16) The Eyes Have it!

Friday, June 18th~ I mentioned recently that my life resembles a pile of spaghetti right now.  There are so many strands in the pile that my fuzzy brain at times gets them all mixed up: they are all the same and it seems like I have trouble them from each other.  For example I had my necessary paperwork for a  CVIC ECHO PROCEDURE  this morning at 7:30 and at my last check of my paperwork and supplies I went through the list: instruction sheet for the ECHO, List of my meds, phone, nose spray, bottle of water, and wallet w/ insurance cards. The errant spaghetti strand this morning was in the paper category: I had the instruction sheet for my operation to remove my fistula (on Monday, the 21st instead of the info sheet on the ECHO).  Had to find the right one and made myself 5 minutes later!

These are the strands of details that have come together in my own multi spaghetti string universe: 6 interwoven medical situations; 5 interwoven medication puzzles; 2 disease monitoring issues, and various other spaghetti strands that seem to stick to each other.

It is probably time to add a folder for each doctor or medical condition.

Saturday, July 17th~ Quick catch up that has challenged me to keep track of my blogs. Since my last visit with Dr. Levitan at Austin Retina all the healing has been very smooth, painless, and easy. I'm scheduled for one final follow up on September 13th and then I hope to be back on track to Dr Smith for cataract surgery on my right eye.  It's been weird for the past year having perfect 20/20 in one eye and slight fuzziness in the other eye. Yes, it was a year since the left eye surgery on August 10, 2020: before COVID-19 slowed many medical procedures down to a crawl.

On Jack's Kidney Adventure (#469) I blog about the spaghetti-like interplay of lowering ammonia in the liver, the possibly problematic interplay of cyclosporine (an anti-rejection medication) and xifaxan (an antibiotic related to expeling ammonia in the liver). The supporting materials from the manufacturer warns patients to use caution when using Xifaxan with Cyclosporine, which I have to take to keep my system from rejecting my transplant. 

I messaged Dr. Baru for his take on all this and on July 22nd he responded: "It should not be a problem. Cyclosporine is metabolized in the liver by... rifaximin has no interaction here. ...To be extremely safe we can measure a cyclosporine level 3 days after the starting the Xifaxan. Please let me know." 

And as soon as two strands of my multi-spaghetti-string-universe are explored and  straightened out we find that one them is also wound around another that we haven't examined, or figured out how it is involved with the tangle.