I've been out of the hospital for a week and my energy level is improving. I quit my job at UPS because of the health concerns posed by this recent diagnosis. On Wednesday I had an appointment with the Rheumatologist, who is the nicest little Asian man. He essentially just went over my diagnosis and made sure nothing new had popped up. It was actually worse than I was aware, being stage 4 kidney involvement aka kidney failure. I've been told that it is all reversible. I also received the pneumonia vaccine and the flu shot (now that I am immunocompromised and all.)
I'm on a type of extremely aggressive treatment for the kidney damage called cyclophosphamide. It's a low dose of chemotherapy that I get once a month for at least the next 6 months intravenously. One week and two weeks after this is also after to get my blood taken and urinalysis. Having gotten this before I was discharged from the hospital, after my appointment I went to get the labs run. Unfortunately I didn't know about the urine and I had to pee really bad so I got rid of it prematurely.
I think the woman who took my blood came over on a Viking ship. She was a big woman with a very thick, almost Nordic accent. She apologized for her broken English but then started cooing at me like a puppy when she saw how bruised my arms were from prior blood work. Having this woman coo "Oh your poor boo boo!" was the highlight of my day. Well, until I asked her what to do if I couldn't produce any urine. She looked confused and slowly tried to tell me how to pee in the cup. I interrupted her and let her know that I was dry. She told me to try anyway or come back another day. So I left with the cup.
I went to see my therapist on Friday. Because of the nature of my illness and all the drs appointments and treatment it has been advised that I can't work. Great. So now I'm all stressed out because I have 0 income and have to go to the social security office to file for disability. Any normal person could file online, however I never changed the name on my social security card so all my information would be invalid. I'm trying not to worry too much about it. I'll just go on Monday, explain my situation, and see what they say.
The hardest part for me right now is not going crazy from boredom. At some point if it looks like the disability thing is going to go through I need to figure out what I'm going to do with my life without having a job. I can only clean the house so much and my myspace profile can't be updated everyday. Its frustrating feeling like my health has tripped me up once again. But at least this time I know I have to listen to my body or it'll get worse.
The high levels of prednisone I'm on make me really hungry. I can eat and a eat and eat and really never get full. But then I can't tell if I'm hungry or I'm eating because I'm bored. Whine whine whine ;P
Oh yes, and because of the treatment consisting of steroids it's been three weeks since my last shot of testosterone. I need to make an appointment with my doctor so we can sit down and figure out what the best course of action is. According to my therapist (who works with my doctor) he said that my diagnosis is really the best we could have asked for, so that's good.
I guess I'll just see what happens and try not to worry too much.
