Ut-oh...wrench in the works?
 

Sorry I haven't been on much...my time management has been terrible the last two weeks!

Anyway, just happened to see the results of the bloodwork the doc ordered in preparation for my SCS trial, and this jumped out at me:

ABS Monocytes 180. The range is 200-950. So I'm thinking:

1. They are not going to do any cutting if my immune system is weakened.
   
   
2. I'm worried about what's causing this. Best case, it's the just the meds I'm on. So I stop taking them--they don't help any way. Worst case, well, were not even going to talk about that yet.

Thanks for listening to my fretting. I just don't know why nobody called my from the doc's office yesterday. Guess I'll have to get on the horn 1st thing Monday morning.

All eyes and ears Hear
 

Waitin and prayin to see what turns up when next you see doc.
Mark56:grouphug:

Geeze, I hate that when they leave us hanging like that! Now you have to wait thru the whole weekend to get that call

Try not to think about the 'what ifs', I know that is easy to do tho.
Hopefully you'll get some answers soon.
Meanwhile, just know that your little army of peeps here are lookin out for you and if needed, we'll band together and march to the Doc's office and make SURE you get some answers pronto :cool:

If you can, try to 'remove' yourself from the labwork for now and do things that will help you get thru the weekend. Maybe go out and get a funny movie or something that will help keep your spirits lifted...

Caring,
Rae
:hug:

Thanks guys. My newfound musical instrument is helping. I've discovered that it's absolutely impossible to take yourself seriously while playing a ukulele. If that starts failing, I guess I'll just have to find myself a grass skirt.

Gotta say, I just love the way your sense of humor always seems to come thru. :D
You could get a couple more friends together with the ukes and a stack of Marshall amps and do some heavy metal.

Seriously tho, I've been wanting to get back in to guitar playing. I don't really know what's holding me back. Probly the fact that I'd have to completely start from scratch and build up some calouses....plus my hands have become weak....., not to mention ARTHRITIS! :eek:

We gotta kick Arthur in the B U T T
 

Dare I say we PUSH on, develop those callouses, and get together for a hoe-down??? Or, failing that, we could prepare a selection for church and do that tohether, complete with mandolin or ukelele leadership! Of course, if this was a church matter, there might be an issue about the grass skirt..... but Joan? Are you thinking of changing your avatar to uke and skirt? Could be a a new look, you know?

:)
Mark56:grouphug:

Rrae, maybe you should consider a trying uke...the neck's a lot smaller and the bar chords are a lot easier. Might be a way to get back into the swing of things!

And Mark, I have to say that in taking up the uke, one genre I never considered was sacred music. Now I'm not saying it's wrong, although we do have do acknowledge that there are some things that are clearly wrong, for example, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfK-UzQ48JE

Also, me in a grass skirt. Wrongwrongwrong.

I swear one of those guys looked just like William Shattner!
......yep, just wrong. Beam 'em up Scotty! :BeamUp:

Ahhh but then there is the WARP factor!
 

Yeah, I thought I saw Shatner, but then I remembered, with his toupee, it would have come flyin off during such a demonstration. Point well taken Joan....... forget the grass skirt..... probably would go better on Shatner anyway.....

Beam me up, too :BeamUp:
Shaft

Since I'm in Maui how about a flower lei instead of the grass skirt and there's always the mu mu you could wear. Hope the music is calming peaceful and always FUN.
Sandy:sunchair:

Good one JoanB
 

I don't know what is funnier - the prim lady in white playing the "Shaft" theme song very seriously, or the people rocking out to music from a uke. ? :confused:

Good idea, Sandy Kay...a mu mu sounds much less scratchy! :)

And I concur, Vivster, it's hard to say. How did we ever live without so much exposure to weirdness before the Internet?

(said the 55 year-old woman who pretends she's a sock monkey and hangs out with talking pop-tarts...oh wait, I have my psyche eval tomorrow...wonder if I should tell him about all of us..........................nah!)

Oh Please DO
 

Says a talking, guitar playing poptart to his friend, the Sock Monkey who is SO talented she can play music on mandolin and uke...... Do Sock Monkeys have fingers? I have long since forgotten that detail of the sock monkey I had as a child.

One very forgetful PopTart,
Mark56:grouphug:

Indeed
 

I've tried every which way to make it sound 'right', but rock and uke just dawn't mix. Uke-n-Roll Rock-n-Uke :icon_eek: oh dear


:BeamUp::BeamUp:Yep, beam up the whole lot of em :BeamUp::BeamUp:

Har Har Har
 

'Twas nice to have a bit of tongue in cheek humor, that it was......

For sure and for certain,
Mark56:Crazy 2:

Oops, sorry to keep you in suspense over whether or not sock monkeys have fingers...I never really thought about it before, but I guess we must, otherwise we'd only be able to play bar chords.

Anyways, I also forgot to update: I have to get the bloodwork again because of the low monocyte number. Nobody's saying if that's a big bad thing to worry about, so I applied one of my rules: when in doubt, assume it's all good until you learn otherwise. If it turns out to be something terrible, I'll have plenty of time to get upset about it then.

Also, I got through my psyche eval all right. I figured out at the last minute that the key to that whole deal was just to not seem too sad or too happy. I'm sure the shrink would tell you it's way more complicated than that.:rolleyes:

I think you are right Joan
 

The eval. is to ensure we are not making it all up - or that we are not too crazy (?) ha :confused:

The 2nd time around, the bloodwork came back with the monocyte low, but within in range. So I guess everthing's a go, and I called the Dr's office on Friday to ask what's next and I still haven't heard back from them.

They often take a long time to call me back--sometimes almost a week, and I'm starting to worry about that. What if I run into trouble in the middle of the trial, and they take so long to call me back? Would any of you be worried by this pattern?

Maybe it's time to be the squeeky wheel and call again. I wouldn't wait till Thanksgiving week.
I think During the trial they are more apt to stay on top of things. They want it to be successful. During the trial my Boston Sci reps were on call 24/7. They were a big help.

The most important thing is to trust your Dr and his team.

Hope you get answers soon.

Sandy

Yep Sandy!!
 

I think Sandy is on target with this one Joan:

1. Squeaky Wheel, take the Uke to the Drs office and offer to entertain them with a few tunes until they call you back.
2. Avoid Thanksgiving week, the week between Christmas and New Years Eve. Try for some mundane time like early December, when no one is doing anything but going to office parties.
3. If you can't trust the team find another.

Yup,
Mark56:)

Had to chuckle when I saw a kit to make a Sock Monkey today !

sock monkey
 

Joan, you've brought up a VERY valid concern. The doctor tends to turn you over to the reps once the surgery is done, but like Sandy said, the reps are very very helpful. After all, they DO want to sell you this thing!

Plus, I dont' think it'd be out of line to bring this up to your doctor - that you've called on several occassions and it takes this long to get back to you. I'd sure take it as a red-flag. Especially if you get the permanent. To this day, I guess I didn't push my Dr very hard when I had a migrated lead for 6 months and didn't know it. I knew 'something' wasn't right.
I do get angry about the fact that SCS pts don't get very good follow up care (in general)

:hug: Rae :hug:

:icon_lol:

That's it, Saffy! If there are sock monkey kits, then there should be sock monkey repair kits! That's what I need!

Well, I must have been channeling you all today...I called again to leave a message and they called back pretty soon after that. Here's the news: I finally have a date, which is Jan. 5. Not as soon as I would have liked, but there you have it. She assured me that they have staff on call over the weekend if I have trouble, so I guess that's it. Six more weeks.

Now I'm going to try to schedule the permanent installation in case the trial works out.

As for the not calling back, I am going to bring that concern up before January.

Threatening people with musical instruments...
 

Mark, you can't scare anyone with a ukulele. They are much too quiet. But last week I had the opportunity to play a banjolin, which, as you might have guessed, is a cross between a mandolin and a banjo. It was very loud. Now that thing you could scare people with. It also weighed a ton so even if you just swung it, you could could be pretty dangerous.

Jan 5th it is!
 

HURRAYYY!! You are officially 'in'! Let the countdown begin :cool:

Way to be a step ahead of the curve there, Joan. If you can get the permanent scheduled now, then you might not have as long a wait in between. And if for whatever reason you decide not to get the permanet implant, the surgery date can simply be cancelled.
How brilliant is THAT.
Why don't I think of these things?! :Scratch-Head:

I find it interesting how different doctors schedule the implant at different intervals. My Dr won't implant for two months after the trial to allow for complete healing. I've read other posts where implants are done very soon after the trial.

I'm glad you have your date. You can get through the holidays and have a FRESH start in 2012.

I just bought a sock monkey Christmas ornament for my nephew's 1st Christmas. So cute. My mom made them for me when I was little. :)

Sandy Kay

The Brighter Greener Bulb....
 

So, our banjolin playing, uke swinging, mandolin orchestrally strumming NEW BULB in the Got a Trial Date pack has that plucky brilliance to come up with scheduling surgery ahead........

I think we as a group oughta form an investment group, take this concept seriously..... I could pluck a banjolin in the background with Joan as someone more techy adept sets up the first ever website for surgical scheduling accessible by patients, surgeons, hospitals, sugical centers, insurance companies and the like. Dates are placed on calendar in hopes they may not be needed, but there nevertheless if NEED dictates. No more calls to an inattentive Doc office. Just get online and submit the surgical calendar request, populating the fields with insurance data, surgeon's ID, recommending physican, and the ethernet figures out who gets what when. Gee, we could even have a Red Carpet club for folks who want the high brow treatment. Miles on your credit card if you pay ahead and file claim with insurance after.

We could even do an IPO, live like Queens and Kings [so few guys, I figured I would put ladies first], get a leg up on the search engines. Help humankind. Blare the trumpets..... pluck the banjolins......

Someone is going to probably throw a brick at me.... I can feel the glare.....
:o
Mark56:eek:

Nah, no bricks, dear Mark....
We're just amazed at the dimensions of true WISDOM you delve into, to come up with these ideas....

I'm beginning to think YOU have a secret left pocket as well! :D

It is where I used to keep my navel lint......
 

:eek:You know the kind.... guys with hair and the stuff that goes along with that, and by gum, one day our daughter at a very young age came up to me and plucked navel lint from..... well.... my navel. So I started wearing shirts all of the time, the kind with a secret left pocket, so soon it bulged with lint.:D

But cha know, we could do this world wide start up of Appointments Be We, can't use R Us, or that awful toy company will sue. You know, trademark infringement...... we don't shop there anymore. Just click and drive when the doc and patient have agreed a surgery is appropriate. Get the scrip, enter the data. The fields populate with choice of surgical center, anesthetist, all of the blah, blah, and then enter the insurance data. Nothing like hospital efficiency.

Oh, and here is a real clue why a certain state out west which shall not be named but has had pot heads, actors, and such live in its governor's mansion, not to mention philanderers....... So I go online today needing data on a mortgage company out there. Oh, they have pretty web pages, complete with pictures of all of the political wannabees, but can you obtain data via computer? Au contraire!!!! One must take pen, paper and thought, mix it all up in a letter to mail to the government so they will answer someday. And I thought this place referred to as Silicon Valley was located out there. Suddenly it dawned on my why they are broke..... the followed the D.C. model...... yup.

So, IPO here we come, anyone wanna take this taildragger idea into the financial markets? I mean, if they will pay multi millions in bonuses to defunct outta money company heads as an atta boy, you got federal bailout money, surely a more serious plan like streamlining surgical planning should get a market boost. Huh?

Too funneh, huh?
Mark56:eek::eek::eek::eek: