Yes, Purple *is* my favorite color, but this is taking it a little far.

The excessive use of steroid/antibiotic ear drops the doctors kept telling me I have to take led to a secondary fungal infection in my ear canal.  Yes, it hurts.  So when I saw the ENT doc yesterday he painted the ear canal with gentian violet.  It is indeed a loverly shade of dark purple :) 
I have to stop by tomorrow to make sure the g.v. is all cleared out of the ear canal before I start the lotrimin drops he then prescribed because I still have a perforation in my ear drum and they can't risk the g.v being washed into my middle ear with the new drops because I still have a bacterial infection in my middle ear.  Confused yet?  Yeah, me too.  And thanks to the steroids I'm on my heart rate yesterday was 220(!).  I've been taking xanex (anti-anxiety drug I sometimes require) the last two nights so I can calm down to sleep, but the minute it wears off I wake up.  So even going to sleep at a good hour just means I'm restless and wakeful by 2 AM!  Very irritating.

On the plus side, it might be helping the pain a little.  Maybe.  The doc said he expects he'll have to do surgery to close the perf in the ear drum, but they can't do that until the infection is cleared.  It looks like I may not beat last years record after all.  Last year I hit our $3,000 deductible on February 2nd, I believe.

But now I gotta go play mancala with my very impatient 4 year old. :)

Opinionated

I just read an article online from the Daily Herald about the problem of prescription drug abuse.  And because of the unfortunate timing, I have to leave a little rant here...

I understand that RX abuse is a big issue and every bit as dangerous as any other drug abuse.  It needs to be addressed.  I have been on narcotic pain relievers enough over the last few years to be very aware of the risks involved.  I have been exceedingly careful with my pain meds and often will make-do with pain for some period of time just to keep my body from becoming dependent or addicted to the meds, and to assure myself that I am still the one in control -- not the meds.  I understand there are people who have to take pain meds frequently for severe pain, and I am not judging them at all.  I really understand where they're coming from.  So don't anyone think I'm discounting severe pain or pain from unknown sources.  Those are my disclaimers.

The current newest law they're discussing is sending a letter to the doctor for patients who come to the ER overdosed on prescription meds.  They want to make the doctors more aware of the issues they may be inadvertently causing by prescribing narcotic pain relievers to particular patients.  Okay.  Fine idea.  Except I can think of probably half dozen ways people will easily get around that if they really want to just get the drugs!  They say right there in the article that the system will run about 3 weeks behind the times.  So if you really wanted to get drugs all you have to do is go ER hopping over the course of a couple of weeks and you're set.  Doesn't really help. 
I'm sure there are legitimate cases of accidental overdose.  In those cases education of the patients is what needs to happen.  Whether they need to better understand the potential danger of the meds (I'm often shocked by how many people -- even people who have been taking these sorts of meds -- don't understand the dangers associated with them) or put in place better safeguards so they don't forget they've already taken them or whatever the problem was.  I don't see how doctor information will stop that sort of abuse.  And unless they catch up the database faster than 3 weeks, that's not really going to be a big help either! 
I'm glad they're trying to make a difference, but I dont' think this is the only right answer.  I can think of a few things I think would help at least as much:

*Coordinated care between doctors and specialists: I currently have half a dozen doctors in my phone.  I have the dentist, pediatrician, my regular doctor, Otolaryngologist, Urologist, and Gastroenterolotist.  I have seen each of these doctors within the last several months.  (Well, ignore the pediatrician, cause I don't see him for me of course :))  Almost all of those doctors have prescribed me lortab or percocet at some point.  My urologist, who had to control my pain for several months (those pesky kidney stones, as you may recall), did ask me a few times if there was any other doctor treating me for pain.  He also was very up front about the risks of long term or regular use or overuse of pain meds.  When the cause of the pain could no longer be found he discussed long term chronic pain treatment through a chronic pain center.  Fortunately for me, I managed to get the pain under control before having to deal with that issue. I think he handled the situation quite well.  My pain was controlled, a long term solution was discussed, and other sources of meds were checked.  However -- it would have been really easy to lie.  Perhaps a centralized database that they could check -- pull up the database, type in my name and birthdate and see if / when I was last prescribed pain medications.  Maybe that's not as easy at it sounds to me, but if he could type in my info and see that the last time I was given lortab was, say, a bottle of 10 'X'mg pills last June then he has a pretty good idea that I'm likely out and really need more.  OR he could see that my doctor prescribed a bottle of 30 pills two weeks ago, and then he'd know he needs to discuss that further -- is the pain really that bad?  or am I just pill hunting?  Doesn't that sound easier?

*Speed of treatment:  To first get in to see a specialist of any sort is often a 3-6 week wait.  If you're directed to a specialist there's probably already a pretty major concern, but you have to just deal with it until you can get in to be seen!  This last month I've been suffering through a severe ear infection.  I've had a couple of appointments through my regular doctor until it was clear that the meds he was prescribing weren't helping.  So then I had to get in to see the ENT specialist (That's the Ear, Nose, Throat guy -- Otolaryngologist).  They were going to make me wait nearly a month!!!  I was able to sweet-talk my way into an appointment in 15 minutes from that time :)  but I really had to be convincing.  (It helped that the last time they treated me for an ear infection there it had already gotten to the bone before they saw me.)  I saw the doctor last Friday.  They removed my ear tube from my ear canal (pushed out by the infection) and gave me an even stronger antibiotic and more ear drops.  I was supposed to be feeling at least some better by yesterday.  Well guess what -- I slept on the recliner again last night because it's getting more painful, etc. again.  I called today and have been jumping through hoops all morning hoping they'll let me get in to see them before the follow-up appointment already scheduled in another week and a half.  What option do people have while they're waiting to see the next doctor?  Basically they have to manage their pain.  Which frequently translates into more pain medication.  If treatment or resolution of pain was able to be addressed more quickly then fewer pain meds would be needed and therefore less likelihood of pain med abuse or accidental overuse.

*Patient awareness: Every patient who walks out of the doctor's office or hospital with a prescription for narcotic pain meds needs to understand the risks associated with those meds.  If accidental pain medication abuse could be reigned in then people will be much better off.  Just the "may cause dizziness" or "may cause drowsiness" labels on the prescription bottle isn't enough.  Actual patient education needs to take place.  This doesn't have to take a long time, but the patient needs to be in control of their own health and body.  I had a friend several years ago whose sister was prescribed pain pills after a car accident.  She ended up forging some paperwork to get more pain pills, not understanding why she "needed" them so much.  She was arrested and went through a long and difficult process trying to get through withdrawals and come to terms with the fact that the medications she thought were helpful were also addicting.  She had honestly never been told that the meds were addictive!  This should never happen! 

Okay, I'm done.  There's your essay of the day :)  I'm still waiting to hear back from the doctor's office about this infection.  Hopefully they can fix the problem instead of just stringing this issue along.  I'm ready to be able to be more involved in life :)

(Picture: Sabrina cuddled up on Grandma Abuela's bed)

Why pay for dance classes?

Oh my land, these girls make me laugh.  I actually would love to get Kate in some dance classes so she would learn some good appropriate dance moves.  Her interpretation of "dance moves" is certainly unique, though.  Love the drama.  A few times Sabrina runs right up to the camera -- she's running up to kiss my hand :)  You can actually hear it the third time, I think. 

Don't worry, this will be short.

I did finally get to see the ENT doctor this morning.  They were talking surgery because my ear tube has been in for about two years too long(!) until they got to really cleaning out my ear and found the tube.  It had actually been pushed out of my ear drum by the infection!  So on my third doctor (I started with the audiologist who said my ear looked awful and he'd let the NP do the cleaning, then the NP did some cleaning, took cultures, etc., but said she'd let the actual doctor do the ear tube removal, LOL) he managed to dig out the infection and get the tube out.  THere is, of course, a perforation in my ear drum, but he said it's small and should (hopefully!) close up on its own.  Part of the reason the tubes should only be in for 18 months max is that it can be harder for the hole to close up on their own the longer it waits.  Worst case scenario (in regards to the ear drum) they would have to do surgery to patch my ear drum sometime after the infection is cleared.  If they do that I'd probably have them take out my tonsils and adenoids at the same time (it has been recommended by a couple of docs, but isn't urgent).  For now they gave me two more meds to take.  Well, a refill on the steroid drops and a new RX for a super duper antibiotic.  It's also super duper expensive!  >gasp!<  If I'm not on the mend by Monday then I'll have to go back in, but hopefully this $20/pill meds will help, lol.
So basically it's good news.  It's still quite painful, but I know that's not going to just *poof* be gone, and after going to the instacare last night (the pain was just too much) I have a couple of lortab so at least I can get through the worst of it and manage some sleep while it finishes healing.
See, that wasn't too bad, was it?  I really CAN write in shorter lengths than a complete novel!


It looks like out next major medical expense may have to be paying to get Lizzie's upper lip lasered.
;)

Gems from today

Kate, while doing her homework: "Will someone get me a drink of water NOW?!  All this thinking is making me thirsty!"

During the wind storm, a few minutes ago: The girls heard the wind roaring like crazy and went to look out the window.  Then they ran to me to grab my phone... to check the current weather.  I've tried to explain to them that what they see out the window is actually more up-to-the-minute than the Weather Channel app on my phone.

While watching the storm out the back door, Kate was yelling at the wind to STOP.  Then it whipped up even harder.  So she tried to placate it: "It's okay, don't get angry!  Just chill.  It's okay!!!"

Video: taken with my phone and it was getting dark, and the girls were getting in my way... but especially at the very end you can see how blustery it is!



The sad news -- my ear is excruciatingly painful again.  I called my doc early this morning and just heard back a few minutes ago.  He wants me to go back to my Otolaryngologist to get it checked out since I've been on two antibiotics for two weeks now and the steroid drops and had my ear cleaned out and it's still so very bad.  Of course they called me late enough that I have to wait until tomorrow to call the ENT for an appointment.  Who knows how long it will take to get in...  At least the girls are so entertaining in the mean time :P

Excuses, excuses

First of all, every time I come here to write something I end up looking at the sunset pictures and decide I like them at the top of the page so I put off writing :P
More importantly I keep waiting for some good news.  I feel like I'm stuck in limbo in many areas of life right now and I don't want to whine about it (at least not for posterity's sake, lol) so I keep putting it off.  Alas, I don't see a light ahead yet (unless perhaps it's a locomotive coming to cream me?) but I think I'd better go ahead and write anyway.  I mean, life is life, right?

[Feel free to not read the whole thing.  I got very wordy.]

Work stinks.  The economy has left few untouched and even being with a fantastic company with a wonderful job full of great opportunities and products we're still really having a rough time.  Rarely do things go as projected.  We knew this going in.  We didn't ever imagine that things could stink so thoroughly, though.  Our "worst case scenario" was nothing close to this.  Not that we could have or would have done anything differently -- it has just been rough.  It has been so unexpected that it's been harder to deal with in a lot of ways.  That said, we have also been exceedingly blessed to make it through (more or less).  I just wish there was an end in sight.  I am very grateful for the preparation we did have (food storage especially) which has eased the burden somewhat.  Alas, cereal bought on sale still only goes so far :P

I have been hoping to have good news at least in my health.  But it's not good there either.  I'm on week three of a nasty wasty ear infection in my left ear.  It hit hard and I started by using steroid drops my doctor prescribed not too long ago for a different ear infection.  I was hoping to dodge the bullet.  But within a few days the pain was unbearable.  I went in and sure enough my ear canal was swollen completely shut.  He said the drops were the right thing to take and added on amoxicillin because of my history of difficult to cure infections and because he couldnt' be sure it wasn't an inner or middle ear infection leading to the issue (which would be classic for me).  After a week of that the pain got unimaginably worse.  The lortab he had given me didn't even touch the pain.  I "slept" for several nights in the recliner in the living room because I couldn't bear to lie flat.  I called back (we cannot afford to just go in what with the deductible reset and all) and he changed me to another antibiotic.  I am glad to say that finally, most othe pain is a lot better.  Not all gone, but I can manage.  I can tell the swelling is at least mostly gone in my ear canal also.  The thing that worries me still is that I am still all but deaf in my left ear.  If I lie down on my right side I cannot understand people talking or anything like that.  I'm hoping it's just the inflammation working its way through, but...
(Update: the doctor's office just called back and I'm going to go in to see him again in a couple of hours.  We'll see I guess.)

Ear infections aside, eosinophilic disorders stinks too.  I was diagnosed back in October with eosinophilic esophagitis.  It's a fairly rare condition and I am fortunate to have a gastroenterologist who is familiar with it.  A year earlier he did an upper digestive scope on me and took a biopsy saying it looked just like EoE.  I did a little research after that and it made a lot of sense.  Then they called a few days later to tell me the biopsy was negative.  So much for that!  But this time the biopsies were positive.  He said I probably had it the whole time but I didnt' have a current flare up or something like that.  So I did a 4 week course of treatments.  By the end my symptoms were worse.  Not really what I was hoping for.  So I waited to get in again (we were in the middle of the holidays by this point).  I saw my doctor (gastro) again a couple of weeks ago and described my new issues.  Sure enough, it all added up.  Finally!!!  So it looks like I have eosinophilic disorder throughout my digestive system at least.  Personally I feel better about something the more information I have about it, so I've been doing a lot of research.  Today I discovered eosinophilic conditions related to kidney / flank pain, bladder cystitis, and even middle ear issues that are all a little "off" of what they should be if they were simple issues, but that are in truth eosinophil related.  For example:  "Eosinophilic Cystitis (EC) is a rare inflammatory bladder disorder of unknown cause characterised by “transmural” inflammation (= inflammation through all layers of the bladder wall) and numerous eosinophils. Urine cultures are usually negative. EC can mimic many other urological conditions."  Perfectly described what my urologist has diagnosed as Interstitial Cystitis -- another difficult to diagnose chronic issue.  And yes, EC is often diagnosed as IC.  Also:  "Eosinophilic otitis media (EOM) is intractable otitis media characterized by the presence of a highly viscous yellow effusion containing eosinophils. It occurs mainly in patients with bronchial asthma and is resistant to conventional treatments for otitis media."  I'm going to ask my doc about this today.  I've had all sorts of yellow gunk coming from my ear.  I also have been treated for bronchial asthma.  And the last doc-talk I'll bore you with:  "Flank pain is caused by a variety of pathologies of which urinary stone disease is the most frequent. Eosinophilic ureteritis is a rare stenosing condition of the ureter. Eosinophilic ureteritis can cause flank pain and/or unilateral hydronephrosis."   This makes all sorts of sense considering the issues I had with stones over the last year.  Yes, I've had unilateral hydronephrosis also. 
It is thoroughly possible that none of these things are true.  Perhaps I really do just have a dozen unusual, unrelated issues chronically going on in my body.  It has just never felt "right" to me.  I've been searching for a couple of years for what the source of these bizarre and chronic or persistent conditions.  This actually makes sense to me.  At least it gives me something more to discuss with each of my doctors the next time I have some sort of flare.
The bad news?  Eosinophilic conditions are not cureable.  Adult EoE was only recognized for the first time in 1984, I believe it was.  Only in about the last 10 years has much research been done on the subject.  So it's not very well understood and can't be very effectively  treated even.  It is thought to be most often caused by allergies.  Finding the triggers, however, can be very difficult.  Coincidentally, 5 years ago I had no know allergies besides a few seasonal discomforts.  During my pregnancy with Sabrina I became allergic to several foods and a couple of medications.  These funky medical issues have all shown up since she was born.  I don't think I'm allergic to her ;)  but it may be difficult to figure out what things are causing the reaction.  In the mean time some foods have been making me sick.  I get nauseous after eating pretty much every time.  I have already become very cautious in what I eat.  And if I start allergy testing it is likely to cost several hundred more dollars at least.  Right.  Cause I have that hiding around in my piggy bank.  Just didn't feel like using it. 
Best case scenario?  If the meds I'm on now can get the inflammation under control then my body's immune system could pick up from there and I could continue with nothing different and no more flares.  That happens some of the time.  I'm not holding my breath.  Especially since I've already failed one course of treatment and a few weeks into this one I'm not feeling any better still.  I'm on the hook for 6 weeks of this nasty stuff (swallow a liquid twice a day for 6 weeks.  Tastes like benadryl, but more bitter believe it or not) then I'll see the gastro again.  If it doesn't take, they'll probably want to do 6 more weeks of the same treatment.  I suppose I'm fortunate because this particular treatment is only available at ONE pharmacy nationwide, which happens to be Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo.  It's supposed to coat better, therefore being more effective than the "usual" treatments.  Unfortunately it all does contain steroids which in any amount increase my anxiety.  Because I really needed that on top of life right now, right? lol

Okay, I'm sorry.  This is why I've been putting off writing!  I didn't really want to subject you all to this huge rant.  Oh well.  At least I"ve got it off my chest for the moment :)  I really am hopeful that now we're on a course that could get me long-term healthy again.  Even if I have to give up some of my favorite foods (PLEASE not chocolate!!!!!!!).  It could be lots worse.  EoE is more common in children and I have a few friends now (online) who have children with the disorder.  One is already on a feeding tube that goes directly to his stomach.  He gets a special formula pumped in every night and can have nothing but water or ice in his mouth.  The other little boy is not quite to that point, but headed there quickly.  It really humbles me to see these little ones who cant have cake and ice cream, get sick sucking on a jelly bean, or throw up at the smallest bite of anything.  If they can do it, then I sure can.  With help from the Lord, at least.

P.S.
A few details:  The picture at the top is of the "digit-al" frame I made for Michael for Christmas because I couldn't afford the electronic type, lol.  Meaning you use your digits (fingers) to rearrange each of the 6 pictures.  The blocks are little 1" blocks so the whole thing is only 3"x3".  It is cute, though.
Also: Happy Birthday to my little brother today :)
And: Michael got a calling at church.  He's now in the nursery with me!!!  We're having lots of fun :)

For Jan and Jenn

on account of they are so enamored of sunsets :)

Ah, the angellic chorus! The shaft of divine light!

Yup, the ole Diaper Champ was put out to pasture today.  I'm sure it will romp and play in a meadow of nasty diapers.  I don't really care -- as long as it's not necessary here any more!  Sabrina has achieved (knock on wood) "big girl underwear" status. She finally admitted that she really does prefer being a big girl.  Potty training stubborn children is impossible.  As soon as they discover that Mom and Dad CANNOT do it for them, the child starts playing a game of pulling them around by the nose.  Thus ensues the high hopes being constantly dashed, the loads of extra laundry, the tour of EVERY public restroom you come within a mile of.  And when they tire of the game -- ta da.  I wouldn't have had my feelings hurt if she had tired a year or two ago :P

Farewell, 2009.

Last night we went to a party at my sister's house with lots of my family.  Kids ran around and played, the new Christmas ping-pong table was a hit, and we put together the traditional New Year's puzzle.

Kids assembling party hats with Suzette and Grandma.






Grandma with my littlest niece.  She got SO tired they finally left early so she could go to bed.

The traditional burning of the scape goat.  Long story short, each person writes something they want to leave behind as they enter the next year and the papers are stuffed into the "goat" frame.  All is then burned.  It's a great pyrotechnic display of resolutions.

I just really love this picture of my niece.  She usually gets really grumpy in front of the camera.

I guess I should always try to photograph these girls super late at night when they're a little punchy :P  I told them to pretend they're sisters and that they like eachother.  (Yes, they actually are, but it turned into a cute picture).





Lizzie working the kinks out of Daddy's back.


By 11:30 Sabrina started begging to go home so she could go to bed.  I had her snuggle up on my lap with  my sweater around her for a while until she was ready to go play a little more.


 
Happy New year!