July 23. That is the last date I was employed. I have worked for my large hospital system for 10 years. In the second year I found out I had an autoimmune disease, which flares up from time to time. We have no sick days, so all our call-in time comes out of our PTO, which left little time left over for a vacation unless you did some very creative scheduling to get a cluster of days off.
Last year, I started feeling much worse. besides the aches and pains of the arthritis, I was having drenching cold sweats. They seemed to be worse at night, and since I worked nights they were embarrassing. Nothing like dripping sweat down on to a baby while you are starting an IV. It was like some old Dr. Kildare movie from the 40's...nurse, wipe my brow. Standing in the delivery room waiting for the babies to be born, I did not put on my waterproof gown until the last second, and even then I'd be drenched in sweat 10 minutes later.
"hot flashes" were all I heard from my primary doc. Well, i haven't had ovaries for 8 years and have been off hormones for 2, and he said no more...too big a risk for cardiac problems. Every visit I would complain about these drenching sweats. Later in the year I was having trouble talking without gum or mints in my mouth because it was so dry..."Sjogren's syndrome" In September I had a miserable 2 weeks with diarrhea...all the stool samples were negative; but I had to stay home from work in case I had c. deficile until the cultures came back.
October came. Cooler weather is always welcome. The girls and I went on our 10th annual trek to Halloween Horror nights. It's always supercrowded with long lines, but we skip all that with a fast pass (and having relatives as managers does not hurt!) I was dying....out of breath, had to sit a lot, sweating like a pig. I left about an hour before everyone else, taking my time to walk and sit and walk and sit back to my car, where I turned the a/c on full blast and got chilled because my clothes were soaked. "out of shape" was what my primary said. OK, maybe I am. hard to move around a lot with the RA knees and hips.
January 2011, I got sick...the diarrhea again, plus a upper respiratory infection. I just could not shake it. Had a horrible dry cough that lingered after 3 rounds of different antibiotics. I am stressed to the max....my son's wedding is in another week, and I hope I can get through it. They got me in to a pulmonologist the Wed. before. He does some tests in the office and is worried about my heart rate being high. He thinks I have some mild asthma, send me home with an advair discus and an inhaler. The wedding comes and I make it through the ceremony and to the reception. Again walking and sitting, one dance with the groom where I am drenched (and it's a slow song and was cut short) Sweating so much I can see the sweat marks on the back of my dress and arms. So embarrassed.
Monday I went for a CT scan of my chest...seems my lungs are only inflating 90%. The bottom 10% are not opening all the way...probably because of the Sjogrens, and the rib pain I have from coughing so much. I get a phone call from my rheumatologist stating I am severely anemic and need to see a hematologist right away. I get in 3 days later, and am admitted to the hospital overnight for blood transfusions. More labs, and the hemotologist says i have anemia of chronic disease and I am not absorbing oral iron, so now I get 3 monthly rounds of IV Iron. When i see him a week after the blood, I still feel like crap, short of breath, tachycardic. He is surprised that I am not cured from the blood. He sends me to cardiologist....seems my EKG is abnormal, I am short of breath, my blood gases are a little off and my blood pressure spikes up and down. So now I am cadizem 3 times a day, and scheuled for an echo, stress test and MUGA. I visit him to get my results, he adds a beta blocker to slow my heart rate. Go back next week, still tachy so we double the beta blocker. Go back 2 weeks later, no better, so more lab work and start a new beta blocker.
So now we are up to July 26, 2011. Still out on short term disability, but since it's been 6 months I convert to long term disability and oh, by the way, we have terminated your employment, you get to COBRA all your insurance now (at $844/month)
Not a week goes by where I haven;t had to call HR or the insurer about my STD claim, paychecks are erratic. As of today they owe me 3 weeks of pay, and I have bills that will be late.
I got a phone call from the cardiac interventionist Wednesday. He had suggested doing an ablation and pacemaker (have a friend who just had this and had multiple problems post op), but then when he was reading my chart he saw my sister had pheochromocytoma, and he wants to work me up for that, says that may be why the pulse rate and b/p don't come down. Now I get to go to Mayo Clinic! Hopefully I can pull some money out of a hat soon! For now, it's nap time.
