either. He loves them, and they're good for him.

Mini
Mini still has her cold, but she started to feel better than she had previously by Wednesday night, and announced that she would be going to school today. Last night we gave her a teaspoon of honey before bed to help with the coughing. She was still coughing after midnight. She says it is much worse once she lies down. We have her propped up on a bunch of pillows, but it's difficult for her to fall asleep in a semi-upright position. Last night we didn't give her any NyQuil because it helped knock her out on Monday night but not on Tuesday, so we figured it wasn't worth giving to her if it wasn't going to work anyway. Her nose is still running profusely, and she is blowing it a ton, but she feels less achy and sore and fatigued. This morning she looked much better. Her eyes were less dull and her complexion was better. She went to school this morning, but called me once she got there because the buses weren't there, there were no cars in the parking lot, and no one was in the school. I had to look up (her) school on the Internet to find out that they canceled school today for the state basketball tournament. Funny. Anyway, she was in good spirits today. She seemed much less defeated and sad. Her color was good and she was cheery. We went grocery shopping tonight and she didn't complain about feeling tired or sore.

While we were shopping, we picked up her prescriptions for Prednisone and her inhaler. The inhaler had a $25 co-payment for it which surprised me, but the pharmacist said they don't make generic albuterol anymore because of the cloro floro carbons or something. I picked up the Prednisone just to have it here. I didn't think either one of us necessarily needed it, but I wanted to have it here just in case. We had Mini take two puffs of the inhaler with a spacer right away to try to open things up for her. That was at about 6:30pm. Mini went to bed tonight at 8:30 to do a half hour of reading before bed, and she coughed non-stop. When it was time for bed, we gave her a teaspoon of honey again figuring it couldn't hurt. We had her take two more puffs of the inhaler at 9pm. She went to bed, but she coughed and coughed and coughed until she coughed so hard she threw up. That happened twice. That made her cry because she couldn't stop coughing and it hurt. I decided to give her one of the tablets of Prednisone. I didn't give her two tablets because it was right before bed, and I didn't want her to get too wired. As of 11:30, she was still coughing, but definitely not as often or as hard. We figured that even if she wasn't sleeping, if she wasn't coughing she would have a chance at getting some rest. We plan to send her to school tomorrow. I hope she can get all her homework and then come home and get all caught up this weekend before she goes back on Monday. She's a smart cookie, so she should be fine. Mini is 11 1/2 as of this coming Sunday. She hasn't gotten her period yet, but I expect it is coming soon. We have talked about it quite a bit. She has pubescent symptoms: hips and breasts developing, mood swings, acne. Her face is breaking out frequently, and her hair gets oily fast, she stinks under her arms if she doesn't wear deodorant and wash frequently, but I still have to harp on her to wash her face every morning with face wash, put on deodorant, brush her teeth, and shower at least every other day. And when she showers, I have to remind her to wash her genitals and her underarms and her hair really well. She likes to look cute and dress cute, but her vanity doesn't extend to her personal hygiene I guess. It is very frustrating. She is starting to let one of her school subjects slack a little bit and had to be disciplined for it. She doesn't like Social Studies, and because of this, she doesn't study for her tests or complete all her assignments in SS. My position is that she doesn't have to like it, but she still has to do it. All the homework, all the tests, all the participation... She still has to give it 100%. I was upset with her when her last progress report said she had late/missing/incomplete assignments in Social Studies, and that she had gotten a low C on a test that she never mentioned to us or studied for, and that she had only 40/50 participation points in the class. She can at least participate in class. She does in all her other ones. besides that, we don't have any issues with her, but we notice that she has a lot of issues with her friends at school. I don't know if it's normal pre-teen girl behavior or if she's socially challenged, but she is constantly best friends with someone, and then suddenly everyone in her class hates her and she has no friends. I don't get it, and it hurts me to see her hurting when she is the odd man out. Anyway, she's a great kid. She is really smart and wonderful in a million different ways, but these are our only issues. That isn't too bad I don't think.

Little Song Bird
I want to take this cold and shove it. Two kids and a mom on day 6 makes for a cranky, snotty, coughing, germ-infested, sleep-deprived, getting-nothing-done atmosphere. I can't sleep at night. Snot drains out of my nose and tickles me as it drips out. I have to lie down with a Kleenex wadded up in my nostril. The sinus pressure is nearly unbearable across the bridge of my nose. This sore throat is killing me, especially when I cough, which is about every 30 seconds. It feels like Andre the Giant is squeezing tightly around my chest. I can't take a deep breath. My back aches, and my neck hurts, and I am tired, tired, tired. I get exhausted just carrying up a basket of clean clothes from the basement. (Needless to say, I'm a little behind on laundry because of this cold.) I have shivers from being cold followed almost immediately by feeling extremely hot. It sucks. On the bright side, I can at least tell that it's letting up a bit. I feel better tonight than I did when I woke up this morning. My breathing is a little tough. I can't do much without getting out of breath and feeling extremely winded. I wheeze when I lie down at night. I've had a hacking cough all day that leaves me sweaty and breathless when the attack is over. I am using the Advair like normal, 250/50 dose each morning and night. I am also using my Ventolin inhaler about every 2 or 3 hours for the past few days. I don't usually have to use it that much. I am also taking 1/2 tablet of Valtrex every day for the past couple days to prevent cold sores while I am blowing and wiping my nose so much.

If it weren't for the cold, things are going pretty well for me. I have an appt on Monday morning with you.

The medications I am currently taking are:
Tri-Sprintec for birth control, one pill per day
Pre-natal vitamin, one per day
Valtrex to prevent cold sores, 1/2 per day
Prilosec OTC, 1 or 2 per day, depending on what I eat or drink that day
Advair 250/50, 2 times per day
Ventolin inhaler, as needed, usually only 2 puffs once or twice per day

I slept horribly last night because of the cold, but in general I seem to have insomnia frequently. I don't take anything for it because I don't want to be so drugged that I can't hear Desi if he wakes up or that I would not wake up in a fire or other emergency.

I feel anxious a lot of the time, and I have a tendency to bite and pick my fingernails obsessively when I am feeling anxious/worried/stressed/sad. I don't notice I am doing it until someone points it out. I must do it often though because my fingernails are uglier than any I have ever seen.

I am very emotional and I cry easily. I don't think I am depressed or sad, but things affect me hard. I cry during movies, tv shows, commercials, when Jered brings me a cup of hot chocolate, when I am feeling immense gratitude for something, when I am happy, when I give Henry a bath... I cry a lot. Not sit alone on the bathroom crying for no reason though. I always have a trigger.

My bowel movements are really screwed up. I poop every day at 10am, which is good. But besides that, if I am planning to go out with friends for a night and leaving my house and my kids, I get diarrhea. This happens every single time. I pooped my pants from it a few times. I missed a final for one of my classes in 2006 because I pooped myself while driving to school. Because I missed the final, I failed the class. (I had an 'A' before I missed the final.) I never told the professor why I missed. I never told anyone. Rib doesn't even know I missed that final or that I got the F. That wasn't an isolated incident with school and pooping. But it's extremely humiliating, and I can't really comfortably talk about it. It is clearly psychosomatic. There is a direct correlation between excitement or nervousness or anxiety and my diarrhea, but it doesn't happen predictably at a certain time of day or something. It's only sometimes when I am stressed or scared or worried or excitedly looking forward to something, but who knows when? And who does that? It's freakish and gross. I briefly talked to the midwives about it when I had my last annual exam, but they suggested it might be that I had loose anal muscles or that I rush my daily BM, and neither of those is the case. I didn't feel like talking to them anymore about it. I was embarrassed enough. They also suggested changing my diet. It's not my diet.

The number one major concern for me right now is my weight. I am not within a healthy range, and besides that, I don't feel good or comfortable in my own skin. Rib and I are doing Weight Watchers at home, but it works for a little bit and then stops working, and then I get frustrated and I want to quit. I don't get consistent results with it and it makes me mad because I feel like I am depriving myself and being diligent, and then I don't lost any weight. It is so frustrating not to be able to lose weight. I started doing a couple different workout DVDs at home, but I haven't been doing any since I've been sick. I feel better about myself when I work out every day, and I can breathe better too. I plan to keep that up, results or not in the weight department. I am looking for ephedrine or something with it in it on the Internet so that I can keep my appetite down and my energy up, and I know when I used to take it in the past (several years ago, before it was pulled from shelves) it helped me control; my weight and my appetite. I used to buy it over the counter as a bronchialator. When I didn't have insurance 10 years ago or so, I couldn't afford to go to the doctor to get a prescription, and I couldn't afford the prescriptions anyway, so I drank a lot of caffeine and took a lot of ephedrine to help with my breathing. It helped. I was very happy with the additional weight management benefits too. I am convinced that I have a thyroid disorder despite the fact that I have had my blood tested and my levels always come back within the normal range. I have done a lot of research on it, and I am skeptical of the tests because I don't necessarily believe that my "normal" is the same as everyone else's average "normal." What if my levels are supposed to be higher in order for my body to function at its peak?

I haven't taken any anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medications since I found out I was pregnant with Desi. I am very happy about that. I don't like to feel "crazy."
Rib and I plan to stop birth control and attempt to get pregnant sometime between June and September. That will be our last baby. We are thinking that Rib will get a vasectomy after the baby is born so I can stop taking birth control permanently.

That is every single thing I can think of that has to do with health, medicine, sickness or wellness in regards to the four of us. When you asked for an email I doubt you were looking for a novella, but I wasn't sure what exactly to write, so I wrote it all.

It is now after 1am, and Mini hasn't coughed since 11:30 or so. That is great news. That's with one Prednisone tablet at bedtime. I'm so glad she was able to sleep still.