Got My Tiara Serviced

Now Where's My Invite??

No invitation to the royal wedding even though I am absolutely positively certain (as far as I could possibly be from cadging other people's research on Ancestry.com) I have royal blood, even if it is diluted by about four or five hundred years of peasant DNA.  I've got my imaginary tiara all polished up and shiny just for the occasion,  I am very sad I was not invited but I would have had to decline anyway because I have yet another doctor appointment tomorrow.

I saw Dr. Pepper today, and good news - no UTI on the urinalysis dip stick test.  Bad news - he can't tell if I have a kidney infection even tho I am running a fever.  He decided to poke me in The Belly.  Not such a good thing for me.  Now I am having periods of great pain, spasms from my picky pancreas, and spasms from my right kidney and ureter.  I asked him not to poke but he wasn't listening or was just going to do it anyway.  I would like him to sit for hours in this kind of hurt (even with a pain patch on) just because some decided to feel his liver.  The Xray of my kidneys didn't show any stones still there, so it will take awhile for me to build some up again.  WooHoo!!!  Not so good news, he wants to an IVP next Tuesday to check the plumbing to make sure there are no obstructions and maybe see a reason for the fever.  Sometimes soft tissue problems are hard to see on CT's and Xrays (and I can't do MRI's because of my occipital stimulator implant).

I had hives when I had an IVP in the 1990's because of kidney issues (which were really because the growing cancer in my uterus was pulling down on my right kidney).  Contrast is injected in order to visualize the flow of urine.  It was the first time I had a reaction to contrast media.  Now I have anaphylactic reactions even to minute amounts of contrast media.  Dr. Pepper ordered a pre-treatment medication protocol for me (generally prednisone and benedryl) but I am not sure if I should move forward with the scheduled test.

I am about ready to chicken out of the test. The pain and swelling and breathing problems that come from having an anaphylactic reaction are very scary. The last one I had during a MRI no one was there to treat the reaction and I had to drive myself to the urgent care a couple of blocks away, while my blood pressure was dropping and my breathing got very raspy. I managed to get myself into urgent care, and walked up to the desk and whispered (because my vocal cords were swelling) that this was an emergency reaction. I am sure the beautiful outcrop of large red hives all over my face made me quite the sight. They had me back in seconds giving me epinephrine. I now carry my epipens with me even to healthcare appointments because I could have died in the time it took me to get to my car, start it, drive 2 blocks, park it and walk into the urgent care. Just reinforced my lack of faith in the competency of local medical facilities.

I see Dr. Calm my immunologist tomorrow.  I hope he can give me some guidance on the wisdom of avoiding the IVP or the efficacy of the pre-medication pack.  I am hiving a great deal still, and definitely don't want to make it worse.

My sister and I were commiserating about how hard it is to arrange appointments, work with co-pays and deductibles, and just get responsible followup care.  I feel that my health management is pretty much up to me to keep track of all of this, and I just get tired of trying. I'm thinking give me a $10.00  prescription of antibiotics and I wouldn't need a test at all.

Adding a nice pipe organ rendering of Felix Mendelssohn's Wedding March to fend off my royal wedding blues.  However, the way I am feeling I may be up in the wee hours of this morning so maybe I will watch. Hoping you all have a Royally good time tomorrow and don't get too bored with all the coverage.