hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Mayo I go

At the suggestion of my ophthalmologist I went online to make an appointment to see some doctors who actually know what they're doing (I hope) in regards to my liver disease. I was quite surprised when the called me back and offered me an appointment like NOW. So, I'm going to drive to Phoenix on Sunday and my appointment is Monday. Don't think you can come to my house now and jack all my stuff because not only will the 3 attack wiener dogs be all over you, but my Chuck Norris "kick your butt" type husband will be there and so will 2 of my kids who who have been kicked out of every school in the county for fighting and are proud card carrying members of the NRA.
I'm lying of course. My husband has never kicked a butt in his entire life, and I made all that up about my kids. The wiener dog stuff was completely true though...oh, and so was the part about all of them being here. I'm going by myself. The appointment came up so quickly that Scott wasn't able to get coverage to take the time off, and since I'm not sure exactly how long I'm going to be there (they said to plan on 5 days) I just thought it would be cheaper and easier if I just drove. Plus, I can take just the snacks "I" like. Roadtrip for Ruth....yes!
As anyone knows who has accidently stumbled upon this blog for the past couple of months, I've been having a fabulous time with the medical community and my liver disease. I've been unsatisfied from the beginning and not happy about having to YouTube or Google my disease to get my information. So...let's hope that these doctors will actually be able to give me the guidance I'm looking for. Let's face it....I know I can't be cured and I don't expect that. What I do expect is a doctor or two who will actually listen and offer up some help/suggestions. Here is a perfect example of what I've been going through for the past few months. In July I told my internist and my gastroentrologist that I had swelling in my legs. Both of them told me to ask the liver specialist in San Francisco about it. (passing the buck 1) Hepatologist in SF paid no attention to me, didn't even look as I was showing him, but simply said, "It's not your liver" (buck passing 2) Swelling gets worse, showed cardiologist, "it's not your heart, you don't have swelling in your hands or feet." (3) Went to the GI for followup, "make an appointment with your internal medicine doctor. She needs to order an ultrasound of your legs." (4) a week later cuz that's the soonest I could get in to see her, she looks as I push my finger into my ankle and it looks like I'm punching down bread dough. "Yeah, that's your liver." "Um, the liver specialist in SF said it wasn't." "It is. It's your cirrhosis." "Um, I didn't think I was in the cirrhosis stage yet." "......." no response, just given a prescription for some Lasix in hopes that I can pee it all away. Me: what about my severe depletion of vitamin D? She writes a script for a ridiculous dose of vitamin D. Me: aren't I supposed to take calcium with that or it's useless? Her: yeah, you can take some. Me: well, there are different kinds of calcium and how much?
Her: any kind is fine, and just take the recommended dose.
that's pretty much when I decided that I'm in the market for a new doctor. I stole a magazine on my way out. And I don't care. And it was one I wanted too. And it was a new issue, not an old one from 1997.

So what else has been happening???? hmm, had a birthday a few days ago. Got beautiful flowers from my daughter (thanks again, Sara) flowers from my husband and other kids, and a nice night with family. I missed Sara though. :(
Scott knows I love hamburgers. He also knows that I'm pretty much wiped out all the time so he thought it would be nice just to have everyone come to our house and grill some burgers instead of going out. He talked to my mom and left money for Kris and Betina to take her to the grocery store for all the fixins'. Everyone was here when we got home and Scott went to work right away making up the burgers. I walked passed him in the kitchen and noticed he didn't have such a happy face. I looked down at what he was doing and the hamburger meat looked funky. And I do mean funky. Red on the outside, brown/gray on the inside. He points to the label on the wrapper that says,"Reduced price for quick sale". Ohh, great. Then I hear my mother tell my vegetarian kid and my vegan kid that she's going to eat a black bean burger with them tonight. Of course you are, you know you bought tainted meat and you don't want to die tonight!!!! Her excuse for buying the ball o' e-coli was this: "You know how the grocery store sales go from Wednesday to Wednesday? Well, today is Wednesday and it was going off being on sale." WTF??????? That made absolutely no sense whatsoever and she just looked at me as if to say, "Go on bitch, say something else, I dare ya, I double dog dare ya." So basically I think I ate meat that had been sitting at Albertson's for a week. Needless to say, I did not enjoy my birthday dinner. P.S., Jeff and I were the only ones who ate the hamburgers...and he doesn't really count cuz that kid eats some pretty disgusting things.


I got my eyeballs fried today...on purpose. Since the stupid eye plugs fell out and I wasn't willing to go through that torture again my doc decided to cauterize my tear ducts. Yes, it's as gross as it sounds. Remember that rhyme from childhood, "Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye"? Yeah, well, she stuck lots of needles in my eyes before taking a branding iron to them. I don't know about you, but I'm all about torture these days. Weirdest damn thing I've ever done, I'll tell you that right now. My eyes feel....well, burned right now. I love how she tells me, "You'll notice little black dots that look like mascara....don't rub them. Then in a few days it will look like white mucousy dots...don't rub them." eewww and gag. So of course I had to run to a mirror right away and check that shit out. She was right. The Lidocaine wore off pretty quickly and I'm driving home on the freeway thinking, "maybe this isn't the smartest thing I've done this week...driving with bar-b-qued eyeballs." It's all good now. Little pain, semi-alot of burning, and wishing I could poke them out with a stick. I was going to say "with a hot poker" but that's already been done today, thank you.

So that's my crazy life right now. there's a piece of grocery store birthday cake in the fridge that's just calling my name so I think I'm going to claim it as my own and call it a night. It wasn't reduced for quick sale so I think I'm pretty safe.