Scans complete and Release

Yesterday started off rough. I woke up at 7am, but as I sat up, my body quickly reminded me that “hey psssst here’s some pain”. It took a lot for me to get to my own two feet.

The radiation from yesterday definitely contributed to how I felt in general.

2nd scan was fine, took an hour and I was headed home.

The night before yesterday, my mom’s brother posted or replied to something on linked in. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I immediately messaged him that I’ve been trying to reach him for quite a long time. Not too long after, he replied back with a new number. Holy shit I was elated. He lives on Maui, and we all know last year, with the destructive fires. I tried texting him several times as the fires. I know he’s iPhone, but texts were going green. I thought the worst happened. It’s my own stupidity for just not reaching out.

So as I drove to the hospital we reconnected. But I had to sit in the scanner, but I needed to talk to him. There’s too much I needed to tell him. I told him I wanted to talk more after I was done scanning. I called him back once I got home after doing some things for work.

We caught up. It felt so good to hear his voice. I was so relieved. The last I really spoke to him was my mom’s death. He’s always been so calm, collected.

As we caught up. Everything came out. I started thinking about mom. The heartbreak. Everything. All the trauma in my past. I emotionally broke down while telling him everything. It was so hard to articulate words. The more I spoke, the more it hurt. I think it needed to come out. It’s been a heavy burden for many years. It was so hard to get through the heart attack experience. It was such a scary time. At the end of our conversation, I brought up the stupid thing I did. I put our Hepa filter in the bedroom last week. I started using it again.

By the next week, I could feel those same feeling coming back. On Monday when I was getting ready for bed, I walked into the bedroom and I could immediately feel my throat tightening up. The itchy head. Everything. I laid there thinking, what is this?! Then it dawned on me. The air purifier is contaminated. I immediately shot out of bed, and put it in “time out”.

We had 2 of these. I threw out the one we had in the bedroom thinking it was only making things worse in the old apartment, I should’ve just thrown this one out too.

It took me about 2 hours to calm down afterwards after my conversation with my uncle. It felt so good to get everything out. I won’t go into detail, but like I said, it needed to happen.

Around 6:30, Anies came home, and she was telling me about her day. I told her the exciting news about my uncle, but then, as I was talking it felt like my mother was standing behind me whispering “tell her”.

I broke down again. Sobbing. The pain has gotten to me. It’s broken me. The past 5 years HAVE NOT been easy on me. I told her what I told my uncle.

She consoled me the whole time. I’ve never felt more vulnerable and fragile in my life. Crying non stop. But again, it needed to come out. I told her where I was at with everything. I felt just crushed. Broken. She understood. I told her I felt that I was alone. That I couldn’t tell her certain things. But after all that, I told her everything. It was like a release.

I was shaking so badly afterwards. My body was screaming at me. I’m just emotionally and physically at the bottom.

Spent. Would be a good term. I’m on empty.

But as I told Anies, she’s the only reason I keep fighting. I keep pushing. It’s her.

Again. All of this needed to come out. It’s been very unhealthy of me to hold all this in. I’m proud of myself for opening up. I’m forever grateful for the people in my life who truly care about me, and look out for me. I know if my mom was still alive today, she’d be helping too.

I did a quick maintenance for work, and I went to bed. My whole body hurt. My face just hurts.

This morning I woke up feeling better from an emotional standpoint. It felt like I lost 200 lbs. Trauma is something I’ve experienced for a good portion of my life.

I looked in the mirror and noticed a ton of pustules on the right side of my cheek and neck. I know I shouldn’t. But I did anyway. I took a lot out. Almost a pea sized amount. My neck was burning before, now it’s a dumpster fire with tires. I’m so tired of this. But this is what happens. This “crud” comes out constantly. I feel terrible after it comes out. It eventually calms down, but it’s the worst feeling.

Today the 3rd scan happened. The tech told me the imaging would be ready to be read either later today or tomorrow. He made me wait 30 minutes after the scan to make sure they had everything. I hope that the scan shows us something, provides an answer to why I feel the way I feel. The non-stop inflammation I feel in my face, mouth, and neck.

I just want to beat this once in for all, I am determined to figure this out. So I called Infectious Disease. The labs that were pulled last Wednesday STILL haven’t resulted. All I wanna know is where I’m at with my WBC and my inflammation markers. When you get labs drawn, and they take awhile, doctors have access to look at what labs have resulted. Typically if 1 lab in a series is holding it up, LabCorp won’t release it.

She logged in, put me on hold. WBC is still high at 16.9, previously 20.5. My ESR is still high at 68, previously 70. CRP is now normal, whereas before it was high at 18. I told her we needed to get Kaufman to look at what else we can be doing. Before I start to normalize when I was at Mikes, but it just rollercoasters. SOMETHING is doing this and it’s not me.

As I came back from the scan the maintenance guy was coming to finish the work from our freezers water leak. Yup. I said it. We had water everywhere when I turned on the icemaker. It was just a disaster.

As he started to work on the fridge, he pulled apart the rear assembly and saw that the intake pipe was frozen. So he replaces it, some other part, and the line to the wall. And starts up the fridge but lets it sit. He replaced a cartridge in my bathroom as it has a problem where you’ll be taking a shower and it periodically would go scalding hot, back to the normal.

He came back to the fridge, and the line was immediately froze up again. He then pulled the tray completely out. There was a piece of brown glass lodged where the intake hose of the waterline goes into the icemaker. So whoever lived here last, must have wanted a beer cold fast. Forgot about it. Boom. Exploded beer all over the freezer. Only thing we could think of. I’m just glad he went the extra mile to test this. Otherwise we would be back to this in a week, minimum.

So maybe that’s 2 potential things that were making me sick. Like I said. Something is doing this to me from an environmental perspective.

I have my IVIg Monday, and with that, labs. Hopefully the next few days and I continue to trend downward, but I also need to make sure Infectious Disease stays engaged. That’s a key part.

Later this evening, I kept staring at the old air purifier, and just went with my gut. I got up, emptied the tank, and hauled it to the elevator (yeah yeah I’m not supposed to). As I was carrying the unit, even though the tank is empty, there is still water inside the unit. Then that’s when I started to notice this really gross water leaking from the bottom of the unit. As I carried it further, the more came out. I stopped to rest right before the basement garage door and set the unit down on the floor. I then noticed what color the water was. It was super dark, with black chunks/sludge coming out.

After I felt up to it, I struggled my way to the dumpster and threw it away. As I was walking back I noticed a water trail, same stuff was coming out, but it was really gross. Hopefully I’m right. I just threw out our $650 air purifier that I got 2 years ago to “help” me when I was sitting in the living room.

Before we moved, I bought all brand new filters after we found out about the mold. I should’ve just tossed it then. God I’m so stupid with certain things sometimes. Again, to my only defense, mold causes weird issues with thinking, and short term memory.

As I walked inside our apartment, I heard the ice maker struggling to cycle. That’s when I started hearing water hit the floor. Great.

I pulled the fridge out of the cubby/hole and voila, more water sitting on the floor. Back to square one. Good thing I heard it as I walked in, otherwise, the original probably would’ve come back, and all maintenances hard work would’ve been for nothing. Anies grabbed a towel and helped soak up the water, it wasn’t much, but at the same time, it was a considerable amount of water. I took pictures of it, and sent an email to the assistant property manager asking her to either replace the maker, or the fridge at this point.

I looked where the line entered the back of the fridge and saw the line half frozen, and could definitely see that was the source of the leak. Once I saw that, I turned off the water supply to the fridge on the valve on the side of the wall, then opened the freezer and shut off the maker, then dumped like 12 ice cubes from the tray. For it sitting there fixed for at least 10 hours, there’s definitely something wrong with the maker itself.

Not the way I wanted today to end. I just want a safe place where our home isn’t hurting us. Having to endure what we did at Parc can’t happen here. Whatever I can do to ensure that, I will.