It’s Me Again Margaret

For those of you unfamiliar with Ray Stevens, the title is an allusion to one of his songs that I think is very funny.  If you like silly humor, you should take a listen, but don’t watch the You-Tube video—it just ruins a good thing.  Awhile ago I assured my loyal (you’d have to be really loyal to stick with my oh-so-unreliable posts) readers of an upcoming post about the car wreck which up until now has never come; so here is the short version…

A lady who was driving on the access road at rush hour came across the grassy median onto the freeway facing perpendicular to the traffic.  I was in the right-most lane and saw her coming and slammed on the breaks but couldn’t stop in time as I had been going 60mph, so I struck her car (my front end hit her right driver’s side), which spun her car around and she then hit my passenger side in the middle, knocking me into the middle lane of traffic so that she was then knocked back off the freeway into the grassy median.  I was able to keep control of my car and weave through the traffic to the shoulder, so our two cars were the only ones involved.  My airbag was not functioning properly, so it did not go off (which was probably a good thing as I would not have been able to react so quickly and keep control of the car).  I did have severe bruising from the seatbelt and was VERY stiff and sore for weeks and had to go to physical therapy.  However, I realize that I was definitely blessed and watched over as that could have been a very serious accident and could easily have been fatal.

I had been planning on buying a minivan during the summer anyway, so the accident moved it all up by a few months and I used the insurance money as the down payment on a 2009 Kia Sedona.  However, had I known about the looming medical bills waiting for me in the future I may have made a different choice not involving as substantial a car payment.  C’est la vie.  
I got many weird looks and comments regarding why someone like me would need a minivan, but I paid them no heed.  My van has come in very handy in my calling as YW president and in hauling things around (the seats in the back fold down making it almost as useful as a truck) and on vacation this summer.  Overall, I am pleased with my purchase.

Good Things to Come

I love Elder Holland.  He doesn’t even know I exist, yet he’s had as profound an impact on my life as almost anyone else in it.

Summer Plans Follow Up

So, I've heard from a few people who would be interested and able to go to Black Canyon this year, but more who are interested but unable to go this year.  I'm currently thinking that maybe just a small "scouting" party could go for a shorter stay this year and figure out all the tricks and quirks and then we could plan a big shebang for next year when more people could come and we'd have more time to plan and put it all together.  What do you think?

Summer Plans Perhaps?

I sent this in an e-mail to the family addresses I had, but several are not included or are old addresses, so I thought I’d post here too.
Hello to all!  I am a little late getting this out, but I just had a brainstorm tonight that I thought might be fun.  I am sending this out to my extended family on both sides to see who might be able to come.  I had the idea of getting a group together this summer and thought it might be fun to plan a trip to the Gunnison, CO area.  As I was doing some research, I became interested in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  There is tent camping available ($12 per night) in the park and hotels and services in nearby Gunnison (This one looks particularly nice at a reasonable rate and 2nd-floor suites have full kitchens: http://www.waterwheelinnatgunnison.com/ ).
 
There are a multitude of activities available, including scenic  drives, a boat tour through the canyon river, boating, fishing, hiking (trails range from easy to strenuous), astronomy and  stargazing programs, etc. (see attached PDF) and the website:  http://www.nps.gov/blca/index.htm



I will post a list of drive times from several locations at the end of this e-mail, but there are also flights available into Gunnison.  The dates for the trip could be anywhere in the range of June 28th to August 6th--I was thinking a week or so, though some might only be able to come for a shorter time.  Anyway, since I am late at getting this coordinated, I would like info from anyone who thinks they might be interested to include 1)  What dates would be best for you, 2) How many people in your party, 3) If you would want to camp or stay in a hotel, and 4) How long you would want to stay.  I would need this info by Friday night, the 21st of May.  I will send out a follow-up e-mail on Saturday and then ask for confirmed plans so I can make reservations.
Also, I know my e-mail list is hopelessly out of date, so if you see someone who's e-mail I'm missing, please forward it to them and cc me so that I can add them to the mailing list.

Drive times to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park:

31 hours from Canisteo
16 hours from Dallas
9 hours from Douglas
6 hours from Fort Collins
22 hours from Indianapolis
9 hours from Las Vegas
10 hours from Phoenix
6 hours from Salt Lake City
18 hours from San Antonio
14 hours from San Diego
20 hours from Seattle
31 hours from Washington DC

Book of Mormon YouTube Challenge | LDS Media Talk

Book of Mormon YouTube Challenge | LDS Media Talk

March Madness, Part 3: The Useless and Inept Neurologist

It’s the never-ending story…feel free to skim or skip the details.
The next day, my PCP called me to see what was going on and what I needed.  He ordered an MRI and put in a referral for a neurologist.  A day or so later, I got a phone call from one neurologist’s office saying they could see me the next Monday and a letter from my PCP’s referral for April 21st (nearly two months!).   I decided to keep both appointments just in case.   In the meantime, I have a constant headache that two or three times a day becomes severe and disabling.  Pain medications don’t make a dent.  The facial paralysis becomes more cyclic and I have periods where an outsider can’t really tell that anything is wrong as long as I don’t smile.  However, I can still feel minor “tremors” for lack of a better description in the muscles.
On Monday, I went to the neurologist.  He did a standard neurological exam and asked questions about my medical history.  Alarms started to go off when he asked “Isn’t insulin resistance the same thing as diabetes?” and “What is PCOS?”  Both of these have been “buzz diseases” in medical literature of late which I would think would be pretty hard to miss with even a casual perusal of medical journals.  He obviously hasn’t been keeping up.  He was more concerned with my blood pressure, but didn’t think it was related to the neurological problems (another thing that didn’t make sense to me since I didn’t have high blood pressure until the neurological problems occurred—I had even been to the doctor just three weeks earlier with normal blood pressure).  He said I should get that taken care of right away, but like every other doctor didn’t write any kind of prescription or say how to take care of it.
The neurologist had the primary findings of hemifacial spasm caused by compression of the of the facial nerve (seventh cranial nerve) and right-side facial dystonia.  The question remained as to what was causing the symptoms.  He seemed to think that nerve entrapment/compression is the most likely cause (from blood vessel compression, etc.), but other possibilities include myasthenia gravis,  MS, tumor, and a myriad of others.   I already had an MRI scheduled for that Wednesday and he added an MRA and some blood work to test for myasthenia gravis and thyroid irregularities.  Although I wasn’t completely comfortable with him, he seemed to be ordering all the right tests, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
In the meantime, I call my PCP’s office again for follow up on the hypertension.  He is booked solid because he had been out sick, but the receptionist suggested I wait for an appointment with the nurse practitioner associated with the clinic.  The nurse practitioner was abrupt and rude.  She was obviously irritated that I was there, and when I said that the neurologist had wanted me to come in for the high blood pressure, she wanted to know why he hadn’t written me a prescription himself.  She started asking about some symptoms and when I tried to answer she cut me off saying “I only want to know about things that are related to the high blood pressure.”  As if I should know what was related to that and what wasn’t.  She gave me a prescription and I started to leave. 
As I was walking out of her office around 5pm, my PCP called to see if I had been taken care of.  He asked what prescription I had been given and said he would rather I take a different one because the one the nurse had given me would aggravate my asthma (of course that wasn’t “related” to the high blood pressure, so she wouldn’t have known that was an issue).  He directed me into his office, listened to the problems I was having (finally someone listened!) and started me off on a very low dose medicine because he didn’t want my blood pressure to go too low as I had not had hypertension previously.  He listened to my heart and lungs and said I had developed a heart arrhythmia, possibly caused by the spike in my blood pressure.  He also ordered more blood tests for the next week because sometimes the medicine could affect the kidneys and he wanted to make sure that wasn’t happening.  He also asked me to keep a blood pressure log to monitor how the medicine was affecting me.
After getting all the tests done and giving time for the results to come in, I called the neurologist’s office to set up a follow-up appointment.  After I arrived, the receptionist realized they didn’t have the MRA results in, so she called and had the radiologist’s report faxed over to their office—obviously he hadn’t bothered to look at any of the films. 
Dr. Martinez-Prieto came into the exam room and looked at my test results and said everything was negative.  He apparently decided that I was all better without asking me or doing any kind of physical examination.  Then, barely looking at me  and with a cursory glance at his notes from the last appointment said it was blepharospasm of unknown cause which can come and go and if it happened again I could get medical botox to treat it.  When I said that the symptoms were not gone and tried to explain that they came and went on a daily basis, he basically ignored me, saying "Your eye is open now, isn't it?"  I happened to know that blepharospasm just involved the eyelid from my internet research, so when I asked about the mouth droop, which is always there, he quickly glanced up and said "It's hardly noticeable" without even asking me to smile or open my mouth to see the extent of it.  I tried to ask about the headache and he interrupted me and said that the facial muscles often get tired and sore from the spasms, repeated the possible botox treatment, said "Okay?" and left the room. He did no follow up physical exam of any kind the entire office visit.  Needless to say, I was not very happy with the appointment and was frustrated and angry. After a long cry and a good night’s sleep, I decided to keep the appointment with the other neurologist to get another opinion.
Up next:  March Madness, Part 4:  The Motor Vehicle Accident

March Madness, Part 2: The Second ER Visit

The saga continues…

Sorry if when you read this it seems as if I am disgusted with the entire medical field.  For awhile, I was.  It seems like I hit every incompetent doctor in the city. 

To give you an idea of what I am talking about, this is me in full spasm trying to open my eyes and mouth as wide as I can.  Obviously my depth perception is gone since I can only see out of one eye and my speech gets really slurred.

As instructed, I called my regular doctor and made an appointment for Tuesday morning.  That morning his office called and said he was ill and would not be in that day.  The headache was still really bad and my face was still disfigured and paralyzed on the right, so I didn’t want to wait around. Teenagers don’t deal well with that sort of thing unless you can establish a long-term relationship with them because they get too distracted and I work with teenagers.  In fact, I was supposed to be conferencing with over 100 students that week.  So, that left me with an urgent care clinic.  The doctor there saw me and was most concerned about my high blood pressure.  They all wanted to know what blood pressure medication I was taking and couldn’t seem to understand that I had never had high blood pressure before this.  I had to repeat that at least four times for every doctor I saw.

Him:  “They didn’t keep you overnight for that?”

Me:  “Nope.  They just told me to follow up with my regular doctor.”

Him: “They didn’t give you any medication for it?”

Me: “No.”   (Note:  He didn’t give me any medication for it either.  When I asked about that, he said “We’ll see what the neurologist has to say.”)

He was more concerned about the “seizure-like” symptoms on the left side of my face than the paralysis on the right side of my face and called the neurology department for a consult.  He reported back that they didn’t think it was anything serious and he would put in a consult for me.  “But if I were you, since you have private insurance, I’d start calling around and see if you can get in anywhere else.   It could be several weeks before someone in our system sees you.”  It was several weeks—seven weeks to be precise.  He also suggested that if I had any new symptoms or any inclination that I go to a different ER because they might be able to get me a consult sooner.  I had gone to the University Hospital ER because that is the hospital my PCP is affiliated with and I hadn’t been impressed with Methodist ER who had misdiagnosed me with Bell’s Palsy the first time.  University Hospital is also the facility that treats the indigent patients in the area.  I really like my PCP and several of the other doctors in the UT system I had been referred to for other things.  However, there can be a long waiting period.

I started on my way home and my right eye closed completely again making it hard to drive and I began to feel very light headed like I was going to lose consciousness even.  So, I turned around and went to a different ER.  When they triaged me, my blood pressure was again very high (187/104) and my pulse was over 100.   The twitching had gotten really bad as well.  (My experience living with this for the past seven weeks has taught me that the twitches occur when I am trying to override the paralysis on the right side, i.e., when doctors tell me to try to open my right eye or open my mouth as wide as I can or when I am trying to appear as normal as possible.  The muscles in my face tend to overcompensate and become hyperstimulated, causing the twitching.)

To make a long story a little shorter.  That ER visit was mostly a waste of time as well.  The doctor there basically said he had no idea what’s wrong with me.  Why neither ER could scare up a neurologist to come have a look at me I don’t know.  They put me on some narcotic anti-convulsants and said don’t drive or go to work while you are taking these.  I was supposed to make a very important presentation at a conference in Houston that weekend that I had spent three years preparing for—it didn’t happen.  There was no way I could present in the condition I was in.  They also did nothing for the hypertension or erratic pulse.

To be continued in Part 3:  The Useless and Inept Neurologist

March Madness, Part 1: The First ER Visit

March was not kind to me this year.  Several people have been asking if I’m okay, so I thought I’d relate the news in my blog.  If you already know the gory details, you may want to skip these lengthy postings :-).

On the last day of February, I began the day with a pretty bad headache.  As I was sitting in sacrament meeting, which started at 1p.m., the headache got worse and I could feel all of the muscles in the right side of my face tensing up.  This had happened twice before in the past year, so I kind of knew what was happening.  The right side of my face “spasms” and I can’t open my eye or use the right side of my mouth.  The first time I went to the ER and they misdiagnosed it as Bell’s Palsy and it went away in a couple of days.  Several months later it happened again.  I didn’t bother to do anything about it and it also went away in a day or two.  This time, however, I couldn’t open my mouth as well as my right eye at all, I was feeling light headed and the muscles on the left side of my face were beginning to twitch also. 

So, Mom and Dad took me to the ER again.   I had very high blood pressure (197/114) and heart rate (110) when I got there. They did CT scan, x-rays, and blood work then gave me pain meds and heart meds. CT scan came back clear and the facial symptoms started to resolve, so when my blood pressure came down enough, they were going to transfer me out of the "ICU" ER into the regular ER.  But then my headache came back, followed shortly by the paralysis again, and then my blood pressure and heart rate went up and I started to hyperventilate because of the pain, so my facial muscles all contracted and my hands started to contract into claws.  They gave me Ativan to relieve anxiety, which helped the hyperventilation symptoms and blood pressure, but not the right-sided facial paralysis, then sent me home around midnight with instructions to consult a neurologist. 

Nothing dramatic or terribly exciting, although there were several others they brought in which livened up my time there.  The room had space for seven beds, separated by curtains.  Although at one point they had a few of us less-interesting folks doubled up.  One guy came in cussing and yelling, high on something and accompanied by several officers.  They had him in handcuffs and then had to restrain him, which he vocally was not happy about, especially when it came time to urinate and he had to be assisted.  He had punched/kicked several walls and doors in  his house, ending up by punching through a window and cutting his hand to bits.  Unfortunately, he had also punched his wife, hence the reason for the police escort as he was under arrest.

Another guy had OD'd on something and quit breathing several times and another guy was brought in unconscious who had been in an "altered mental state" prior to his unconsciousness and when he woke up he started thrashing and kicking, knocking over all kinds of equipment and hitting several of the nurses.

It was like being on a live set for ER.  If you ever do have to spend nine or so hours in an ER, I'd highly recommend that one for the entertainment value alone.

Mellifluous Musings

I used to invest a bit of time and money into my very eclectic music habit.  But for the last several years, I’ve been stuck in a rut, not really liking much of what was being released.  Recently, however, thanks to Pandora, I’ve been exploring some of the options that are out there.  I’ve found a few songs that I really like.  I can’t vouch for the rest of the artists’ works because unlike the good ole days where I’d rush out and buy a CD, I usually just download one song at a time from Amazon.  It’s a marvelous improvement and they automatically load into both Zune and iTunes.  Anyhow, here’s a few songs you might want to take a gander at if you think your tastes are anything like mine. 

“Everybody” by Ingrid Michaelson

“Fact-Fiction” by Mads Langer (you can hear the entire song on this Danish artist’s website)

“Run” by Snow Patrol (Every time I hear this song I could swear it was written for the soundtrack of the movie version of the Hunger Games series—great reads, btw)

“Flowerparts” by Bob Schneider

"Where Does the Good Go" by Tegan and Sara

"Almost Lover" by A Fine Frenzy

"Breathe In Breathe Out" by Mat Kearney

Metaphorically Speaking

Rather than write the blog update that I should, I’m going to be lazy and post these excerpts from high school English students.

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room temperature Texas beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled David Letterman's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River .
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Single’s Ward meets Twilight

I found this on Facebook from my friend, Amy Springer, and thought it was hilarious.  Mormon pop culture at its best.

Twilight Years from Tom on Vimeo.