Last night about 2:00 am I woke up to my ostomy itching. Bleary-eyed, I figured it was about to spring a leak, rolled out of bed, and squinted in the dark as I flipped on the bathroom light, and proceeded to change the ostomy. It’s two days early, but then again it’s summer and sometimes when you sweat these things need to be changed more often.
As I cleaned the very itchy skin I noted bumps – lots and lots of bumps – that were quickly melting into one huge bump all around my stoma. As my eyes became more adjusted to the light I could see the skin looked bright red, and there were little white raised bumps amid all the red bumps. My face started itching, then my arms, and the rest of my stomach, and my back. Intense itching – I could almost stand there and watch the blotches appear.
I started to have a scratchy throat, and cough some, so I quickly finished changing my ostomy and went for the big dog hive drug – hydroxyzine. Since I was coughing I thought it wise to jump ahead to the stuff I knew was going to work. Living alone, I worry when these things start to happen that suddenly I’ll find myself unable to breathe, and no one will ever know.
The hives were gone within a half hour. That drug knocks me on my butt, to be blunt. I barely made it to work. I felt as though I were drunk this morning. I couldn’t walk a straight line and felt sooo, sooo groggy. And, it’s major deadline time (thus the lack of blogging.)
Standing at the sink last night and realizing I was having another hive outbreak, the tears started to come. It wasn’t that hives are such a horrible problem. It was more that I’m afraid if this keeps up they’ll decide I’m allergic to the study drug and take me out of the protocol. I really don’t think that’s the problem.
I debated about whether to even mention it to Kevin, but decided the outbreak was so intense I had to tell him. This is a study. These things need to be recorded.
He called today to check up on me and how I’m doing with the study. The film crew was there and wanted to film him making a study patient call. Since he knew I wouldn’t mind (my medical stuff is an open book) we did our little meeting over the phone for the cameras. I’m not sure if they just filmed Kevin talking on the phone, or if I was on speaker phone. No matter. I was way more worried about the hives.
Later this afternoon Kevin called me back to double check that there wasn’t anything else I wanted to discuss out of ear shot of the cameras. It was so sweet of him to think of that, although had there been I would have called him back without hesitation that morning. Grin.
During our meeting Kevin also brought up the problems with the arthritis drug. Once again I made it very clear that I can live with joint pain. If it’s really a problem, I won’t take the stuff.
It makes me so nervous.
It also makes me nervous that my asthma-like stuff seems to be very kicked up right now. I’m actually back to keeping that albuderol at arm’s length no matter what.
Later this afternoon I realized I had another new drug that we’d discussed two weeks ago when I started it, but that I forgot to put in my drug bag today. Geesh…..managing all this medication is getting to be quite a chore.
As I cleaned the very itchy skin I noted bumps – lots and lots of bumps – that were quickly melting into one huge bump all around my stoma. As my eyes became more adjusted to the light I could see the skin looked bright red, and there were little white raised bumps amid all the red bumps. My face started itching, then my arms, and the rest of my stomach, and my back. Intense itching – I could almost stand there and watch the blotches appear.
I started to have a scratchy throat, and cough some, so I quickly finished changing my ostomy and went for the big dog hive drug – hydroxyzine. Since I was coughing I thought it wise to jump ahead to the stuff I knew was going to work. Living alone, I worry when these things start to happen that suddenly I’ll find myself unable to breathe, and no one will ever know.
The hives were gone within a half hour. That drug knocks me on my butt, to be blunt. I barely made it to work. I felt as though I were drunk this morning. I couldn’t walk a straight line and felt sooo, sooo groggy. And, it’s major deadline time (thus the lack of blogging.)
Standing at the sink last night and realizing I was having another hive outbreak, the tears started to come. It wasn’t that hives are such a horrible problem. It was more that I’m afraid if this keeps up they’ll decide I’m allergic to the study drug and take me out of the protocol. I really don’t think that’s the problem.
I debated about whether to even mention it to Kevin, but decided the outbreak was so intense I had to tell him. This is a study. These things need to be recorded.
He called today to check up on me and how I’m doing with the study. The film crew was there and wanted to film him making a study patient call. Since he knew I wouldn’t mind (my medical stuff is an open book) we did our little meeting over the phone for the cameras. I’m not sure if they just filmed Kevin talking on the phone, or if I was on speaker phone. No matter. I was way more worried about the hives.
Later this afternoon Kevin called me back to double check that there wasn’t anything else I wanted to discuss out of ear shot of the cameras. It was so sweet of him to think of that, although had there been I would have called him back without hesitation that morning. Grin.
During our meeting Kevin also brought up the problems with the arthritis drug. Once again I made it very clear that I can live with joint pain. If it’s really a problem, I won’t take the stuff.
It makes me so nervous.
It also makes me nervous that my asthma-like stuff seems to be very kicked up right now. I’m actually back to keeping that albuderol at arm’s length no matter what.
Later this afternoon I realized I had another new drug that we’d discussed two weeks ago when I started it, but that I forgot to put in my drug bag today. Geesh…..managing all this medication is getting to be quite a chore.
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