No pee Take 2!

If anyone who loves Greys Anatomy like I do will know what I am talking about. Remember in the 3rd season when Georges dad is dying of cancer and after his surgery they are worried about kidney failure. So when they see that he has a bag full of pee from his cathadar they get all excited because his kidneys are working.

Well right now thats my life. But without the pee!

On Friday afternoon I went to the doctor because I had not gone pee since last Tuesday.

They emptied me out.

Well went back today because I hadn't gone pee since then. They did another ultra sound and said that my bladder was about 3 times fuller then it was on Friday. I am being sent to a Urologist to have them do a scope of my bladder to see whats causing it so I can't pee.

I know this is really what everyone wanted to read today. All about how I can't pee but I don't really have any news to update on my Fibro. My doctor said that there is a chance that this may be caused by one of the medications that I am on. If it is any that helps me not be in so much pain. Trust me. I will take not peeing before being in pain.. ugh. Wish me luck. Pray for some pee people! And nothing in my bladder that will cause surgery!

Yes in that picture I am about to have a cathader put in me and my mom wants to take pictures. Yeah.. thats really a kodak moment I wanted to remember!

Oh how nice it used to be to pee

I have not gone pee since Last Tuesday. Well... thats if you count the last time I went on my own. Friday I got to have a cathader put me to drain my bladder. That was SO how I wanted to spend my Friday night. I dont know why I can't go but obviously not peeing for 6 days straight cant be a good thing though right? They said that if I don't go by Monday morning then I need to go back in and possibly be admitted into the hospital. They have to test for Renal Failure and Kidney failure... Neither of those things sound to good. I dont ask for much. Just to pee. Thats all．．．．　 PEE!

Life of the DENIED and UNINSURED

Did you know that there is 46 million people in the United States that are uninsured? Utah ranks 34Th in the nation with 14% of the states population do not have any health insurance.

(And yes I googled that information. Come on now.. I'm not THAT intelligent.)

I am one of the 46 million that do not have health insurance.

When I lost health insurance when I was 17 years old. Luckily I had it when I first got sick and was covered with amazing insurance while going threw all of that. But when I lost it I realized how important it is to have it. I heard about this company called CHIPS. CHIPS is for kids who are under 18 years old and in school. Or you can also be covered if you are enrolled in school. Well my thought process is if I could afford to go to college I probably could afford insurance. Well when I was 17 I applied to be covered on CHIPS and I was approved on the condition that when I graduated high school or turned 18 first I would no longer be covered. My High School Graduation was on my 18Th Birthday. With my 22Nd Birthday right around the corner I am still with out insurance.

Since then I have had 3 surgeries and 4 hospital stays. Every time they assigned me a social worker to help with getting financial aid. I received one bill for $3,700 dollars. Everything was written out very detailed so I knew exactly what I was being charged for. ( Keep in mind then added up to be $3,700 dollars.)

Iv Bag ( that is literally just sugar water) : $27.00 dollars

Pain Pill every 4 hours: $17.00 dollars

Demoral injection: $120.00 dollars

New Iv Bag: $27.00 dollars

You get the idea...

And at the bottom of the bill right before the GRAND TOTAL it says

Financial Aid: - $15.00

Yes that's right. On a bill that large they were nice enough to give me 15 dollars off of my bill. Applying for the financial aid, getting copies of pay check stubs, verifying employment all of that trouble for 15 dollars.

I can truly say that their has been times while in the hospital or dealing with surgeons that I have definitely been treated differently because of having no insurance. Waiting until the last minute when they can no longer wait or put of doing surgery. Refusing to see me in an office visit because of not being able to pay a 175.00 dollar Co Pay. I was once even told that I needed to wait in the hall of the emergency room because I would be last to help. ( True Story)

I feel bad for anyone like me who does not have health insurance, and I think that the people who do don't know how lucky they are. I don't think that anyone my age should be into their eye balls of debt and ready to file for bankruptcy because of not having health insurance.

Luckily there is programs like the CONNECTION TO CARE and doctors like mine who fight to help their patients get the care that they need. If I could have one thing in the world it would Health Care Coverage. I won't go into the details but I have tried for years to get it from my work. Denied. I have done research myself finding company's that I could be covered independently and on every single application there is a section that lists numerous diseases, conditions, family history medical information and asks you to check the boxes that apply to you.

The first one lists:

FIBROMYALGIA

I must check that box.

DENIED

I tried to cheat and not check in one time but once they got my medical history and its in my chart I got a letter pretty much saying.. Sorry and Good luck with that!

Gee Thanks. That was almost as helpful as the $15.00 Dollars!!

CAN I PLEASE JUST HAVE SOME INSURANCE?!

Connection To Care

In November or 08 I had applied for a company called Connection to Care. It works with the pharmaceutical company called PFIZER. As I had mentioned in my previous post about LYRICA it is $400.00 a month. Not gonna happen for me. So my doctor had given me all the information to apply for this. I had to fill out the application, get my doctor to sign it, get a prescription from my doctor for the medicine and also include tax return information and check stubs. I got a letter back from them about a month ago saying that they had to have this years tax information. Bummer. So I went through the entire process again. Application, doctor, stubs, everything. Then about 3 weeks later... I got home on Friday after work and I had a mysterious package on our kitchen table... It had my name on it and I could tell that it was a bottle of pills.. I didn't remember buying any illegal pills online.. I'm pretty sure I would remember doing that. I opened it and it was a bottle of LYRICA.. I ran to the mail box to see if they had sent me a letter of approval.. ( I was pretty sure they had to approve me they wouldn't send me a bottle of pills to say sorry your denied but have some drugs!) I got my letter that said I was APPROVED!! I have never had that word said to me or written to me in my entire life! Yay! I have been approved for a year and they will send me a new bottle of 200 pills every month and when I need a refill my doctor or myself will just call them up and they will mail it to me! AWESOME!!... I am so happy!! No more hoping that my doctor has samples to give to me and no more feeling like crap if they don't! YaY! After a year I will need to apply again but I am not even thinking about that now I am just so glad I have it for a year! I can not thank my doctor enough for telling me about this and helping me get on it! I called him when I read the letter to tell him! I just wanted to share my excitement about being APPROVED!!!... Ooh I love that word =)

LYRICA

*I know this blog sounds like a pity party table of 1 blog but I really have a purpose for it. But this is not only for me. Not only is this blog to give myself an outlet but its also to hopefully reach out to other Fibro Fighters to help each other. Here is something that I am hoping to get out to them.*

Had I started this blog around a year ago it would not be a pleasant thing to read if you know what I mean. I had a completely different outlook on life and to be honest a completely different person. In November of 08 I had had enough. I couldn't take the pain and suffering anymore. I couldn't live my life like I was. It was to the point of not being able to go to work.. laying in bed all day long in tears because I couldn't move. It took all I had to get out of bed. I was miserable and living like that is bound to make any person depressed, and depressed I was. I couldn't keep living my life on only being able to function if I take pain pills all day. That is not the life I want, but that is the only way I could function. My Fibro had got out of control and I had to do something. I finally went to see my doctor ( who by the way deserves a post of his own to talk about how AMAZING he is, and how he is literally.. my HERO.) My doctor is so amazing. He has this way of making me feel like the moment he walks in the door I can just relax.. and just breath because I know that everything is going to be okay. After laying on the bed crying for 20 minutes and telling him that I can't live like that anymore he asked me if I had ever heard of LYRICA. He gave me some samples to try out and if I think it made a difference and I felt better then I would continue to be on it. Within hours of taking the first pill I felt 90% better. Now, some of the side effects people may not like... I am not someone who feels the effects of new drugs but I did feel these ones. If you read online some of the side effects are dizziness, dry mouth, and quote on quote from the website it " Feeling high.".. and yes I did feel that for about a week. Trying not to sound to dramatic.. this medicine has really changed my day to day life. IT has helped so much. I sleep better, I don't ache as much in the mornings and threw out the day... it just has been amazing it has helped SO much. I use to have to take 2 or 3 pain pills a day just to function and since I have been on this I have been able to cut down to 1 a day. There are days still that I have to take 2 but I can't even believe how much LYRICA has helped me. I was also put on Zoloft and the 2 together help so much. I take 300 mlg of the Lyrica and 50mg of the Zoloft and when I need it 10mlg of the Methadone. I have felt so much better since I have started taking Lyrica and I can't even imagine having to go off of it and feel like I did before having it. I would recommend this medicine to anyone with Fibro. Just click right HERE for the website and click right HERE for the side effects and more info. Again, Lyrica has just been amazing and has helped me so much! One bad thing is is that it is very expensive.. I have been lucky enough to have my doctor give me samples of it, and also he is helping me go threw the process of applying to get it for free from the manufacture. Cross your fingers that I get approved! If you have Fibro and have not tried this medicine I would recommed asking your doctor about it!

Here we go..

Here we go.. The first day of the journeling of my fibro. Today. I feel okay. One thing I remember about my 27 surgeries and my weeks and weeks of being in the hospital is about 3 times a day a nurse or a doctor will ask you " On a scale from 1 to 10 how bad is it?" Or when your in the Pediatrics ward of the hospital because your not 18 yet you get a scale from a really really happy face or a very sad and crying frowny face. How bad is it... Every day I ask my self when I wake up " On a scare from 1 to 10 how bad is it?" When I go to bed at night I ask my self the same question. Today I am about a 4. I am very tired. Today is Day Light Savings so I lost an hour of sleep. So, I am tired but my pain is not that bad. All that I have done today is wake up at 5:25am, get ready for work, and by 7:00am be at work. Now its only 9:00am it feels like it should be around 1:00pm but its not. Ugh. After standing at the desk on my feet for 8 hours my pain scale will be around a 7. I will do another post tonight and journal what all I did today and see how I felt after. The purpose of this blog is so that I can see what I did each day and see what made me feel better... and what made me feel worse. Obviously standing at a desk on my feet for 8 hours does not make my pain go to the really really happy face on the scale but after doing this every Mon-Fri 7-3 for the past 5 years... I am getting use to it.