favorite color anyone? Blue, purple, green, yellow?

Hi everyone,

Sorry I haven't checked in for a while, but my concentration is really lacking and its been truly difficult to get anything done.  What would normally take me about a 1/2 hour to write is now taking 3 to 4 hours, since I either get sleepy and doze off at my desk or I just stare at the screen and can't think.  As difficult a decision it was for me I finally ended up having to take a leave of absence from school too. Especially since I have only taken one real break the entire time from starting on my associates at age 39 (after getting divorced and deciding to start my life over....this was even before I had ever thought of having bariatric surgery) and I'm half-way through to achieving my masters (MBA). I have never been able to use the degrees, but always thought, even after getting sick, that once I got past all this, the more education the better to make up for lack of experience, but at this point finishing may be a moot point and just for me, if I ever get to go back.

There actually isn't a lot to tell. Once I was finally able to get the last set of Doppler ultrasounds done that my doctor wanted of my legs, she declared I am officially diagnosed with Lymphedema and even though I have not been driving since around February because of the narcotic pain meds, its now official with the Lymphedema that I can no longer drive a car.  I guess there is too much risk of putting others in danger, such as if I got a cramp in my foot while driving.

Since my last emergency adventure, that left me in the hospital from July 27 through August 1 because my potassium level was too low, the doctors have been switching up medications and dosage amounts, but it is wreaking some havoc. The experience as a whole last time truly scared me, so it seems I'm having a lot of panic attacks, especially when the pain begins to get severe.

My doctor has had me on Celexa now for almost a month, but I don't notice any difference.  On Monday, the 27th of August I had a really bad episode of pain again (although strange, I had not even eaten anything) and ended up having to go to the emergency room.  But, of course, after being there for 3 hours and finally getting to see a doctor, the pain medication I had taken before going to the hospital finally kicked in and it subsided, so they just drew some blood and sent me home. My internal medicine doctor added Xanax for me to take during those really bad times, to see if it can keep me calmed down and avoid the ER route until they figure this all out. She called it my short-term security blanket and if the Celexa doesn't start doing something she will increase the dose.  I am also scheduled for a wonderful colonoscopy on the 25th of Sept. with my gastroenterologist. Double checking all bases, which is good, but not looking forward to drinking the stuff they make you drink the day before....eeewwwww.

My pain medicine doctor decided to stop the Neurontin and switch me over to Lyrica, which was fine for the pain, but I was sleepwalking and scaring the hell out of my husband. With the decision made, that was way too dangerous, they took me back off the Lyrica and went for a little while with nothing...but considering I am already down to 120lbs., the nausea and vomiting flaring back up into full gear was not a good thing and they knew they had to do something, or I would end up on a feeding tube. So now, we are trying to do just a smaller dose of the Neurontin.  I was up to 3x a day before, but now my body cant even seem to handle once a day.  I'm still falling, getting bruises and scrapes I don't remember,  knocking into things or knocking stuff over, plus I have fallen out of bed 4 times in just the past 2 weeks. Yesterday's fall was so bad, I didn't get up right away thinking I might have broken my arm. Its not broken, but it is sore, sore, sore and the bruises are coming, along with bruises on my knee, my hip, my upper thigh, my shoulder blade....yeah, ya could say I did a pretty good job.