We went to our home away from home,the Manchester VA this morning for the results from Rick's blood work a couple weeks ago. They tested him for everything-cortisol levels,testosterone levels, adrenal fatigue syndrome,etc. Rick has had been very tired doing anything, even walking. He also has has a noted lack of endurance and strength. Not to mention a lack of libido.
Well, his cortisol levels were not too bad,and the Dr did not feel it necessary to put him on steroids,though he did say that if Rick became very ill with the flu or the like that he would want to give him an injection to help him bounce back. No adrenal fatigue syndrome. However...his testosterone is extremely low.
We had always assumed that his being tired had to do with the amount of medication he takes ( which we figured out to slightly over 1,000 pills a month),and his libido has been an issue since he got back from Iraq. It is a symptom of PTSD and TBI. We never thought about hormonal levels,since he's only 47. Well, surprise! His TBI, even though mild,has caused his pituitary gland to not secrete testosterone correctly.
Needless to say,we were both relieved that the Dr found the cause of these problems. Starting tonight, Rick starts using a hormone patch,which he will change every night. If the patch causes any skin irritation,then they will use a topical gel. It should take about 2 weeks before he notices any big changes. This is the approximate time it takes to get fully into the blood stream. Rick is very anxious to start feeling more like his old self.
The only other news we have had is regarding his eyes. The specialist we saw last week said that he felt the double vision that Rick is experiencing was caused by the stroke,and because it's not an eye but a brain issue,there is nothing they can do. It is extremely rare for a patient who suffers from double vision from a stroke to continue to see double.Normally that goes away after a period of time. There is a small chance it could still go away,but because it's been over a year now,it's not likely. I joked, " You don't do anything halfway,do you?"
We go to see an Orthopedist in Boston at the end of the month for a consult. We still don't know for sure what is going on with his knees-what are the dark spots in his bones? Does he have rheumetoid arthritis? They are still considering knee surgery. I hope so. Both knees are so swollen that now his ankles are starting to swell,and the pain can get so bad that it makes him nauseous. This happens even though he takes 6 doses of morphine a day for it. Right now, it does nothing for the pain. If only they can get rid of some it! It would mean so much for his quality of life. Hopefully we will get some answers.
We are also waiting for the results of the sleep study.
As always,many questions, but the answers are taking time in coming.
Showing posts with label stroke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stroke. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Appointments,Appointments....
Has it already been almost a week since I blogged? I didn't think that much time had gone by already.
We have been fairly busy this last week and a half,so today I get to play catch up.
Rick has had alot of appts during this last month,and we added three more to that list.
We were hoping when he saw the orthopedic surgeon for his knees that we might get a surgery date. Well, much to our disappointment,that didn't happen. His dislocated kneecap will probably go unfixed. The problem is he had bad arthritis in both knees and he is almost 47. Apparently,they usually do this kind of surgery on younger people before the arthritis gets bad. The success rate goes down when the age and arthritis level goes up. OK. The arthritis is causing the terrible swelling in his knees-a couple month ago they drained 50cc's of fluid out of his left one. The MRI also showed a tear in his left ligament. However,because he had meniscus removed from both his knees ( one in the late 80's,the other in early 90's-stemming from his Airborne days),they cannot be sure if it is actually a tear,or if that is just what it now looks like from having some meniscus removed. They also saw some dark spots on his bone,that could be areas of dead bone,so he ordered a Rosenberg xray of both his knees (which we have done)and a bone scan (which we will do Aug 17). From there they will make a determination as to what they can do,it there is indeed anything they can do.
Rick says he just wants a firm diagnosis,and if he has to live with the pain he is in,then he can deal with it. He just doesn't want to hold out hope for some relief if there is none forthcoming. We have applied for a handicap placard for the rearview mirror of the car. Some days it will come in very handy so he doesn't have to walk so far to the store. Once he's in,he uses the cart to take as much weight as possible off his legs,and it helps. It took awhile to get him to want to get the placard,and he is adamant that he does not want to use the little scooters that people with walking disabilities have.We will only use the placard on his bad days.
Rick has also started speech pathology. The goal is to get him to use techniques to help his memory. He has had one appointment, so it was spent working on word memorization. She would say several pairs of words. Some of them were associated with each other,and others weren't. He did OK,but missed a few. Then she read him a paragraph,and he had to tell her what it was about. It had specific details in it. He got the jist of the story right,but omitted most of the major details. He also had to tell her all the words he could think of that began with a certain letter in the span of a minute,etc. Part of the problem is that he spent a good part of the time trying remembering what he already said so he wouldn't repeat it,that he only was able to come up 4 or 5 words.
His goal for his next appt is that he has to come up with a method of keeping a daily list,whether it be pen and paper,PDA,or a small recorder. It has to be something that he will keep with him at all times,however. He has to make a daily list,and he had to try not to rely on me to remember his goals for the day. We have all three techniques,the problem is getting him to remember to use them. And unfortunately,I don't always remember to remind him,either.
This month our appt load isn't' quite so heavy:
August 4- EEG in Jamaica Plain,MA. He had to stay up past midnight so he would be really tired and start to fall asleep.His neuro TBI doctor wanted this set up. We don't have results on this yet.
August 11 ( Happy Birthday,Rick!)- Neuro TBI appt. The dr is determining what physical problems were cause by his brain injury. So far they determined he has lost some taste and smell,but only a small amount.He also has a speech pathology session.
August 17-Speech pathology and the bone scan.
August 19-Sleep study. His neuro TBI dr ordered this because ever since he came home he snores like there is no tomorrow,and they are concerned that he might have sleep apnea.
August 21-Neuro Opthamology in Jamaica Plain,MA. When Rick got back home, he noticed his distance vision was a bit off,somewhat doubled. We chalked it up to getting older,and needing glasses,and glasses did help out. He also had some sensitivity to light.Once he had his stroke ( a year ago Aug 4) his double vision worsened,and now he sees things in a 3D effect all the time. He claims he is getting used to it. He also has to wear sunglasses outside,in stores, etc. They have tried glasses,drops,etc,and so far nothing has worked. He had a test that determined that his has "cracks" in his eye lenses,which they feel is accounting for the problem with the vision. There is a theory that this might have been caused by the head injury,so this Dr is going to work with Rick to see if there is something they can do to fix this problem,and,we hope,get a definite diagnosis as to how this occurred. If they can't work it out with another kind of eye drop,then they might remove his lenses and replace them with plastic ones. However, it might not work.
August 24-Cornea clinic at Jamaica Plain,MA. His other eye doctor makes a follow up.
Of course, some of these appts could spur on others, but so far that is our agenda for the month.
We have been fairly busy this last week and a half,so today I get to play catch up.
Rick has had alot of appts during this last month,and we added three more to that list.
We were hoping when he saw the orthopedic surgeon for his knees that we might get a surgery date. Well, much to our disappointment,that didn't happen. His dislocated kneecap will probably go unfixed. The problem is he had bad arthritis in both knees and he is almost 47. Apparently,they usually do this kind of surgery on younger people before the arthritis gets bad. The success rate goes down when the age and arthritis level goes up. OK. The arthritis is causing the terrible swelling in his knees-a couple month ago they drained 50cc's of fluid out of his left one. The MRI also showed a tear in his left ligament. However,because he had meniscus removed from both his knees ( one in the late 80's,the other in early 90's-stemming from his Airborne days),they cannot be sure if it is actually a tear,or if that is just what it now looks like from having some meniscus removed. They also saw some dark spots on his bone,that could be areas of dead bone,so he ordered a Rosenberg xray of both his knees (which we have done)and a bone scan (which we will do Aug 17). From there they will make a determination as to what they can do,it there is indeed anything they can do.
Rick says he just wants a firm diagnosis,and if he has to live with the pain he is in,then he can deal with it. He just doesn't want to hold out hope for some relief if there is none forthcoming. We have applied for a handicap placard for the rearview mirror of the car. Some days it will come in very handy so he doesn't have to walk so far to the store. Once he's in,he uses the cart to take as much weight as possible off his legs,and it helps. It took awhile to get him to want to get the placard,and he is adamant that he does not want to use the little scooters that people with walking disabilities have.We will only use the placard on his bad days.
Rick has also started speech pathology. The goal is to get him to use techniques to help his memory. He has had one appointment, so it was spent working on word memorization. She would say several pairs of words. Some of them were associated with each other,and others weren't. He did OK,but missed a few. Then she read him a paragraph,and he had to tell her what it was about. It had specific details in it. He got the jist of the story right,but omitted most of the major details. He also had to tell her all the words he could think of that began with a certain letter in the span of a minute,etc. Part of the problem is that he spent a good part of the time trying remembering what he already said so he wouldn't repeat it,that he only was able to come up 4 or 5 words.
His goal for his next appt is that he has to come up with a method of keeping a daily list,whether it be pen and paper,PDA,or a small recorder. It has to be something that he will keep with him at all times,however. He has to make a daily list,and he had to try not to rely on me to remember his goals for the day. We have all three techniques,the problem is getting him to remember to use them. And unfortunately,I don't always remember to remind him,either.
This month our appt load isn't' quite so heavy:
August 4- EEG in Jamaica Plain,MA. He had to stay up past midnight so he would be really tired and start to fall asleep.His neuro TBI doctor wanted this set up. We don't have results on this yet.
August 11 ( Happy Birthday,Rick!)- Neuro TBI appt. The dr is determining what physical problems were cause by his brain injury. So far they determined he has lost some taste and smell,but only a small amount.He also has a speech pathology session.
August 17-Speech pathology and the bone scan.
August 19-Sleep study. His neuro TBI dr ordered this because ever since he came home he snores like there is no tomorrow,and they are concerned that he might have sleep apnea.
August 21-Neuro Opthamology in Jamaica Plain,MA. When Rick got back home, he noticed his distance vision was a bit off,somewhat doubled. We chalked it up to getting older,and needing glasses,and glasses did help out. He also had some sensitivity to light.Once he had his stroke ( a year ago Aug 4) his double vision worsened,and now he sees things in a 3D effect all the time. He claims he is getting used to it. He also has to wear sunglasses outside,in stores, etc. They have tried glasses,drops,etc,and so far nothing has worked. He had a test that determined that his has "cracks" in his eye lenses,which they feel is accounting for the problem with the vision. There is a theory that this might have been caused by the head injury,so this Dr is going to work with Rick to see if there is something they can do to fix this problem,and,we hope,get a definite diagnosis as to how this occurred. If they can't work it out with another kind of eye drop,then they might remove his lenses and replace them with plastic ones. However, it might not work.
August 24-Cornea clinic at Jamaica Plain,MA. His other eye doctor makes a follow up.
Of course, some of these appts could spur on others, but so far that is our agenda for the month.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Yesterday was a fairly quiet Father's Day. My mom came up to the house to see how we remodeled Zach's room. Zach wanted it painted red,so we did that,put down laminate floors,new mopboards,new molding around the door,and Rick built a new closet. We had a nice visit. Zach made Rick a Father's Day card,and tied it to the back of our youngest cat,Omar. So the card was made special feline delivery. Rick and I though that was pretty funny!
Today we had to go to the Veteran's Hospital in Jamacia Plain,MA. Rick had some tests done a couple of weeks ago on his eyes. When he got home from Iraq,he was having some problem with distance,things looked out of focus. He also had some sensitivity to light. He got glasses,and that seemed to help with his sight. Then after he had a stroke last August, he started seeing things double. He explains it like seeing in 3D. Things are not double side by side.He looks at an object,and sees 1 1/3 of it.So he has been seeing alot of eye doctors to figure out why he sees like this,and why it's in both eyes instead of one. Apparently,the lenses is Rick's eyes are slightly misshapen. They feel it may have been caused initially by the RPG attack he was in,then the stroke made it worse. They have not confirmed this yet,though. He has to try some eye drops to make the pupils smaller (the abnormalities on his lenses are more pronounced when his eyes are dilated). If that doesn't work,they may do what is basically a cataract operation-removest his lenses and replace them with plastic ones. So we will see!Hopefully the drops will work.
We will be going on a camping trip to the beautiful Great North Woods of NH until Friday,so I won't be blogging until sometime over the weekend. Hopefully there won't be much rain up there!
Today we had to go to the Veteran's Hospital in Jamacia Plain,MA. Rick had some tests done a couple of weeks ago on his eyes. When he got home from Iraq,he was having some problem with distance,things looked out of focus. He also had some sensitivity to light. He got glasses,and that seemed to help with his sight. Then after he had a stroke last August, he started seeing things double. He explains it like seeing in 3D. Things are not double side by side.He looks at an object,and sees 1 1/3 of it.So he has been seeing alot of eye doctors to figure out why he sees like this,and why it's in both eyes instead of one. Apparently,the lenses is Rick's eyes are slightly misshapen. They feel it may have been caused initially by the RPG attack he was in,then the stroke made it worse. They have not confirmed this yet,though. He has to try some eye drops to make the pupils smaller (the abnormalities on his lenses are more pronounced when his eyes are dilated). If that doesn't work,they may do what is basically a cataract operation-removest his lenses and replace them with plastic ones. So we will see!Hopefully the drops will work.
We will be going on a camping trip to the beautiful Great North Woods of NH until Friday,so I won't be blogging until sometime over the weekend. Hopefully there won't be much rain up there!
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