What's Up, Doc?

11/17/09

I was wondering what to post about when it occurred to me that I have some health updates to report.

First one is about my father-in-law Frank:

If you are wondering where Luke's profile came from--look no further.

He had not been feeling well for about a week and finally decided to go to the doctor. The physician who saw him at the Instacare in Hurricane told him to go to the ER right away, so off he and Kathy went (pictured above at my bro-in-law Paul's wedding last spring). He had a bad case of diverticulitis so they started him on IV antibiotics, did additional testing and kept him overnight. The doctor there decided he needed surgery, which Frank tried to talk him out of. He is a super workaholic and didn't want to be slowed down by anything (he started up a Resource and Reentry nonprofit a couple years ago to benefit local ex-cons and the like). He gets up at 3:00 or 4:00am to start working every day.

Anyway, to sum up, he ended up having a bowel resection and colostomy last weekend, which was a pretty major surgery. He'll have to wear a colostomy bag for about three months and then go in for a second surgery to reattach everything. He is still in the hospital and has started to improve a little. He was refusing to take any pain meds for fear of becoming addicted (he is famously stubborn... anyone who knows him can attest to this), and no one in the family could talk him into it. Meanwhile, he was writhing in pain all day long. Sooo, eventually the doctor came in and told him he needed to take his meds and that he wouldn't let him get addicted. "OK." (At least he'll listen to someone...) Hopefully he'll get better soon.

Wow...thank-you Madelyn for accurately capturing how tired I look nowadays

Second, my OB Dr. Sanders referred me to a cardiologist because the tachycardia I had during my pregnancy has not resolved and I am dizzy and lightheaded for a good chunk of every day. So I went to St. George last week and met with a doctor who made me feel stupid for even being there, dismissed the fact that I had any problems, and didn't address my dizziness at all. He had all the results from the EKG readings I took every day for a month back in June and told me they were all normal. (A pulse of 150 is "normal"? Since when??). There is nothing anatomically wrong with my heart, but something is still causing my dizziness. I am on medication and I haven't had the same shortness of breath and heart palpitations that I had while I was pregnant, but my pulse is still around 90-112, which is rather high.

I had just kinda given up on the whole thing when Mark ran into Dr. Sanders last night at the hospital. Dr. Sanders was like, "Can you believe that guy?? He was so rude! I read his report and he totally blew her off." He said he's going to pull some strings to get me in to an internal medicine specialist to try and figure things out. THANK-YOU Dr. Sanders!!

Haha, I love this picture

Lastly, Luke has had a sandpapery rash all over his head, back and chest, which his pediatrician Dr. Newbold said was prickly heat and to help clear it up, we needed to (cue horror music) switch the whole family to fragrance-free laundry detergent and quit using fabric softener. EEEEEEeeeek! Now, I know I am a total dork, but my method of choosing detergents and fabric softener is based almost entirely on how they smell. It's pretty much the only good thing about laundry. So I very begrudgingly made the switch, and even though I found some fragrance-free Downy and dryer sheets, our clothes feel a lot stiffer than they used to and smell like...nothing. If this doesn't work to clear up his skin--I am SO switching back!