Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day

So J and I decided to stay in today and make a nice meal (well, I'll be making a nice meal - J will be on clean-up duty) instead of going out.  So, here's the menu:

Shrimp Cocktail with Red Cocktail Sauce Sakowitz
Steak Diane Flambe
Wild Rice
Asparagus
Homemade Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing

Sounds good, no?  

Friday, February 13, 2009

Brain Dead

I think all of the drugs I'm on are starting to kill my brain cells!  When I got home from work yesterday I tried calling J to ask him if he could pick up milk on his way home.  I got no answer at work, and his cell phone was turned off.  So I tried again 10 minutes later - same result.  Then I thought that maybe when he got home we could go to Lowe's to look at paint and flooring and go out for sushi, and then pick up milk on our way home.  It wasn't until 6:20 that I remembered that J had class and wasn't going to be home until after 8!  Hello!  So I sent him a text asking him to pick up milk (for when he turned his phone back on), heated up a microwave meal, and got cozy for the evening.  J actually got home earlier than I expected, but without the milk - he was nice enough to hop back in the car and go get it, or else I would not have been able to make my coffee this morning.  What a good guy.

Medicine update: 90mg prednisone, 80mg verapamil, lasix, miralax, zantac, ambien.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Nervous Anticipation

I am half expecting an admit to the hospital today - in light of the fact that I broke though 57.5 mg prednisone last night with an awful, long cluster headache.  Part of me actually wants it.  Maybe then something will happen to actually kill these things for good, or at least for the next 12 - 24 months.

To top it off, I think my body is at the tipping point.  First - my period came yesterday, about 4 days early.  That never happens on its own.  Next - heartburn city is going on in my chest.  Acne is all over my face, neck, chest and back.  My heart periodically pounds in my chest.  Last night while I was about 2/3 of the way through my cluster headache my bp was 116/92 (normally I'm 100/68 ish) and my pulse was 87!

So - here is the list of meds I will most likely be taking today: 60mg prednisone, 200 mg gabapentin, 100 mg Lasix, 18 grams Miralax, 150 mg OTC Zantac.  I'm going to hold off on the prednisone and gabapentin until after my 9:15am appt since I don't want to do anything that would preclude any additional treatments today. 

Wow - I cannot wait to get past this and be able to get back to what this blog was supposed to be all about: TTC!

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Annoyed

I love that I called my Dr. yesterday to inform her that I was up to 57.5 mg prednisone, suffering from severe insomnia, and could she please call in a prescription for Relpax - and by the way, please call me back at phone number x -- and 6 hours later I check my messages at phone number y and there is a message from the Dr.'s office that  they scheduled me for an appointment on Monday at 9:15 - huh?  First of all - wrong number idiots.  Second - what about my Relpax prescriptiong?  How am I supposed to get through the weekend if a cluster headache breaks throuhg?  I am at the upper limit of the amount of prednisone I can/should be taking on my own.  So yes - while I do like my Dr. a lot, I am annoyed.

The Miralax and Lasix are keeping the digestive system flowing and bloat down - but the prednisone has made my skin break out something horrible, including my neck, chest and back.  It is gross.  I am also now suffering from near-constant heartburn, regardless of whether I take the meds with food or not - Zantac is mostly working, but does wear off by the time I wake up in the morning.  And that's the final thing -- being awake.  I cannot sleep past 5:10am, and it's not like I'm falling asleep at 8pm.  I do not survive well on less than 7 hours of sleep per night, and I'm not sure if I've gotten that much over the last 2 days combined.  What sleep I do get is restless, dream-filled, and generally not restful.

In spite of all of this, I am so hopeful that I can wrap this all up soon and get back to the business of TTC.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Wow

For lack of a better word - wow.  I just spoke with my sister - her father-in-law went in for a colonoscopy yesterday, which led to an emergency surgery later in the day, which ended with the surgeon coming out and informing them that it looked like it was late-stage pancreatic cancer.  They are all in my thoughts and prayers.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Effects of Prednisone: Day 21

Entering week #4 on prednisone, and it's starting to take it's toll: in spite of the Lasix (which has me feeling 100% better than before I was on it) my face is puffy.  Around my mouth and my cheeks mostly. I find myself with my heart racing at different times during the day and it doesn't go away quickly.  In fact, it's pretty much been racing since 3:15am, which coincidentally, is how long I've been awake.  As long as I can stay functional today, I don't really mind being up in the middle of the night, but something tells me that I won't be able to make it much past lunch today.

That's another side-effect: my sleep has been terribly disrupted.  It started really dragging me down yesterday.

On a work note - my entire department has been re-organized.  I'm less than thrilled, but trying hard not to get too pessimistic about it.  I no longer work for the same manager - I will be working for a colleague that has been promoted.  This will be my first experience in my career with dealing with that type of transition.  I also now report through a director who I am personally not a big fan of, which is actually what I am more concerned about.  So - I think I'm just going to lay low and put my head down for the next few weeks and observe how things start panning out.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Envy

I hate to say this, because I vowed I wouldn't become one of "those people", but if I hear of one more friend who is pregnant, I might scream.  Currently, J and I have a total of 6 couples who are all friends, not just acquaintances or colleagues, but friends or family members, who are expecting babies.  I am genuinely, truly happy for all of them.  I know at least 2 of them who have had difficulties or heartbreaking awful situations in getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term in the past.

But, I'm envious.  I envy their happiness.  I envy what might have been - all of us having kids extremely close the same age.  That might still happen, but at this point, it looks like the next chance I have for a try will be the end of March, meaning most likely, no 2009 baby for us.  My sister is having #2 in April, and if we had been successful in the first months of TTC, we would have been having a baby right around the same time.

What stinks right now is that even though I am temping and monitoring my fertility signs, there's no knowing how far off everything might be because of all of the meds I'm on my for head.  One thing is sure however - still showing signs of late ovulation (CD18 with no temp shift) and no EWCM, which has been consistent since I starting charting.  And I say late ovulation is definitely problematic because my cycles are 28 - 29 days, meaning my luteal phase, if I am in fact ovulating, is borderline short.  Well - at least charting is revealing this now, so hopefully something can be done about it come April.

On the positive front, the prednisone is keeping away my cluster headaches!  Headache free day 5 now, and I just started tapering down, so keep your fingers crossed!