Tag fall

Playing my favorite game: ER or urgent care?

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Yesterday, in a strange turn of events, I had a fall. More of a trip.

But let’s back up. Remember that tire incident from my last post? The day after that post (which was not the same day as the incident) I came down with an ailment that still has me congested and softly coughing.

I have to wonder if I had COVID.

It’s only been the last few days that I’ve felt myself. And that might contribute to the perfect storm that put me in this position.

I forgot to take my baclofen yesterday and all I had before I went to pick up Nan for our errands was coffee and a couple Munchkins. (With Eva on vacation, those of us left behind had to take the dog to the Dunkin Drive Thru window.) I even forgot to take my blood pressure.

When I got home, it was probably 11:40. I had coffee from Panera and groceries in the car, as well as some plastic bins from the dollar store to organize the deep freezer.

I brought the coffee in first and got the dog out of the crate. The backyard had a lot of dog poo, and I wasn’t sure she peed.

So I put on her collar and her prong, leashed her up and checked for dogs and people. We went across the yard.., and the mailman popped off a porch four houses down.

I had not put on my hands-free, waist, back-up leash. So I dropped to my knees to better control the dog lunging at the mail carrier. I got her settled (the dog, not the mail lady) and put her back in the house.

I went to the store to get the items from the dollar store. The mail lady approached me to give me the mail. I accepted it, placing it in the large-ish plastic basin containing all the items from the dollar store.

I turned, got my foot caught on the dog’s outdoor place stay, and fell. I fell with a bit of a twist, landing both on my stuff and on my right thumb.

Assymmetry percentage

I landed on the sidewalk and along the steps.

I smashed the basin. It never even made it into the house.

The fall probably happened around 12:20. My watch didn’t register it as a hard fall, probably because the basin broke my fall and prevented more serious injury.

The thumb hurt but it moved well, so I took my Baclofen, had some lunch and sat down for a while. My phone suggested my gait had been awful that day.

Thumb directly after accident

At 5 p.m., I did a shift as the front counter bagger at Chick-Fil-A. 4 hours.

Had dinner. Came home. Went to bed.

Woke suddenly in the middle of the night. My thumb hurt and it was bending less than it was earlier. I went back to sleep, planning to go to urgent care in the morning. The recycling truck came around at a bit after 4 a.m., woke me, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided that even though I got less than five hours sleep I would just get up.

When I looked at my phone, I noticed a series of notifications. Apparently, my heart rate had been high while I was sleeping. Since I had that afib incident after my falls in 2023, I did an ecg on my phone. It was fine.

I headed for the bathroom. And as soon as I opened my bedroom door, I had to fight not to urinate on myself. With no warning. As I got closer to the bathroom, it was harder not to lose control– and in the end I didn’t really make it.

Thumb in the ER

Now my thumb would not bend at all.

I began to wonder: Do I have too many complexities for Urgent Care? With my disability and my heart history…

At 5:30 a.m., I decided to bite the bullet and walk to the ER.

A ten-lead echocardiogram was normal. Thumb shows a possible chip fracture.

I came home and called my neurologist, who is also a physiatrist, leaving a message in case she wanted to see me since I had a weird combination of symptoms. The person who assisted me asked me all sorts of questions.

While on hold with their office, I looked up the number for the Institute for Hand and Upper Extremity Rehabilitaton. I have worked with their therapists for two of my previous finger injuries on my right hand. They are now closed.

The person on the line with me from the neurologist’s office suggested I call the orthopedic specialist, especially since it’s the same doctor whom I consulted with when I broke my ankle ten years ago. The ER advised I call them if it got worse or did not improve.

But I would like to confirm whether or not it is broken and get a better treatment plan than this huge, cheap splint the ER gave me.

The person on the phone at the ortho’s office assured me that it was smart to be seen, right away, versus waiting for time to pass. She even had a cancellation for tomorrow morning.

So I guess we’ll have more updates tomorrow.

Well… That’s a first

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Every week, usually during the weekend, I walk down to my local CVS. It’s about a half mile away, and between my daughter and I, we usually have a prescription to retrieve. And if you buy items at CVS regularly, it triggers a variety of digital coupons that can have a domino effect and yield good deals.

Today I had about $5 in ExtraBucks, plus a $2 off a $12 purchase, plus some digital manufacturer coupons in the CVS app, and some product-specific CVS coupons that I planned to add to a 30% your full-price purchase coupon.

I bought a 90 count of Total Home kitchen trash bags (which were similar in price to a 100 bag box at Target), plus eight-gallon trash bags that were expensive for the number of bags in the box. BUT– I had a $5 off $15 coupon for Total Home trash liners AND the 30% total full-price purchase coupon, and the $20 box of 13-gallon bags would guarantee I hit the minimum after the 30% reduction.

Eva needed large bandages and some first aid cream, which was also full price. My bill came to about $43 and after coupons and discounts was $20.31.

On the walk home, I stumbled walking up my least favorite hill. I could feel my feet dragging but just didn’t have the strength to fight them. Here’s the odd thing– I lost my balance because my toes were dragging upward along the sidewalk. My arms went out, and normally at this point I do a bit of a corkscrew roll to minimize the damage as I attempt to fling myself onto grass.

But today something very unusual happened.

I recovered my balance. My hands hit the ground, but my body bent more like a hinge instead of crashing into the concrete. I didn’t even scrape my palms. I bent; I stood up. I walked home.

Never in my life have I recovered my balance once I put out my hands and braced for the fall.

Never. Ever.

Now, when I got up this morning, I gave myself a stern talking to because I did not go to 8:30 a.m. Boot Camp with Greg at Apex, my favorite local private gym. My back hurt and I was groggy and a host of other excuses. So I made myself promise that I would walk to CVS.

I need to do some straight leg deadlifts and other exercises for my back and legs but I’m not that motivated yet. And I stumbled at home trying to walk around the vacuum cleaner at the bottom of the stairs (Eva got a new vacuum cleaner, well, her third of the same model) and tripped after the CVS trip over a huge cardboard box right in front of my eyes. But neither led to a fall. Let me repeat, neither led to a fall.

I’m having more leg, hip and knee pain than usual, perhaps due to the dampness, the rain and the drop in temperature. Who knows?

I checked my phone and before I left for CVS in the first place my walking asymmetry spiked to 36% and before and after the near-miss fall registered at 2%. Now, let me reiterate (as my favorite doctor would say) that these phone figures are far from precise or even scientific, but they do seem to accurately reflect trends in my gait. My fall risk/walking steadiness consistently gets classified as “okay.”

But when you look at the last six months, you can see a drop. And while both are still within the range for “okay,” I wonder about it.

And for the record, last night, at my four-hour shift for my very part-time job that has somehow become 23 hours a week (thanks to some staffing issues and I can understand that), I worked at least five different positions.

I did some standing still, then a lot of walking around across a nice stretch of distance, and then I stood still some more until 2.5 hours into my shift, I was asked to cover a break delivering food inside the restaurant. At the beginning of that change, twice over the first five minutes, the asymmetry registered as seven percent. Did I notice it? No. Did it happen beyond those two instances? No. And after that 30 minutes, I went back to a position where I primarily stood still but also did a lot of stocking which meant moving to various storage locations and lifting boxes of various weights.

And the pace of the restaurant means my heart rate is usually between 120-130 for my whole shift. I noticed last night it reached 172 bpm. That’s my maximum heart rate at my age! My heart is supposed to be physically incapable of doing more than 170 bpm.

As I promised my doctor, I have been taking my allergy medicine, watching my blood pressure and taking the appropriate prescriptions and taking my baclofen. I’ve been good about taking at least 10 mg before my shifts.

PS– the anecdotal evidence is mounting that the Twinings Sleep + vanilla and cinnamon tea with melatonin not only tastes like a baked good, but it also increases the amount of deep sleep I get. I will still keep Traditional Medicinals Valerian in my rotation, but Twinings is a definite win.

PPS– I ate almost a whole can of salt & vinegar Pringles last night and gained a pound overnight. And because of how Omada measures your success as an average of the whole week, they have my weight listed as 163.5. It was 161.5 yesterday and 162.5 today.

The Ups and Downs of February

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Lately, I’ve felt like nothing about my life is out-of-the-ordinary or interesting. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not.

But this week has been a humdinger. On Monday night, I came home from my supplementary part-time job (because as I’ve heard other people phrase it, “Winter is a hard time for small business” and I found what I think might be an awesome 10-hour-a-week job for me– if my body can handle it). I took a few Tylenol PM because my body was aching and I hadn’t used that particular medication in a long time. But, it’s spring kinda-sorta, and I haven’t been consistent with any antihistamines so I choked on the damn pills because of the allergy-related mucus.

Now, that’s not the end of the world, except I managed to recoil away from the bathroom sink and hit my face on the wooden shelf we use as a cabinet. I hit right along the cheekbone and it hurt like heck and managed to leave a narrow bruise almost parallel to my nose.

Now– some update/backstory as I move forward here– I am two months in to my three-month program at St. Luke’s medical fitness program Thrive. I have worked with several of the trainers (Alex, Claudia, Jim) and I can feel a difference since I returned to the gym. And this week I trained with Alex after several weeks primarily with Jim and Alex noticed I needed to up a bunch of my weights and he’s looking into changing my program.

Jim taught me some stretches for my IT band, because I’ve been having some new issues with spasms in that region, and my chiropractor had determined during our visit Wednesday that I had locked up my right knee. That’s totally new.

My blood pressure and heart rate has been weird. My heartrate has been high at random periods and at one point on Monday it dropped from 120 to 60 and went back up to 130 which could be a sign of afib. And then my blood pressure would come in at 120/65, which normally my blood pressure is 115/70 or 95/65 and now it’s blending the two.

I really have the feeling that to keep my weight and blood pressure under control I have to be very meticulous about what I eat. I am still struggling with that same five pounds. If I do my strength training and my workouts, walk at least 5,000 steps a day, and eat what a lot of people would call “clean” foods, I can lose weight and keep my blood pressure low (with an occasional salty snack when it dips too low). But even if I skip a workout, the weight comes back. It got so frustrating– that nothing ever changes– that I stopped tracking in my fancy fitness journal. And if I’m discouraged now, what happens in April when my program ends?

Thursday evening I had another great workout with Alex. I was mentioning that it had been almost two years to the day since I had my afib incident. I’m really starting to wonder if the change in the weather, and allergies, has something more to do with all this.

Thursday night I came home, showered, and went to bed, only to discover that one of the household cats was in my room and did not want to be. So I got up to let her out. And when I turned to get back into bed I don’t know if I tripped over something or if I misjudged where the space was to walk, but I fell.

Onto a stainless steel litter box.

Hard.

I took a photo of the bruise on the back of my knee today (it’s Sunday) and it’s blurry because it’s at a strange angle. I have another on my arm, that one’s less vivid but bigger.

On Friday, I did a lot of work for Parisian Phoenix Publishing and even agreed to pick up some extra hours Saturday night at the part-time job. Then, I had a really nice business meeting to brainstorm some strategy for 2025 and that included a beer and some wings (and some really yummy thin Triscuits. I had never had thin Triscuits before).

But then Saturday, I woke up with some sort of gastrointestinal issue. It didn’t seem severe enough to be a stomach bug, but I couldn’t come up with any food items that would have given me food poisoning. So I found someone to cover my shift and slept most of the day (and read Fourth Wing when I was awake).

Because I barely moved yesterday my body is painfully protesting walking. My lower body muscles don’t receive messages from my brain like they are supposed to, that’s due to the cerebral palsy. When I have a lazy day like I did yesterday, my legs literally forget what to do. There will be stretching today.

And it’s interesting that I think spring might have something to do with the stuff that keeps happening in March– because March is Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month.

Unexplained falls and bad timing

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I can’t even begin to articulate what I am feeling these days because what I’m feeling is a range of highs and lows.

I’m editing books, planning presentations, talking with writers about their books—- and still dealing with blood pressure fluctuations and high heart rate notifications.

We haven’t had heat so far this winter and the outdoor temperature this week has been highs of the low thirties and lows in the twenties. The interior of my home has been 45 degrees in the morning.

With any luck, the part for the furnace will arrive tomorrow and my repair is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

And even that, I handled well. Until I fell this morning. A real fall. An unexplained fall.

My AppleWatch didn’t even notice and I hit my head hard enough I scared myself.

I had made myself a beautiful egg and yellow pepper omelette that ended up on the floor with me. I ate it anyway.

I turned to carry my plate into the dining room and stumbled and went down as if I didn’t even at feet beyond my ankles.

I felt so vulnerable for the rest of the day I curled up on the couch and alternated between episodes of 1,000 Pound Sisters and The Sopranos.

Never a good idea to perform CPR on oneself

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I have been staring at this blank screen for two days– staring at nothing but a title. Yes, the one you see up there.

As many of you already know I am a perpetual fall risk.

I have been trying for about two years to study and track when I fall. I have monitored the effects of my blood pressure, my allergies and even sodium, and now upon looking at the fall data from my Apple Watch I suspect hormones and the full moon may have an impact. Like the ocean and the tides, I suppose.

Sunporch as a cat haven

It has been almost a year since I bought this Apple Watch and it has been a year, a week and a couple days since I was last discharged from the hospital– my first ever hospitalization for a fall.

On Sunday, I went out to my sunporch, and a cat had vomited on one of my new chairs so I went to clean it. And after scrubbing the cat vomit out of the chair, I went to throw it into the garbage can that we keep on the porch as part of our package opening station.

Now, this is where I understand but I don’t understand. I knew and saw that the metal supports for one of the dog’s place-stay platforms were in front of the garbage can. Somehow, I caught my foot on it (Can we blame cerebral palsy or could it have happened to anyone?) and I tripped. Unable to catch my balance, I fell.

Sunporch last Christmas

I landed with my hands in fists against my sternum, as if giving CPR to myself. I landed on a large block of stone that forms the step to my front door. The edge of the stone block hit underneath my breasts at the spot where a bra band should be, but I was in my pajamas.

I knocked my elbow pretty badly (it’s bruised and bumpy) and I cut my leg and bruised my foot. But that blow to my chest– my full body weight– knocked the wind out of me. I walked into the house slowly and somehow ended up on the floor curled up against the dishwasher crying in pain as I pulled up my pajamas to see if I had any visible damage.

I did not.

But it hurt. It left my nerves shaken as these falls often do and it was VERY uncomfortable to sleep that night. I woke up in the morning curled up on my side so I took that as a good sign. It hurt mildly to stretch my arms or cough or laugh, but all-in-all I felt okay.

Today, I woke up feeling worse. I put on a workout top that supports everything so the weight of my breasts doesn’t add more discomfort. But it definitely hurts worse. And walking is uncomfortable. Walking fast enough and long enough to increase my breathing often makes me stop and wait.

On top of all that, I got on a scale today. I’ve gained another 10 pounds. I wish I could say I didn’t know how that was possible. But I know. I can’t believe I’ve gained another 10 pounds in about three weeks.

So I went back to calorie counting today. And more importantly nutrient and macro “counting.”

Hopefully tomorrow will be less painful– because I have a job interview for a little something that might fit nicely into my life.

The Reunion Dilemma

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Tonight is my 30th High School Reunion, scheduled in the casual and amazing environment of Richmond Brewing. Our classmates own the establishment and have agreed to let us assemble and celebrate without a lot of formal to-do.

But I don’t know if I’m going to go.

I was on the reunion committee. I love the food and the beer at Richmond Brewing. It should be fun.

But I’m stressed and if I’m honest, I’m scared. And I think this is probably the first time I really wished my service dog was already here. Because having that dog would relieve some of the physical barriers to attending, which might help my emotional issues.

I’m already showered and dressed and ready to mingle. But I’m struggling with my own mobility today– which if you aren’t a regular reader I have diplegic spastic cerebral palsy which means I have issues controlling my legs. Last weekend I took a medium fall. I didn’t do any permanent damage, though I did damage my expensive glasses, probably delayed healing of my sprained right pinky, and got myself some nasty bruises and bumps on the head.

But today I fell again. This is is going to sound ridiculous (my trainer Andrew can probably vouch for me here, I think he’s seen it happen) but I can’t pick up my feet today. Primarily my right one. It’s dragging. It got caught in the cracks between the sidewalk and down I went. No damage, my Apple Watch didn’t even alert.

Which is probably a good thing as I’ve been enrolled in the Women’s Heart Health and Mobility Study at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts and when I fall and my watch registers it, they call to check on me. I talked with them for a half hour on Monday.

I fell on the way to the gym, and my workout went fine, although at the same time, I struggled with some muscle control.

I went over to the Christ United Methodist Church for their craft and vendor fair where Joe Swarctz, our fearless illustrator and the creator of Echo City Capers, was selling the latest in children’s books. I didn’t fall, but every bump on the sidewalk or imperfection in the floor challenged my balance.

The Teenager has to work tonight, so I’ll be on my own for the reunion tonight. And I’m scared. It’s about 30 minutes up there, and with my recent layoff gas money is tight, plus I won’t be able to have a beer. And it would have been my father’s 75th birthday today, if he were still with us, so that has me in a horrible, dejected mood.

If I had my service dog, I would feel safer. I would at least feel more secure about my ability to navigate walking. And I would know that I would have another living thing there that could help me if something did happen. I know that all of my classmates at the Reunion would be helpful, but there’s a certain comfort from those who already know what you need and how to help. Because it’s a dreadful feeling when you have an accident in public, and people want to help and no one quite knows what to do or they do too much or the wrong thing.

I’m not sure what to do, but I know the choice is stressing me out.

But if my balance is already significantly compromised, I don’t know if traipsing around an old barn is a good idea.

Monday. Just Monday.

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Despite waking yesterday 15 minutes before my alarm and falling asleep face down in my pillow as I tried to lift my phone off my desk to start my day, yesterday started as a decent day. It was slow, and everything seemed to annoy me. My body hurt, my heart rate and blood pressure seemed off, but my work metrics were good. Too good.

I was very thirsty all day, and ended up stepping away from my station three times during the day to use the restroom– which is not me– but my current symptoms include not being able to tell how urgent the signal to urinate is so waiting too long or not responding immediately might result in an uncomfortable outcome.

I returned to eating “real food” after a weekend of salty and sweet treats for my birthday, which made my body feel generally bloated and sluggish but had stabilized some of my postural issues.

And my hand, the one where the medical professional had done an exploratory IV last week, turned multiple colors that didn’t exist there over the weekend.

The coffee shop I had selected to meet Natalie Lowell of Exquisite Page turned out to be closed on Monday, as was my second choice, so she suggested the old familiar Terra Cafe. I had a lovely London Fog and the discussion flowed easily.

I learned along the way to the cafe that the Meet-and-Greet scheduled for FURR Louise for June 10 was actually a sight-unseen adoption, which makes me nervous with special needs cats and this one has been in my bedroom for two years and sleeping in my arms at night for at least six months.

I ate a small snack. From there I went to the gym, where Andrew– despite our schedules keeping us apart for a week– put me through a brutal workout, which really wasn’t that brutal but it felt brutal, reinforcing the idea that maybe my recent health problems are just a ramification of being 25 pounds overweight and out-of-shape.

And then I had a good old-fashioned fall on the way home. The kind that scraped my hands and bruised my thigh and chewed up the flesh of my shoulder. After a conversation with my Apple Watch, (“Looks like you had a hard fall.” “I fell, but I’m okay.”) I headed home, my pride more battered than anything else.

The Teenager made an enjoyable dinner and I had a Hostess cupcake. I could have finished the strawberry cream puffs from Sheetz. Those were surprisingly amazing.

By the time I took my shower, my wounds stung and my left hand was trembling. My heart rate and heart rate variability were low, my blood oxygen was 97% and my blood pressure was high. I decided to write a small blog entry, but when I opened my computer I saw a message from Gayle.

The content led me to believe that I sent her the wrong edited file of Larry Sceurman’s Coffee in the Morning, and so I opted to go to bed. When I woke this morning, I had received the truest of all motivational messages from Gayle.

DO NOT SECOND GUESS YOURSELF

So when I get home from work today, I’ll have to check the file. When I have more wits about me.

While normally my self-confidence wavers, Gayle’s right. I do not second guess myself. I move forward often boldly in a direction without worrying about the consequences.

I’m not sure I feel better today. That remains to be seen. I had strange dreams last night. A toilet falling over while I was using it. Having unexpected and messy female troubles. And my favorite– sitting next to my father after dinner at the table as we always did. He would be smoking his cigarettes and perhaps having a cup of coffee. The Teenager and my stepmom were sharing cheesecake as if nothing were wrong, and not offering me any. And then I realized that my father is dead, and that The Teenager and my stepmom didn’t see him. He was there just for me.

And once I realized that, he was gone, and all I had left in me was to weep.

I had fallen alseep last night with tears in my eyes. And I woke with Louise in my arms and tears in my eyes again, but this time, with the strength to face a new day.

Bride of Frankenstein: My tilt table test and one heckuva week

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

It’s been an on-again, off-again week of how I’m feeling. Same old, same old of issues with my hip, my legs locking up, and sometimes having the clearheaded nature to function like a normal person. Some days my blood pressure is high, other days it’s pretty damn perfect. Some mornings I wake up so lightheaded I stumble like a drunk, and… say it with me now… some days I don’t.

But yesterday had one bright spot– my “partner” at Susquehanna Service Dogs who will handle the final phase of my mobility dog application emailed and asked of she could do my home visit this coming Saturday. Why, I said in reply, that’s my birthday but I can tweak my plans to accommodate a visit. And the idea of this got me very happy.

And so we set the plans.

Today, I went for my tilt table test. If I had a Dr. Frankenstein fetish, it would have been quite the event. If I had teased my hair to flow upward, I could have been a Bride of Frankenstein’s Monster, since I was strapped to a table with large straps and covered with wires and tubes.

To make it more fun, my dehydrated veins (I was not allowed to eat or drink for four hours prior to the test) would not cooperate with the poor older man who had probably done 1,000 IVs in his life. The first attempt was in the inner arm of my right side, as the left completely refused to offer up any juicy conduits.

But seriously, they hooked me up to the ekg and monitored my blood pressure every 10 minutes. They strapped me to a bed that stands 70 degrees upright, and after 10 minutes at rest, they stood me up for 45 minutes to see if anything happened. Nothing did. So perhaps smug little doctor man was right. My symptoms aren’t consistent with POTS.

You know, the man administering the study said, your beta blocker can do that. (Meaning the symptoms I described.) But, I thought to myself, I had these falls that caused injury and required medical attention before I started taking a beta blocker.

Before I laid down to start the test, my heart rate was more than 100 bpm because of some inherent stressors in my morning. In comparison, when I first wake my heart rate is usually between 52 and 65 bpm. At work, my heart rate is typically between 75 and 95. My resting heart rate average for today, according to my Apple Watch series 8, is 64. And my walking average is 130 today, which, again seems a little high.

When the bed rose, it make me feel like I was drinking alcohol. Not all out dizzy but the world swirled. But it cleared up. The scary part was when my whole right hand fell asleep– because if you have read my previous blogs you may know that my left pinky is often falling a sleep and I feel like it’s a warning sign of an impending episode.

The pressure on my head and chest when they lowered the bed made me feel like I was being crushed, and the strain of standing completely still for 45 minutes made my right toes feel like they were getting frost bite.

It looks like my ekg and other results of the study were normal. Even my blood pressure behaved.

So, with a headache from barely eating, I visited Gayle for a quick meeting (I never quite realized she lives probably 500 steps from the hospital) and then grabbed some wings and fries from Wing Stop. And now I’m completely spent.

What if after all this… maybe the only thing wrong with me is that I’m overweight and out of shape?

Then, I got an email from the service dog people rescheduling my visit to 5/25. And when I got home, I had a birthday card from my mom. And since we got in another ugly disagreement on Mothers’ Day, she sent a bunch of old letters I sent her in my birthday card. No personalized note. No mention of celebrating. Just old mail. It’s a habit she’s had lately. Her own special passive aggressive way of saying “you used to love me.”

My daughter has another way of interpreting her paper trail of past communications.

Whatever it is, it’s exhausting. Ever since my dad passed away, my mom has been even more dramatic. She’s experienced a lot of loss in the last two years, as many of us have. I’m at my wits end. I haven’t had a connection to my father’s family for about six months now, and with all my recent health problems, the lack of familial support weighs heavily on me. It’s terrifying to have a known congenital disability and have something else going on that doesn’t make sense.

And it makes one’s heart hurt when you can turn to your teenaged daughter, your soon-to-be ex-husband, your in-laws and your work friends, but your own mother can’t even give you a courtesy phone call when you are in the hospital. Or, say, maybe she sends some keepsake letters in a birthday card, so even on your birthday, you can be reminded what a disappointment you are and how rather than celebrate you, your mother would rather make your birthday about her.

I just want a mom. I just want a mom who can see who I am without constantly criticizing me, or emotionally blackmailing me, or making snide comments about how I might be living my life. When I was a kid, I idolized my mom. And there’s that little girl inside of me who still wants to.

She grew beautiful flowers. Has a beautiful smile. But I look back on my childhood, and I’ve survived so much and forgiven so much, and laughed off so many things… and to constantly have her blame me for everything that’s wrong with our relationship is just not fair.

Because in my experience as a mother, I want to be there, I want to help, and I would probably spam text my daughter if she ever fell out of contact.

But we’re all different people I guess.

Flirting with control

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I have no idea what this blog post will say. I’m only writing it because I came home from work, took my blood pressure, swallowed my medication and made a cup of coffee… and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do this evening. But I knew I wanted to write. So here I am.

I titled it “flirting with control,” because I’m looking at my house and my list of phone calls I need to make (check with physical therapist, reschedule Ob/Gyn, schedule annual service and car inspection, see if I can get a rental car from the insurance company of the person who hit my car in February.) Thinking of the chores I need to do. And everything I want to achieve for the business…

And I realize, everyday I am merely flirting with the idea of having control of my own life.

My blood pressure was 115/73, which is excellently consistent. I have to say I had a few times today where I felt off– so I used the EKG function on my Apple Watch and hit the heart rate button periodically. It’s been two weeks since I had my last “high heart rate scare” and today I saw my heart rate jump from 90 (which was already on the high side for standing at my table at work) to 165 in one movement. Not gradual, just BAM, and back again. It did this at least twice. But the watch registered a 176 also around this time that I didn’t notice.

To be on the safe side, I took the voluntary time off offered for tomorrow.

I don’t feel bad. In fact, I feel 90-95% of myself. But I get tired easily, and I often get a weird sensation that I describe as lightheaded, but it’s more like my body internally swaying. And my ears have been ringing for months and my headaches are getting more frequent.

After hearing about my unfortunate experience at the cardiologist, I have been collecting opinions from people. Some requested, some not.

And among the solicited type of advice came this gem: “You might want to get a second opinion from a FEMALE cardiologist. Its known, researched, and documented that female patients have a greater chance of being untreated for cardiac concerns. Just consider.” That person even recommended a doctor, though by the time I got the name, I had already booked a doctor from my own research.

I don’t know if the average person realizes this, but with the modern computerized booking systems, most hospital networks will allow you to schedule appointments online, even with specialists you haven’t seen, because most physicians have an open scheduling block even if it is only a few appointments once a month.

So I researched female cardiologists affiliated with the hospital with which I routinely deal. I scanned their reviews and quickly discovered that the hospital has a women’s heart center and encourages, at least according to the web site, any woman with concerned to schedule an appointment.

And that’s what I did. I won’t see her until August, but by then all the other specialists will have run their tests and hopefully we will have more answers. And regardless, I want to sit with someone and review what has happened to me, what’s normal, what’s not and what of that is concerning. My current cardiologist doesn’t want to see me again for six months, and his schedule hasn’t been released that far out, so I may not even go back.

I told all of this to someone at work, and he reminded me of something he has said to me in the past. The Lehigh Valley sometimes lacks medical talent. And then he added, “and I suppose I can tell you that I always seek out female physicians.” And proceeded to explain that women have a different attention toward symptoms and how they fit together.

In the meantime, I also have a list of other professionals I want to see as I hash out my own plan for how to care for myself. I know I already mentioned a hospital-affiliated dietician, but I also want to talk to the clinical pharmacist at my doctor’s office because I don’t think I should be or need to be on some of these medications together.

Oh and I got a survey for the smug little doctor man. I gave him a 5/10. I wish I would have recorded my comments which went something like this: “I didn’t ask questions because I couldn’t put my finger on it but he seemed dismissive. I went home and read his notes and realized he had come to conclusions about my symptoms that he did not discuss with me and were based on assumptions made because of my congenital disability which contradicted the concerns of my entire care team. That was a shame as he was a charming man and his office is close to my home.”

Smug little doctor man

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I might have to fire my cardiologist.

He’s personable and easy on the eyes, but he certainly had his decisions made without listening to what I had to say. And when I got home and read his notes… I don’t know if I can say I felt betrayed or even insulted. I knew what was happening while I was there. It was a gut reaction and I felt myself shutting down.

He said I was fine, my heart monitor was fine, and my EKG was fine, and then he asked if I had any more episodes. I asked for clarification on what he meant by episode and explained that as of last week my heart rate had calmed by about 20 beats per minute. And that I had two more unexplained episodes of lightheadedness that almost ended in falls.

I pointed out that I wrote everything down if he had any questions about my symptoms and also said that I bought an Apple Watch.

He didn’t seem interested in any of it, only in my episode of a-fib. And then he noticed that my primary care doctor had ordered a tilt table test. “That’s odd,” he said, looking at my record.

“He wants to rule out POTS,” I said.

He gave a little nose grunt of disapproval.

“Do you have any questions?” he asked.

Not that I was willing to ask. Based on how he seemed to be judging my primary care physician there was no way in hell I was asking questions of this man.

When I read his summary of our visit when I looked at my online chart, he blatantly called out my primary care physician for considering POTS and said my symptoms were not consistent with that, and blamed my falls on my poor balance.

I might have cerebral palsy, but I don’t have “poor” balance. It’s not “good” but it’s not “poor” and I have the physical therapy records to prove it. Actually, I was released from physical therapy today. When these episodes happen, I can feel that the problem is not my legs. So my heart looks fine, and I’m very happy about that, but I’m angry that he just attributed the whole stint in the hospital as caused by my poor balance. The night of the accident I had been showing off to my trainer Andrew how well I could stand on one leg.

When I read his notes I got even more upset, because he’s blaming my orthostatic hypotension on dehydration and makes it sound as if I don’t drink water. I said symptoms are worse on the weekend, probably because I don’t drink as much water. I drink about 60 ounces at work alone, which means on a typical weekday I drink about 80 hours of water, maybe 8 ounces of another beverage and 12 ounces of coffee. Subtract about 60 ounces water off that on Saturday and Sunday.

And he also says I drink more now, especially when my blood pressure is low, and what I said was that I keep an electrolyte powder by my bed and mix a portion of that to drink in the morning if my blood pressure drops, as suggested by my primary care physician.

So I looked at my ekg– my heart shows a normal sinus rhythm and arrhythmia.

I emailed my primary care doctor and said the cardiologist is not a match and after I get the next couple weeks of appointments done, I want to follow up with him (my PCP) to talk about my medications. And I’m also thinking of asking about a registered dietician and some nutritional resources.

Today my heart rate is up. My blood pressure is low. I have headaches and everything in my body hurts.