A Baseline

When one first sees a new patient on the floor of a hospital or in the ER or anywhere else, it is very important to perform an initial assessment: measure things like basic vital signs, ask how they feel, observe their demeanor, check their bandages or wounds or whatever, and obtain a general history and a specific current complaint. All this is to establish a baseline with the patient. What's normal for one person may indicate serious problems in someone else.
So for my very first blog post, I want to establish my own baseline. I have no idea who will eventually be reading this blog, but I think this first post will serve as a way to catch up my long-distance relations and friends on my current situation more efficiently than random posts on Facebook. I promise not to whine any more than is strictly necessary.
The title of my blog refers to the view from my bed, where I spend a great deal of my time lately.
My health has gone downhill considerably in the last year or so, beginning with a very bad asthma exacerbation in 2/11. I was attending Washtenaw Community College and in their transfer program, to transfer to Eastern Michigan University in the winter semester of '12. At the beginning of all my troubles, I was taking a basic nursing fundamentals class, which I had taken before (the credits didn't transfer) and which included both a lab and a clinical portion. However, I was in and out of the hospital several times, and eventually went home on oxygen. My professors were trying very hard to get me through this fundamentals class, because they knew that I'd taken it before and didn't need to be there. I just showed up for the lab tests and went home.
In one of my hospital stays during the period of 2/11-3/11 the doctors discovered something odd about the way my body was processing oxygen. I won't get into the nitty-gritty cellular physiology of it all, but what it all means is that my cells are doing more anaerobic respiration than normal, and therefore producing more lactic acid than normal. It was just recently confirmed by testing, and I have yet to get back in to the specialist to find out what to do about it. It just makes me constantly fatigued and achy all over. It was also during all my health drama, on 3/23/11, that my younger cousin Sam Mishler was murdered by his wife. As you can imagine, that was the final straw for me trying to finish the semester.
After the asthma exacerbation, from 3/11-5/11, I had cellulitis in and around a surgical site on my right upper inner leg that had never healed completely from the removal of a cyst in 10/10. It hurt (a lot) but then on the 15th of May, I went to the urgent care, then to the emergency room and ended up having emergency surgery at (about 1 am) on my leg to remove a complicated abscess at the site of the first operation. The recovery was long, complicated, and painful; but it produced great changes in my life...about which I will write later. 

Mom at my bedside, 5/16/11 0100

Currently, I have more crises to deal with. I was just recently diagnosed with a relatively rare condition called P.O.T.S. which stands for something long and complicated but means that my heart sometimes races and then I pass out. It can be managed but not cured. Similarly, I have some problems with my GI system...imagine having the "stomach flu" or morning sickness every day for months and you'd have it pretty close. My body can't digest fat for some reason. I've had a bunch of nasty tests done, which show things that are somewhat off but not enough to explain everything, and have more nasty tests upcoming. I will be having two surgeries on 2/20/12: one to fix my jaw, and one to hopefully, finally, fix my leg. The wound site from the emergency surgery never healed right either, and there have been recurring infections and other nastiness which I won't describe. The two surgeries are going to be done by two different surgeons while I'm under general anaesthesia only once. It's very convenient in a way: two for the price of one.
There. That's all the physical stuff. Now, mentally, how am I doing? Well, since I am home alone except for my puppy 22 of the 24 hours a day unless I have a doctor's appointment, you could say that I am going a little stir crazy. I have never been this lonely in my life. I am in touch by phone and Facebook with friends and various family members come to visit or take me over to Mom and Dad's when they can. Lauren (Mishler) Sauter, my third sister, comes every day to help me around the apartment or take me to the doctor or the pharmacy or whatever and thank God for that! I will use this blog to talk about what it's like to be so much alone, and what it does for and against a person's interior life. My friend Juliet Bogan suggested that I begin blogging, for the sake of my sanity, after I sort of lost my cool one evening. So this is just the beginning. I will post at least once a week, sometimes more often. I want to post some papers I wrote for various classes, and talk about why they are relevant to me now. You can leave topic suggestions via email or Facebook. Similarly, if you want more details about something I mention in a blog post, ask. I may or may not answer, but ask me anyway.