Another Sunday night....

in the ER for me. We came back from a nice little overnight trip to OKC to visit some friends and I had been experiencing some pain in my side for a few days and it was getting worse. I started running a low grade fever as well and we were worried that I might have appenicitis. We headed for the ER about 6:30 and got in pretty fast but that was all that was fast about the evening. Ken and I sat and sat for hours waiting on things to happen. I finally had a CT scan around 10pm, then after midnight the radiologist finally read the results and they decided it was NOT appendicitis. They could see I had a rupturing cyst on my right ovary and also happened to find out that I have gallstones - fun stuff! At least it was not just gas! At his point I have multiple bruises up and down my arms from infusions, blood draws and IV attempts/misses, and look like I was beaten or do drugs one. I have an appointment tomorrow with a surgeon to see about removing the gallbladder. My regular doctor said it was probably the best thing to do since I have so many other things going on right now and we have already met all out of pocket costs on the insurance. The surgery will be laproscopic so it will most likely be a day surgery. Who knows, maybe the doctor will be able to do the port at the same time??

I hate getting stuck....(warning for weak stomachs)

with these dang IV needles every two weeks (and more with random blood draws). I have the smallest little veins and they are so finicky and like to roll and run away from the needle once it has penitrated the top layer of skin. I do not have the typical normal elbow area veins where most people would have and IV or blood taken from, those are almost no existant. I had an IV for 4 solid days during the induction of the IVIg 2 back in early June that was on hte mid right forearm and it is still bruised and the vein is still weakened. They tried to give me the IV there uesterday and it seemed to be working fine for about 30 seconds, then it blew the vein about 3 inches from the insertion point. My nurse, Sharla, was just shocked at where it blew as she had never seen that happen before. It makes a nasty bubble under the skin, then it bruises nicely. I bruise so easily anyway thes type of things do not help! After that happened, she moved up to my upper arm close to the armpit and found a pretty good vein there and we got the infusion going. Allwas fine through the 3.25 hours - I even slept about 2 hours of the time curled up in the chair under a blanket listening to Pandora. Once it was time to pack up to go, I guess I pulled the IV some and caused an infiltration (where it pulls out of its place) and the last 10cc's fed into my arm under the skin instead of in the vein. This med is actually designed as a subqutaneous treatment so that is not a problem - EXCEPT it hurt, itched, burned and caused a huge knot on my arm when the meds were sitting. It looked like I had an extra muscle on my inner arm -HA! I came home and put the heating pad on it for a couple hours and the area went away, so all is good now. I do have a bit of a bruise in the area and it is a bit tender, but what do you do?

So when all of this was going on, the nurses were asking me why I did not just get a port (portacath) put in for these infusion. I spoke to the doctor about that in the beginning and she did not persue it. I have such issues with my veins I think it is something I will be looking into further. i know my brother hated his, when he got it for cancer treatment. I also think that he was dealing with alot of pain associated with his cancer ravaging through his body at the time. I am tired of being dug on and bruised for weeks at a time and sore from the needles. I have to do this treatment every two weeks now and give blood often for testing. This would make all of that so much easier!! I think I will let the nurses look into it.

This coming week I will be having the first MRI since I started the IVIg. I hope and pray there will be some improvements on the lesions showing that this treatments is doing something for the MS as well as the immunity issues I have been having.

Infusion bills, insurance, government.....blah!

The MS medication industry is right up there in the way of costs with the cancer field. My first week of infusions were outragious - well, the insurance billed amount was. I just had my second round last week, and I will be taking them every two weeks now. This is a lifelong treatment....or until something better comes along. Until then, we have about 7 years, bar no big emergent bills, before the lifetime max on the insurance is reached. Wow, I will just be a little over 40 then......what will we do then?

Day 4 = $9,919.05

Day 3 = $9,619.05

Day 2 = $9,919.05

Day 1 = $9,969.05

Total = $39426.20

The hot question lately is about government run health care or mandatory minimum health care benefits for everyone.....stay out of my business, I say. I now live with several life-long health issues and I cannot imagine not having insurance, but it cannot be forced onto us in the way the government is wanting to do. It will fail....