Pre-OP and 1 Week Left

Last week I returned to Dr. Dobbs. Not sure why they scheduled a follow-up, but I went regardless. Scan did rule out any involvement in my jaw, but I still don’t believe it. As time has gone on, my face has been swelling more, as well as the corners of my lips hurt like crazy.

That’s when Dr. Dobbs suggested that this could be fungal. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. So he stared me on Fluconazole, Nystatin rinse, & Nystatin ointment. By Sunday, things feel strangely different. The burning feeling that I’ve had in my face, mouth, ears, and neck has somewhat calmed down. It’s way too early to say anything else other than that. I’ve been at this point way too many times.

This morning, I went to my pre-op appointment with Hepworth. The only difference is, new staff. New NP. She was very nice, vs the contrasting NP’s he’s had in the past. Rebekah sucked. Never listened. Just ran interference. Thankfully she left last year. Alison strangely enough, started out awesome, but became a real asshole real quick. I still remember her attempting to discharge me from the practice. Nice try. I’m just glad both of them can’t gaslight me anymore. Or delay anything any further. Kind of a relief.

The appointment was just really a formality. But it was different. She actually ordered the use of my portocath, and even ordered post op ketamine. She said to have the conversation with the anesthesiologist, but it sounds like it will be easier to get vs. trying to get it for my kidney stone removal. As I told the new NP, I know what to expect. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to do this. Hopefully when October 25th comes, and I can talk to Hepworth before surgery, hopefully we can lay down all the areas he needs to address, and focus on. I really don’t want to go through this anymore. I really hope this is the last surgery.

I’m still waiting for Anthem to tell me if the surgery is approved, but I’m pretty sure it will.

As I was driving into work, the nurse that came to our house when I was on home antibiotics for the Lyme texted me, saying that my home IVIg was approved. What was even better, is that I’m staying on Octagam. I’m so excited. Not having to change meds #1, and #2, not having to step foot in the infusion center ever again. The bonus would be having Susie come again. She’s pretty cool. Awesome vibe. Understanding. Just an all around awesome nurse. Good nurses like her, have become more and more rare. I had to have Carly send the order for the 350ml/h infusion rate, I’m sure she will get that sent over. Carly is pretty awesome too.

So basically it’s a little more than a week left before surgery. Coming back to work has been a good distraction, and being able to accrue some vacation/sick time will be useful for when I have to go back out on STD. When the paychecks dropped by $1,000, that hurt.

I did withdraw $5k from my 401k, and put it in savings. I’ll need to use that to supplement my shortfalls if my STD has to extend beyond 4 weeks, I really hope that won’t be the case.

The GoFundMe has been extremely helpful in terms of getting rid of the overdue bills, helping pay for the ketamine, and shaving off a pretty good chunk of debt from one of 3 credit cards.

Hopefully next year, my bonus will take out the remaining balance of the Costco card, and put the Cabela’s card to $0. From credit cards, all that’s left would be the United card. Hopefully if I can pay these off, I can use the balance transfer on the Costco card. The nice thing is, that is I can transfer debt to it @ 0% for 12 months. When the average interest rate of a credit card is 25%, I’m literally paying almost $1,000 a month in just interest. It’s been extremely hard to even make a dent in it, since I keep having to use them on top of everything else.

Maybe by the end of 2024, I’ll have all the credit card debt gone, and I can turn my focus to paying off the debt consolidation loans from the medical debt from 2017, until 2021.

I would love to finally start saving for a house, condo, townhome, cardboard box. Now that I’m free from the financial slavery of child support.

I would love to finally be in the black for once. I would love to have some sort of financial security for once. I just need this medical shit to stop. I’m tired of being stuck in this revolving door.

I would also love to use my vacation time for just that. Vacation. Getting out of here for a long weekend. Doing the things Aggie and I started to do in 2016, before my body started to break down.

I know it’s supposed to be 1 day at a time, but my patience has really worn down to nothing.

I did manage to finally go out last weekend with Mike. It was incredible. I loved every minute of it. It was just nice to NOT be home. Staring at the same 4 walls. I don’t need to make all these plans or set all these goals. The only thing I want to accomplish is to not be home. I’ll take being in the middle of nowhere playing Nintendo, or watching movies. I don’t need to hike a bajillion miles.