Random Thoughts

Well since I have been sore and not working much in the cardio area of my life I have decided to pick up the 3 and 5 pound dumbbells today and do some upper body.  Since it still hurts to sit some and it really hurts to do cardio I figured “why not burn some calories and buff up my upper body?”  So now that I am feeling a bit more mobile I am adding small weights and just picking them up whenever I feel like it today and will do this until it feels good to be more active.

I can’t wait to be able to do plank position again, that was helping the most and I was feeling so strong after.  Again, this is only a temporary lapse, it will all be good again soon!

I slept 8 straight hours without getting up to pee last night!  This is the most exciting thing as I used to have to get up every 2-3 hours to pee at night and more in the winter time because when me feet get cold it makes me have to pee.  It is freezing cold now and I slept all night long and did not pee til morning, whihoooooooo!

It is amazing how much better you feel without interrupted sleep.  Even my 1 y ear old crashed for all night (and is still asleep btw) so I did not get disturbed at all last night.

I feel great today!

So far so good with this InterStim surgery.  I am still a bit sore in the butt but even that is getting better after only 3 days so I am liking my decision to get this done more and more.

So as you have read in my past posts over the past week or so you know that I have had InterStim surgery.  If you are unaware here is my post about what it is on my other blog http://btrbb.blogspot.com/2010/12/day-1-after-part-1-surgery-of-interstim.html and I have updated every few days on my progress.

My butt hurts like I never knew it could and bending over is NOT a good idea.  This puts a huge damper on my work outs so I feel bloated, frustrated, and fat.  It does feel good to stand and pace, much better then sitting, so I have decided to make the most out of standing.

I pace and walk around the house for an hour at a time.  Yesterday I put wet rags on the floor and mopped it with my feet.  My entire main floor of the house is wood so this actually took me about 45 minutes.  It really did not hurt me much until I had to bend over and pick up the rags to rinse ever so often, so I had my 4 year old start picking them up and I did not hurt too bad. 

I can’t wait til I can work out again, I feel horrible.  I don’t have any restrictions with this surgery so that is great, but it is hard to do what you normally do when your butt hurts so unbelievably bad!  Oh well, this will only make my life more livable when it is all said and done, only a minor set back!

OK so here is the remote I use to turn my InterStim setting on/off, up/down.  It is so cool that I can monitor this myself!

The little pad on the left is what I place on the skin where the battery pack is implanted.  I then use the buttons on the remote to do what I need to do.  It is a lot more sensitive then the big battery pack I had during stage 1 and I really can’t feel the impulses at all today but I just turned it on last night when the rep called me and talked me through it for the first time.

I have a pacemaker card now and I have all the same restrictions as anyone has who has a heart pacemaker.  The only differences, and a big one, is that it is not on my heart, but on my sacral nerve.  Other differences is that heart pacemaker patients cannot adjust it on their own, that may not be good for obvious reasons.  I have a constant electric current going all the time and pacemakers only activate when you need them.

Everything else, like not being able to have an MRI unless I am in great need and things like that are the same.  If I become pregnant I have to turn it off for the pregnancy.  They will not do studies on pregnant women to find out if it will hurt the baby, I think that it is a good idea they won’t test on innocent babies so I am good with this.  Thank goodness I am done becoming pregnant anyway.

Hopefully it will not take long to get the settings right!  It takes a lot of getting used to but will be worth it.

Well I did it.  Surgery success and just had the second stage yesterday.  It was really really, ok did I say really yet, hard to have good thoughts this week as I was/am in a lot of pain.  I had a lot of battles with  myself but in the end I still remained more positive then I would have in the past.

Now we are in the “adjusting” stage of the InterStim and all I have to do now is fine tune the adjustments.  sweet!

Even though I am still sore today I am ding much better and am getting more done as it hurts to sit so I am walking a lot and pacing around the house and doing dishes etc.  Just getting my sore butt of the chair or couch is doing wonders for my esteem today!  Yay!

Again, if you want to check out my surgery here is my first of my posts here http://btrbb.blogspot.com/2010/11/sacral-nerve-stimulation-interstim.html  I have been adding my progress every few days on my other blog if you would like to read them.

Here is a nice pic of my back with the bandage off so you can see how small the hole is for the leads after my Stage One surgery for InterStim.

This did not hurt real bad until the day before stage 2 surgery so it was about 5-6 days later.  It would hurt when I bent over as I could feel it pull but if I did not sleep on my back or bend over we were good.

I could NOT sit in a car comfortably at all, let alone even drive.  I had to sit on my right side and it was only comfortable for about 5 minutes.

The day before my stage 2 surgery I took a shower, which was long over due, and the bandage on the back got wet and to avoid infection I had to change the bandage.  This is what made it hurt.  the white plastic thing you see on the lead just kept pushing into my back and we could not figure out how the doctor had it taped in the first place.  Needless to say I was rather uncomfortable but was happy I only had to deal with it in the morning.

This was WEIRD though.  As my husband took the bandage off after my shower everything was fine and I was standing just fine while he took the picture and redressed it until about 5 minutes or so after he had started.  All of a sudden I got light headed and dizzy, felt like I was going to puke and faint.  I collapsed to my knees and knelt there with my head on the toilet.  I had no control and could not figure out what the heck was going on. 

He finished changing the dressing and I literally laid on the bathroom floor for about 10-15 minutes until it passed.  I usually have a strong stomach, and I did not even see my back at this point so I am really at a loss as to why I almost fainted.  Weird.

Now it is Day 1 after stage 2 InterStim.  I will make a new post about that tomorrow!

So I had my stage 2 of interStim surgery yesterday and it has been 8 days since I have been able to work out.  I feel bloated and I am NOT going to do measurements until the end of January at this rate as I won’t be able to work out for a couple more weeks and I know that it will just depress me as I really feel fat this week.

I can’t work out yet so I sent my husband outside to play with my daughter after the first snow of the season for us here in Ohio and it did make me feel better to see them having so much fun.  My husband does not work out nearly enough so I was not feeling too bad, this was good for him!  Check out how awesome our backyard is, they are having fun and so is the dog!  Much needed for all!

They were outside for just over an hour.

It has been a few days since I posted as I have been up and down with surgery to be totally honest.  It was not working so well at first.  I was not sure for the first couple days but the OAB and leaking was just not letting up and I was getting very frustrated.

I went to the doctor on Friday, 2 days ago, and he said “turn it up as much as you need too.”  I thought, “OK I can do that.”  “I was hesitant on turning the power up on the battery pack myself as I just was not sure how high was enough.

The rep that is in charge of monitoring my battery pack calls me almost every day and I told him on Thursday it was not working well and he did not call me back again til Friday.  He forgot to call me back Thursday but at least he did not Friday, so that is good.  He had me change some settings on the back panel, we had to do it twice on Friday.  The second time seemed to be the right adjustment.  I could feel it as soon as we adjusted it but it was/is not painful.  In fact I can’t feel it at all now and I have actually turned it up myself a bit more to get better results.

Since Friday evening it has been working a ton better.  I would say that I have hit the 50% better mark for the whole process.  They tell you that if the device works, even 50% better, from your normal bladder issues then they consider it a success.  That may not sound like much but when you have issues like I do, 50% can feel pretty darn good.

There are still some small issues but I am still playing with the adjustments and will hopefully have it down to a science come Tuesday.  If I am not 100% satisfied by Monday then we will postpone step 2 for another week so I can be sure.  Right now step 2 is scheduled for Tuesday Dec 7, 2010.  right now I am feeling more confident it will happen but 2 days ago I was not so we will see.

Just a note:  If you are considering this make sure you believe everyone that says, DO NOT drive with it.  Oh boy that was a joke.  I drove myself to the doctor on Friday and had 3 kids in the car and I had to sit sideways.  Good thing I am only 1 block away from my doctor!  Won’t do that again with the external pack, my hip was sore!

I woke up so sick to my stomach to day and with one of the worst leg cramp in the world.  I could barely walk, my calf muscle was in one huge knot.  I unplugged my InterStim for a few minutes while I walked around and this helped alleviate the pain in the leg.

I am not sure if the upset stomach and pukey feeling I was experiencing are/were related at all as they did not subside when I unplugged the battery pack.

I only had it unplugged for about 10 minutes and plugged it back in and my leg has felt fine.  As far as it working well or not, well this morning not so much.  Still experiencing my normal over active symptoms and a little leakage.  The last hour or so have been better so not sure where this is going quite yet.  I do have to say that I am already tired of carrying this thing around!

OK so I need to take this positive thinking to a new level this week.  I had surgery done yesterday (more details on my other blog) here http://btrbb.blogspot.com/2010/11/sacral-nerve-stimulation-interstim.html

There is between a 73-83% chance that this will work.  73% from everyone else and the 83% comes from the company that manufactures the battery pack for the InterStim so I tend to lead towards 73%.  However, leaning that way goes against everything I stand for on this blog and in my change of mind.  I NEED this to work, I WANT this to work.  It is a big test for me this week.  I can’t think negatively about it because that will be a huge mistake.

I am telling the universe today that this procedure is what I need right now and will work for me.  It will change my life permanently and give me some of my life back.  I will be in the 73% because I need to be in the 73% and its about time!