Monday, August 1, 2011

Ben

Well it has been too long since i have written an update, just FYI im fine. over 5 years cancer free. im writing today to vent. Im just about ready to blow. This is about Ben. Ben is a wonderful husband and friend. Great guy all around. He has health issues that have made him potentially crippled. For years now he has been having terrible muscle spasms in his legs. He is also on meds for Diabetes. The doctor insists that his leg problems are caused from Neuropathy from diabetes. NOT. 1 he had the spasms way before he was diabetic. And 2 i know a lot of diabetics that are insulin dependant that do not ever have muscle spasms. my own grand daughter is insulin dependant diabetic. i know a little about diabetes. Ben's spasms have gotten much worse over the past few years. He has had to take 2 medical leaves, one last year and one this year because of his pain. This last leave was a result of an incompatant neurologist, Dr Navada, in clarksburg. Bens doc refered ben to him. Dr Navadah pulled Ben off his celexa and Gabapentin. and put him on a new one, which i cant remember the name of right now. well after 2 weeks his muscle spasms were worse and he was severely depresed. as a result he had to leave work after one week into his two week tour. at that time he was working 12 days of 12 hour shifts every day then he got one week off. his drive home from Pa. was totally miserable. spasms all the way home in his legs. he called me several times beside himself in pain. the last time he called at midnight. he said get dressed and meet me at UHC im going to the ER. He was crying i could tell all throughout the trip he was in really bad shape. However i had never seen him this bad. I said if you have to Ben, pull off and all 911. I was scared to death he would wreck and kill his self or someone else. thankfuly he made it to the hospital. a few minutes before me. when i arrived he was being checked in. he was crying uncontrollably. shaking all over. the spasm had worked its way all the up his back to his neck. he was slurring his words. his vision was blurry too he said. they checked his sugar it was fine. i was terrified. he was too im sure. by the time they got him in a room it had eased a bit. the er doc came in. asked a million questions. to which i answered most of em for ben. that doctor wouldnt even look at me. i know doctors dont like to hear from anyone but the patient but we have been married since 1981. i live with ben i know him. i feel his pain. i wanted to tell ben to tell the doc to listen to me. but i didnt. and i still wish i had. anyway, the doc did blood work i am not sure what they tested for but it was all normal they said. they also did ct of his brain since his vision was blurry. the ct was good. so they gave no meds nothing or pain. but he offered ben some tylenol. wtf for muscle spasm. tylenol. omg im just fuming. by this time his spasms were mostly gone. so they sent him home with papers that said he had RLS. restless leg syndrome. how can doctors be so totally incompetant. i have RLS. im on meds for it. i still have it a few nights a week. i end up pacing the floor till it passes. but it does not cause severe pain. ben has seen me sit here and constantly move my legs because they wont stop twitching or contracting. this is no comparison to his spasms. and on top of it all. then Dr. Navadah also insisted on putting ben thru the sleep lab because, he said often times people with "thick necks" had sleep apnea. right away i protested. i said were not here for this were here for muscle spasms. he said well this has nothing to do with muscle spasms. but if he had sleep apnea maybe we could get to have a better nights sleep that would help him maybe. ben said he would do it. the result was from the doc. a little sleep apnea, not bad enough that the doc would insist on him wearing the machine. he would leave that up to ben. i said fine now can we concentrate on his muscle spasms. i could tell right away it pissed him off. thats when he pulled him off the meds and tried the new one that he said was prescribed for many different conditions. he thought it would help. well when it didnt and we back i hit him with several questions to which he had no answers for. he said sometimes there are no answers its a matter of the right medication. i said then how do you know what medication to give him if you dont know what is causing the problem. he got up and said i think it would be best if you left now obviously im not the right doctor for you. but he recomended he try requip. which is for again, RLS. as well as other issues one of them being muscle spasms. i said fine we can try that. so he same as threw us out. that was the end of that. so we go back to bens family doc. and push for him to be refered to cleveland clinic. well that took red tape and pulling teeth to get it finally done. the appointment was made last thursday. we were told to see a neuroligist. yet another one, by the way. but ben wanted to go there if no one else could help him maybe they could. and he needs relief from the pain. well today when i was packing and going to meet ben in new martinsville, where he is working. then we were going to leave the hotel in the morning to go to cleveland. i called dr khan's office to get a phone number for cleveland so i could get an address where we were going. only to call cleveland and be told that this is a sleep lab appointment. man did i looose it. were back to square one. and not only that but cleveland was told that ben had RLS. i cant believe what im hearing. i told cleveland we had already been thru this. he had been to a sleep lab already and that he does not have RLS. he has severe muscle spasms. day and night, night and day. they seem to be triggered by him being on his feet at work for hours everyday. it has to be something pushing on a nerve some where in his back. thats my opinion. why wont the doctors listen to us. why cant they help him. so thats where we are at this point. NO WHERE... this rant will be continued at a later date.

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