The laser eye surgery went well, and it's great to be able to see perfectly, beautifully. If I had to do it all over again, I'd still get surgery, but I'd get a new humidifier on my furnace first; dry eyes are not good while healing. And no, I haven't replaced it yet! I hired two different contractors, both refused to replace it, one because he wanted to save my husband money and he figures my husband could do it himself, (umm, no he wanted to pay you to work asshole) and the other because "humidifiers can never break". (Apparently the laws of rust and physics and mechanics don't apply to these magic items.)
I can't make this shit up people.
There is a long litany of horrible strange bizarre things that have happened since, but I can't get to my laptop, and I can't make hyperlinks on email posts, so I can't really make this a decent post to describe them all.
A few things? Julius was extremely cranky, and not really babbling, or talking, and I was getting mildly freaked out to say the least. Well, after many months, we discovered that his zantac/ranitidine dose hadn't been adjusted in months, and he had gained weight/height.
The stomach acid was burning his throat and vocal cords, so he was coughing and congested and pulling on his ears and head and not talking because not one Doctor thought to check it, until I asked about it. Instead all I got were bullshit lectures about him not needing antibiotics (I never asked for any!!) And more bullshit suggestions about how he must have "developmental issues" and it was ok, and I should sign up for speech therapy.
Except within 48 hours of upping the zantac and adding the prevacid, he was talking. And not crying. And not congested. And the more he takes, the happier he gets. And once again, every Doctor I had seen was completely wrong. I'm getting tired of this.
emedicine.com has a great discussion of pediatric GERD, and all these symptoms and treatment issues are listed, including a discussion of the connection between asthma symptoms (for ex. chronic cough) and acid reflux. Why don't Docs ever read this stuff? It's recently updated, and written by experts. GAHHH
Whole thing has me thinking about Kaz and his untreated baby reflux and his current to this day asthma. Did leaving it untreated burn his bronchial tissue and scar it? Does microscopic aerosol stomach acid get into his lungs even now? Is that what causes his nosebleeds? Is this a factor in his stuttering issues and reluctance to go back to speech therapy?
Sigh....how dare I, a mere mother, speculate. I can just hear the pediatric ENTs and pulmonologists now......
This stuff drives me crazy, but just trying to help my own family is hard enough without trying to fix the whole world. Like the boneheads who keep repeating that doubling folic acid will cause colorectal cancer? The media portrayals make me want to shoot someone! Motherisk and the SOGC both have told Health Canada that it is critical to do if we want to lower the rate of stillbirth and birth defects and miscarriage and pediatric cancers.
It is especially critical because we know that most Canadians are deficient in Vitamin D, and you can take prenatals until your eyeballs fall out, but if your D is already low, you can't absorb folic acid. And there isn't very much D in prenatals to lift your levels.
But Health Canada has said no to doubling folic acid, because of the anti-supplementation, anti-science, anti-evidence based medicine asses.
Do you know how much folic acid fortified bread the average Canadian would have to eat to induce one cancerous tumour?
233.3 loaves of bread or 150 litres of real orange juice PER DAY for six months, every.single.day *
Plus some azoxymethane, a chemical used to cause cancer. And if you just eat the bread or OJ and stop taking the chemical? The tumour growth stops, shrinks in fact.
I don't eat that much bread. Not sure anyone could. I definitely don't eat giant spoonfuls of that chemical. (Tastes crappy in OJ I bet.)
But I have had a baby die of birth defects and I have had miscarriages and I would like to know why some idiotic unscientific crap is being presented as a reason to let my kids die.
Oh yeah, I forgot, no one in government gives a shit about actually saving babies lives; they just like pretending to save them at photo ops.
I don't have the energy to fight a government this stupid right now. Feel free to take up the cause.....Kaz has to get into another school, I'm done, totally fed up with their crap. We've applied to some, hoping at least one takes us. And Mac? Needs some more attention. Like structured rule making attention.
And Mr.Cotta? Driving me up a wall because his business stress is spilling over into our personal lives.
I have to go to bed.....more later, as long as you don't care about links and you are kind. I'm feeling pretty damn fragile right now.
*2mg/kg/day of folic acid in a 70 kg person, equals 140mg/day. 15 slices of bread per loaf of Dempsters. Tropicana OJ Unfuckingreal, eh?
nothing for you but commisseration and to say "hi". Miss you!
ReplyDeleteThat must be extremely frustrating - I guess I'm spoiled in my metropolitan areas and diverse medical communities. If I don't like what one doctor has to say, I just keep looking for a new one until I find one whose beliefs mesh well with my own. They've been fairly free with the antibiotics for my daughter, which I don't really like, but have also addressed my concerns about bacterial resistance.
ReplyDeleteI admire your determination to make the world better. I can barely keep track of the information necessary to try to keep my family healthy. Good luck. I'm glad to hear Julius is better though.
I know the stress of dealing with someone else's work stress. I can only hope it eases soon.
No, are you kidding me?!?! There's a link between asthma and reflux? Jesus. That's my youngest kid. Always congested. And didn't get treated properly for the reflux - doctor never thought it was a big deal. CHRIST.
ReplyDeleteWhat peaked my interest in what you mentioned was the link need connection between vitamin D and folic acid. In the latest development that I've written about for me, and you've commented, I totally forgot that my GP had told me in December that I seemed to be vitamin D deficient. So if I had just upped my folic acid intake who knows how much I'd actually be absorbing. But I started taking a multi vitamin with 400IU at the same time as I upped my folic acid. So maybe all of this in combination will work for me. Thanks for making this point. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's good to have you posting again, Aurelia, although I'm sorry for all the cr@p you're going through.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking we need a new humidifier -- it's very dry in our house -- we have one on the furnace, but turned it off because it leaks, & it looks positively grungy inside -- I don't want to touch the thing. :p
i wish you'd become a doctor. seriously.
ReplyDeletejennifer has a good point...
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you, what a lot you've had to deal with. Glad Julius is getting what he needs now.
Well, if all else fails you can hang the laundry to dry in the house. And if anyone looks at you funny, just say you're working on your ecological footprint, the latest fad.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear your eye surgery went well. Thank goodness.
Can you become a licensed doctor by experience? No? Too bad.
Glad to see a new post from you, even if your life [familiarly enough] sounds as full of stress & spectacular craptastic-ness [hey can't I make up a word here & there?] as mine is...
ReplyDeletehang in there babe!
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ReplyDelete