My antibodies normalize yesterday.
I am very very tired and grieving.
Why grieving? Handling the dopamine antibody takes a ton of energy. I am wondering if it is really an antibody to the epinephrine receptors rather than dopamine. But the scientists can't be wrong, ha, ha. Oh yes they can. Maybe I make an anti-epi antibody that turns them all on. Tachycardia, mood stuff, wired, except that I am able to sleep which is fairly weird, really. Bipolar mania, supposedly you don't sleep. I sleep. Is it really mania/OCD/ADHD/etc or is it a looks like? Maybe in most people the antibody is to dopamine but once in a while it is to epinephrine. Or maybe it's to both, like the SNRI drugs. What is my evidence? Certain epi relatives help me: coffee caffeine but not tea. Terbutaline but not albuterol. I have not tried adderall or the newest inhaler alternative to albuterol. Ok, it's weird, but there it is.
Anyhow, while I deal with this, I can't process emotions very well. Also my memory is not great and I trip over things. Having oxygen tubing running all over the house was a mess. I quit using the concentrator on the main floor when the IT got here, because I didn't want to trip her. I did not fall at all, I think because of all the past jitterbug dance. I have a lot of practice recovering balance and it has come in handy. Then my ankle was injured and then the IT's left knee and ankle. The EF arrived and I tell him to please not injure his left knee or ankle, we have enough of that. So far so good.
They are going to leave four days early, so the EF can drive the IT's standard car back to the state she is in. She has to be there in early August for work. He has to change plane tickets. We are trying to arrange PT and an MRI in that state and an orthopedist, but she has to go through her primary care person and has to be in that state to do it. Which will delay everything by two weeks at least. This is not the summer she planned. Me neither. I advise on how to navigate the weird ass medical stuff and she lets me take over the phone call with the other state primary care office person while I ask how to expedite her care. It's a pain.
My prediction is that that will get a lot worse over the next couple years or maybe five. As the unimmunized pockets get covid-19 and get really sick and/or die, some of them, the burn out will accelerate. Like gasoline on a fire. I was earning $110 per hour to go see patients and get pneumonia two towns away. Travel nurses for ICUs were being offered more in the midwest. Physical therapy may be backed up now, but just wait. It will all be backed up way worse. That is the lizard prediction. Forget elective health care: that will be with alternative providers only for some time. We may well get single payer out of it. The cost of keeping nurses and docs will go way up and so will insurance and then that whole stupid insurance thing may collapse and good bloody riddance.
Anyhow, once my antibodies come down, I am left with fatigue and also have to process all the emotions I couldn't handle during the episode. About 6 weeks for the antibodies to go up and another six for them to come down. Three months from the start of antibiotics would be June 20, but it takes ten days for the antibiotics to really work, so add that time. And here I am.
The fatigue is way less bad than 2014 because of the oxygen. I currently have four doc visits and two studies scheduled, ugh. With four different providers. Didn't fix anything in 2014. I will jump through the stupid hoops, though, complaining.
The EF and I went to my friend's band practice and jammed with them. I keep thinking how jealous I am that he has been in a group for music his whole life. His brother died, but he still has the other two. Why didn't I have that? Then I realized: I did. My father, mother and sister and I sang for all those years. But they are all dead and I will never sing with them on this earth again. I had picked a song for us to sing, Mr. Noah, that we had recorded. I had to go outside for a while when it hit, overwhelmed. I had a group but they are gone.
My children know many of the songs. I am going to send them the family recording. Maybe we can sing when we are on the same side of the country.
I am in my fallout period. I think we will see a roaring 20s, similar to 100 years ago, after that lethal influenza. I think we will see a medical fallout. We are starting to see shortages of parts and electronics and various things.
What will happen next?
______________________
Ok, dopamine can cause tachycardia: https://www.drugs.com/sfx/dopamine-side-effects.html. So I will read about it and epinephrine and the distinguishing features. There is that one rat neuron with over 300 different serotonin receptors. Blocking one made the rats OCD. Maybe my antibodies only hit ten receptors, who knows?
Great. Gangrene of the extremities as a side effect. Well, at least I haven't had that. I did have Raynaud's after the 2014 pneumonia. However, that seems gone, thank goodness.
From wikipedia on dopamine: "Like most amines, dopamine is an organic base.13 As a base, it is generally protonated in acidic environments (in an acid-base reaction).13 The protonated form is highly water-soluble and relatively stable, but can become oxidized if exposed to oxygen or other oxidants.13 In basic environments, dopamine is not protonated.13 In this free base form, it is less water-soluble and also more highly reactive.13" When I have a high antibody level, I feel really sick after I eat. Drinking a NUNN tablet in water, really helps. The NUNN tablets are mostly bicarbonate of soda, aka baking soda. Apparently that fixes the acid-base imbalance and I feel much better. In part I realized that I was slowing my breathing way down after eating, which helps one hold on to CO2, so makes one less acidic. By drinking a base, my breathing normalizes. Weird, but the wikipedia entry provides a possible explanation.