Over 16,534,186 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?
Hello to all you curious readers and friends! I promised that I would tell my story so here it is, in it's entirety. Mostly, okay, it's got big holes in it but the important parts are here. It is all true, even the parts that are a little unbelievable. I simply have had a very strange and curious journey over these past 53 years. Feel free to copy and save this so that you can read it at your lesure. Knowing me the way I do, I imagine that it will become quite long. There is just so much to say! Don't be frightened though, I will try my bestest to keep it simple. Problem is that I get de-railed easily and interupt myself, lol :D
Quickly, let me give a bit of background to make the current a bit more understandable. When I was two years old, my sister, Pam, older than me by five years and hating me furiously for ruining her solitude by being born as well as not being named RoseBud, her favorite cartoon character, fed me a full bottle of Synthroid, telling me that it was candy. The pills belonged to a family friend and Pam had taken them out of the purse where they were being stored between the pharmacy and home. The story is heresay since I have no memory of the situation but Synthroid comes in pretty colors and shapes and is very sweet so a two year old would really think that it was candy. Eventually, my parents discovered the problem and I was taken to the hospital and my stomach pumped but time had passed and my body had absorbed most of it. That was the end of it, no follow-ups were done and I suppose that in 1960 people simply did not worry about complications and/or side effects so for years all symptoms were ignored and no one ever brought it up again. No, Pam never did forgive me for being born and to this day she truly hates me. I don't even know where she lives, sad, isn't it?
Skip forward to 1992, my Mother died of Pancreatic cancer and the sadness overtook me, we pulled up our roots and moved to Iowa. First time that I had been away from Arizona and as it turns out, it saved my life. Where in Arizona, my symptoms of ovarian cysts, easy weight gain, fast growth as a child, headaches, high blood pressure, hundreds of allergies, super sensitivity of sunlight, unable to regulate body temperature, severe generalized pain, neuopathy and more, were ignored, Iowa health care wanted to put it all together. Still, it took a six week stay in Iowa City University Hospital and Clinics and eight teams of doctors to figure out that I had Graves Disease as well as Thyroid cancer. I also had been undiagnosed for so long that I had many other diseases also. All of the sudden, I began to have more problems and over the next few years it was found that I had twenty-two diseases! I was so ill and finally, in 2000, I was sent to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota where they wanted to know why nothing had been done about removing the cancer. January 6, 2001 I had it removed. They also removed twenty-seven little 'nodules' and a mass of 'yuk' from my neck. Success, I have remained cancer free ever since, at least in my neck. Side note, I am currently being treated for possible ovarian and uterine cancer. Still, I have so much organ and body damage from having thyroid disease all of my life that it is very hard to say that I "beat" my thyroid cancer. One of the diseases is called "Charcot Foot" No, not the jaw problem, this is a nuerological joint disease and about 20% of all auto-immune patients have it. Not much is known except that it begins in the toes and works it way up, mine is on both sides and is travelling to all of my joints. It causes the bones to deteriorate and deform, eventually making it impossible to walk and/or function at all. I also have MRSA/VRSA and neuropathy from the para-thyroid damage. So I have been fighting foot/leg/bone infection for the past seven to ten years in my left leg. I have had all kinds of antibiotics and treatments, had my foot rebuilt, been tested, poked, prodded, experimented with, been in four nursing homes, have put up with unbelievable pain, been insulted by more doctors and nurses than I care to count, endured all kinds of strange diets, lost my church, family, friends, put on disability, stuck in a wheelchair and lost all of my money. I know that many people have tough times and endure loss of unimanigable proportions, but this is me and I have suffered. I have been hospitalized no less than eight times a year and had reached a point where I was praying for death. I was sick of being sick! Lets skip a lot of the crap from the past few years. Just know that in January of 2004 I came home to Arizona to take care of my Dad while he was dying of cancer, yep, everyone in my family dies of cancer, we must just like it. I don't worry about the prostate cancer but all of the rest of them are always on my mind, lol. I noticed that my always high arch had fallen and that I had developed a wound on the bottom of my left foot, this is how I learned about Charcot Foot. My growth plate was broken to bits and the bones were trying to poke out, my foot had developed a 'rocker' bottom and my balance became very wobbly. I developed gangrene in it and the three month stay in a Scottsdale, Arizona nursing home is where I ended up with MRSA as well as three other infections. I was sent home January 27th of 2005 and ever since then I have fought to save my foot and leg. I ended up with Charcot on the right side also and have had three other foot surgeries and two hand surgeries because of the MRSA being in the bones. No matter what happened and no matter what medicines I was given, my infections would not go away. So by this year, I had become weak, very sick and had lost my will to live. The constant pain, lack of sleep and isolation has been just a bit more than I could deal with. My daughter-in-law kidnapped my grandchildren two years ago and that has hurt my emotional state as well as my adult son being diagnosed as terminal with disseminated valley fever, spinal meningitis and a huge brain cyst. It is a race to see which of us can live the longest! Then it was discovered that before she left, my daughter-in-law had been trying to poison us both by sprinkling our medicines with garden bug poisons and she also was spiking my foods with horseradish, which I am very allergic to. (it causes me to have heart attack symptoms, fill up with fluids and quit breathing) It was enough that we both were weakened and unable to fight our illnesses properly. Doctors were amazed that either of us lived through it all. Just stubborn and ornery I suppose. Another side-note, we learned a little over a month ago where she had the kids hidden and proper steps are being taken to end the 'game' she is playing. She claims that she doesn't want a sick husband but if he gets enough money, she will come back, lmao, really? she must be brain damaged! Anyway, two months ago, I was sent straight from my doctors office to a hospital that I had never been to. New doctors, new tests, new everything.They did what I knew wouldn't work but what seems to be the required and acceptable treatment for a leg full of poison, really, it was ugly, swollen, dark red, oozing out of the pores, just terrible, they gave me a three week treatment of Vancomyacin, which my infection was resistant to. I came home, administered my antibiotic twice a day, IV infusion into my port that is in my chest, and knew that it would be hot and red within a week of finishing the drugs, like always. Yep, back to the hospital I am sent and this time I was so sick, worse than ever before. The redness was spreading higher on my leg and the doctors came to talk to me, explaining that this time, I wasn't going home. The infection was spreading and they gave me less than three weeks to live. Unless I was willing to have my leg amputated.That was on June 10, surgery was on June 12. I was pretty much out of my mind until 06:00 on the 14th. All I remember is extreme pain, worse than any I had ever had and worse than anything that I ever imagined. Pain in my bit of leg that remains and even more pain where there is no leg anymore. Phantom pain is very real. As weird as it sounds, all of the sudden a 06:00 on Thursday morning, I woke up with a clear head, still having a little pain, (compared to what it had been) and feeling happy! For the first time in almost ten years, I felt a glow of happiness inside of me. I was gratefull to the nurses that had worked so hard for a day and a half to help me and for my husband, Larry, well, ex I guess, we seperated in June of 2003, grateful to him because he stayed with me around the clock taking care of my every need, making sure the nurses and doctors did what was best for me and keeping me clean and hydrated. I could not have survived the ordeal without him there to help me. It was the first time in over fifteen years that I felt a closeness to him. I went through a personal hell for a short while. I was out of my mind and had pain that I did not know was possible to have. I could not eat, could not think, could not do anything and all that I remember is the pain and Larry and one nurse that kept repeating, "keep breathing, in through your nose, out thrugh your mouth, keep breathing". Hear that with the voice of Dora from Nemo, "keep swimming!". I still hear her while I try to relax, lmao.
In the 12 days that I spent in the hospital and for the time since I have returned home, Larry has been my only support. Just as before, there is no one else. Not a phone call, not a card, not a visit. Even here on Fubar, less than five friends will talk to me. I got rid of my leg, big deal, it was killing me and I am not defined by my parts. My heart and soul are intact and my brain is sharp as ever. Why do people stay away when a person has an illness that is serious? I hate that as well as losing my leg, I lose friends at the same time. It is okay to ask questions, make jokes, be curious, I want to talk about my experience. There is a lot to be said and I have quite a story to tell that I have not touched on here. I am still me and still want to talk. I also would love to have people make a little fuss over me. I deserve it, this has been a huge experience.
In that thought, I am going to be making a few changes. One is that I am deleting those that no longer wish to be a 'friend' on fubar. I no longer wish to waste time with sending drinks, gifts, well wishes, or anything else to those members that sent me a friend request for the reason of adding numbers. Since I don't care about points and levels, the numbers mean nothing to me. This is my third profile, having started in late summer of 2006 and back then, I gathered friends and wanted the numbers. Now, the purpose for me being here is to relax, talk to a few people and learn about others and their lives where ever they live. I cannot spend hours going from profile to profile just to add points and never knowing who the people are. I still have illnesses to deal with and am scheduled for a biopsy and surgery to remove all those 'female' parts, lol. My ovarian and uterine tumors are the size of a full term fetus, it is time to get rid of them. Once that is taken care of, I will spend more time here. I love my good friends and am a true Fubar addict! Chances are, if you are reading this, you are a friend that I will never want to lose. The only profiles that will be deleted are the ones that have been on here for months and years yet I cannot even remember who or why they are. They probably won't even notice that they were deleted.
If I accidentally drop you and you know it was a mistake, please let me know. If we talk from time to time and you know that I care, don't worry, I would not remove you. If we talk once a year but we have always had that "connection", I won't be removing you either. If you added me and have never even said hello ever since then, yep, I will be removing you. Unless it was in the last month or so. I don't always show up here and I don't expect anyone else to be here any more than I am, lol. All I ask for is a quick hello once a month or two. It is too hard to contact every single person every day. I would not ask for that!
If you have other questions, if you or someone close to you have lost a limb or had similar experiences, if you lost a limb in an accident or explosion, I would very much like to talk to you. I am researhing 'phantom' pain and need to learn about the differences in people due to the varied ways that limbs were removed. I am also starting a web site called "SoleMates" and another called "A Leg Up" Both regarding the needs of amputees. If you want to assist me with either one, please let me know and I will fill you in on the details of what they are.
Mostly, please don't be a stranger. Yes, I have a lot to adjust to and while I am healing, I am not here quite as much. I am tired and in a lot of pain, however, I do not need sympathy, I have great faith and am feeling sooooo much better! I just need time. To those who I hold dear, thank you for being here for me, I love each of you and one day soon, I hope to meet each of you and give you a real hug!
Thanks for reading this. I skimmed over large parts and left out a lot but it pretty much explains what is going on.
Hugs,
Tammie
http://fubar.com/bulletins.php?b=735282247
