Week 13 Recap: Healing

Last week was a pretty good week, with most of my days in the 90th percentile. I continued my twice-daily treadmill walks, along with daily sessions of Pilates and weight-bearing exercises. I also continued to wait on the University of Washington Medical Center for the records regarding my stapedectomy 21 years ago. We cannot go forward with the MRI without knowing what kind of prosthesis is in my right ear.

Why were we interested in an MRI? Probably because there were times when my neck was feeling congested and achy, as if my arteries or veins were backed up or something. I could often look in the mirror (particularly in the evenings) and see about three inches my left carotid artery bulging outward and throbbing. This was somewhat disconcerting to my husband, who finally called the internist on-call one night, who told him that I should be seen, but it isn’t really an emergency unless it interferes with my breathing…. which it wasn’t. Regardless, the swelling went down with sleep and rest, but I ended up back at the doctor’s the next evening.

My doctor ordered a CT scan and angiogram, as well as a carotid ultrasound. He mentioned that I had a strong carotid “up-stroke” which I took to be good news.

On Thursday morning I went to the hospital for the carotid ultrasound and the CT scan/angiogram. The ultrasound technician said he could see nothing out of the ordinary, and then I went on to do the CT scan with the dye injection—and my, what an interesting sensation that turned out to be. The feeling of hot dye coursing rapidly through my veins made me feel something like a potato being cooked in a microwave. It was a good thing I have lots of orifices to let the steam to escape.

The follow-up appointment with my doctor the next day was very interesting. Turns out I have at least three (probably congenital) defects:

• a gland in my left neck is shrunken or never grew (I think it was tonsular in nature)
• the left side of my chest is narrower than the right, which can sometimes cause problems with the left subclavian (which might explain the left subclavian pain I sometimes feel)
• and my right subclavian goes directly out of the aorta rather than the branch that comes out of the aorta (aberrant??).

I wondered out loud whether an infection in my left ear might explain the numbness under that ear, and the conversation went pretty much like this:

DOCTOR: “Wow, there’s a lot of wax in there… Want me to pull it out?”

ME: “I don’t know… Will it hurt?”

DOCTOR: “Probably…”

ME: “OK”

DOCTOR proceeds to remove a lot of earwax, which is indeed painful and I can feel myself pulling away from him. DOCTOR takes a look at ear canal again.

DOCTOR: “It does look really raw in there. That could be causing you some pain…. (pause)…. Wow, there’s still a lot of wax in there.”

I would have laughed but now my ear really hurt. “Are my tubes narrow?”

DOCTOR: “No.”

DOCTOR looks in my right hear (the one with the prosthesis) and says “Your right ear is fine. And by the way, your prosthesis is steel. Your records finally came in yesterday afternoon.”

I asked if that was MRI safe and he said (paraphrasing very much) “No, it’s not that it’s magnetic, but that it would cause it to vibrate, heating the metal up substantially, to the point where it could do considerable damage.”

So it’s no MRIs for me, ever. I should have a medical bracelet or something I suppose.  I ended up with a prescription for ear drops to soften the wax and fight any infection.

The visit with my doctor wasn’t all bad. He did tell me my arteries have no plaque or buildup or narrowing, so that is good news-- at least above my heart. But I do wonder about clots still. Thanks to the ear drops, I had to go around with about half my normal hearing capacity, and my hearing wasn’t very good to begin with.

I thought I had some other good news to report during the week, but it turned out to be bogus. I had thought I wasn’t bruising as severely as I had in the past with needle punctures, but by the end of the week it looked like I had been in an arm wrestle with an octopus and I was definitely at the disadvantage.

ODD THINGS DURING THE WEEK:

• Strange pain under mandible that hurt only when touched-- happened on a couple different days
• Was leaning forward to reach computer keyboard (leaning over my knee) and there were several thumps and pounding in my chest-- felt like at least a double palpitation, possibly a triple. Have found that leaning over my knee tends to do that for some reason, as if my chest is more sensitive to anything touching it. Maybe leaning on my knee blocks that subclavian artery for a second, or something.  It is a common position for me (leaning over my knee) so not sure why it happens now and not in the past.

Week 13's "physical therapy" totals added up to: 100 minutes Pilates; 75 minutes weight-bearing exercises; and walked 18.2 miles.  During the week, the treadmill walks gradually became easier with less pain and congestion, and almost no palpitations or movements within my chest that I could identify as such.

So this was a healing week.  I am hoping for many more in a row.