Talk about a wasted, do-nothing day. I got up this morning and was headed out the door to work when a violent wave of not-feeling-well hit me. I thought it might be just a Monday thing, but I gave it a few minutes and it was definitely not in my head. So I e-mailed in sick. I didn’t want to just go to bed though, sometimes that makes me feel worse. So I sat down on the couch and put in the Two Towers Special Extended Platinum Director’s Cut Deleted Scenes Extra Stuff Box of White Rice and the Kitchen Sink version. And I watched it all. And then I had some lunch, and let the dogs out, and re-potted a plant. And then I came in and put in Return of the King Special Extended Platinum Director’s Cut Deleted Scenes Extra Stuff Box of White Rice and the Kitchen Sink version. And I watched all that too. And now I have that horrible, logey feeling you get when you do nothing but watch movies for 6 hours straight.

In the meantime I called my doctor, my internist. My gyno wants me to have a procedure done that I think is unnecessary. In fact, I think she’s a procedure-happy hot mess, actually. I think part of the reason she wants to do this procedure on me is so that she doesn’t have to prescribe me pain meds, if you can believe that. She actually said “Well, I’ve never operated on you, so I wouldn’t feel comfortable prescribing any pain medications.” What the fuck? So I should let her operate on me, causing fresh pain, to get medicine in order to releive the pain I already have? When she doesn’t even know what’s causing that?

So I called my internist to see if any of my other conditions might be affecting me in the way I am experiencing, and she basically said exactly the same thing as my gyno, except she also said a couple other stupid things that led me to understand that she has absolutely no concept of what’s going on with my health, and has a fundamental misunderstanding about a few things that are important to me, medically. So she just wants me to go have an invasive medical procedure too, just to “rule some things out.” Well, excuse me if I am not jumping aboard the medical procedures to rule things out train, since I remember very clearly what happened to me last time she wanted to rule things out.If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that I know damn good and well when something’s not right with me. And I am not going to go through an expensive, exploratory, invasive medical procedure just because my doctors won’t listen and won’t prescribe me pain meds.

This is combined with the fact that I just found out that my endocrinologist has left his practice, and now I have a new one. Who knows what she will be like. I am so out of faith with doctors, I am sick of all their bullshit pandering and acting like I am retarded when, if I hadn’t kept pushing them this year, they would have just kept telling me that my issues were all in my head. Since my subsequent diagnoses, I really want to say “Hey fuckwits, I told you so!” to someone, but I don’t think that would improve my general standard of care at all.

Anyway, I feel logey, achy and gross, even though it’s lovely out. I think I am going to go lay down and read a book. I would try outside, but the mosquitoes are sure to be terrible, and that giant spider really freaked me out. I just keep thinking that if there was one like that, there have to be more. Ick. (It’s apparently a St. Andrew’s Cross Spider and has “low venom toxicity.” Whatever.)

Warning—unfocused, rambling whine-fest ahead. If you’re not in the mood for that, please skip. If you’re up for it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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There is the bitchiest, most thick-headed beeyatch who answers the phones at my endocrinologist’s office. She is consistently assholish and deliberately obtuse, today being no exception.

Issue #1 : I had a situation this spring in which I had gone for some diagnostic testing and no one told me beforehand that one of my medications is contra-indicated in combination with the medication they use in the test, since the combo can cause kidney failure. I understand how the error happened, since Dr. 1 prescribes me the medication and Dr. 2 sent me for the test at Facility 3. But it’s still annoying because I filled out all kinds of paperwork at Dr. 2’s office, informing him of my medications/dosages, so what’s the point of that if they’re going to send me for testing without reading it? Tiresome. Anyway, I got to the place for the testing and in BIG letters the paperwork there asks if I take this medication, and when I tell them I do they say that I can still do the testing, but have to stop the medication and not start it again until 48 hours later AND I have bloodwork to make sure my kidneys are still functioning. Nice. So anyway, after the test is over I call Dr. 1’s office and explain to them what happened, wanting to double-check about the instructions and have them add kidney function testing to the bloodwork requisition I already had for that week. Also, I had been painstakingly working my way up to a full dosage of this medication for weeks, and I was worried about stopping it for 48 hours, what that would do to me (most likely make me really ill.) The phone call proceeded as follows:

Me: I had <x> test done, and I take <z> medication, I understand that now I have to have some bloodwork done?
Beeyatch Nurse: You can’t take that medication and have that test done. You have to stop taking the medication.
Me: I know, but now I need to have bloodwork done?
BN: Why did you have that test done, when you’re on that medication?
Me: Another doctor sent me for the testing.
BN: Well, then he should have told you that you couldn’t do that.
Me: Well he didn’t.
BN: You can’t take that medication and have that testing. That doctor was supposed to tell you that.
Me: Well he didn’t
BN: Well he should have.
Me: OK, well regardless of what he should have done, I have now HAD the test. What do I do?
BN: You need to have bloodwork done, and stop your medication until the results are back.
Me:…. (isn’t that what I just started out saying?) OK, well can you send me a thing for new bloodwork? I have to have some done Friday anyway, so I will just add this in.
BN: It’s too late to send it out! It will never get there in time!
Me: OK, so can we adapt the requisition that I have now to add in the new test?
BN: Normally we don’t do that.
Me: Can we do that this time, though?
BN: Well I suppose so. But normally we don’t do that.

I mean, FFS, she’s obviously one of those people who takes delight in the drama caused by being obstructionist. I hate that trait in people. People who freak out over what should have happened or what might happen, rather than dealing with what IS happening.

OK, so Issue #2, today. I have to go for (you guessed it) bloodwork this week. Since I have been having these absolutely ridiculous female issues, I decided I wanted to have my current level of iron tested too, to see if I need a supplement. So I called and get BN on the phone. Now I need to note that they answered the phone and immediately put me on hold for 9 minutes and 50 seconds too. So it’s already irritating. Finally she answers again.

Me: I am a patient of Dr. 1, and I have to have bloodwork done this week. I want to also have my iron level checked. Can you send me a new requisition which includes my iron level?
BN: You’re having bloodwork done already?
Me: Yes, but it doesn’t include iron levels, and I want those tested too.
BN: Did the doctor want your iron tested?
Me: No, he didn’t ask for it, but I want it tested and I thought since I was going to have bloodwork done I would just combine it, rather than going twice to have blood drawn.
BN: Well, I can’t just send out a new requisition form, I have to check with the doctor.
Me: I assumed you would need to check with the doctor. That’s fine. (Thinking: was there some option I missed where I could call the doctor directly? Otherwise it’s pretty standard that I call you and you check with him, right? Isn’t that what phone-answering nurses are FOR?)
BN: Why do you want to have that checked anyway?
Me: I am at work and I prefer not to go into it, actually. The doctor will understand why I want it checked, when you talk to him.
BN: *heaves a sigh* A number at which you can be reached?

Obstructionist people who hurl up imaginary obstacles everywhere are some of the most tedious people with which to deal, seriously. Just MAKE IT WORK, people. No bitching! There’s no bitching in baseball! Just MAKE IT WORK.

/rant

I am PMS-ing pretty hard, it seems, since three things have made me tear up this morning.

1. A story about a lost parrot who had his name and address memorized so was reunited with his owners
2. This picture
3. Our local Stray Rescue winning a $1 million dollar shelter makeover and the picture of the dog that survived a 2003 attempt to gas him.

This picture didn’t make me tear up though, it made me smile. So I thought I would share that too.

more cat pictures

Now Michael Buble is making me tear up with his song “Everything”. This is all on top of Monday’s episode of House making me cry like Nancy Kerrigan too. It’s going to be a long cycle.

So I am sick. I have this thing. Not like, a deadly thing (at least in the short-term). But I am pretty sick. It turns out I have been sick for quite a while now (see my own endless posting and whining on that topic for the past 4 years) just no one recognized what it was because it’s a pretty complicated endocrine-system syndrome which is reserved specially for women. Whee! Women have all the fun.

I have read all I can on it and I am only just beginning to understand how it works. And no one knows what causes it, and it’s chronic. But there’s treatment which, even though they don’t understand why it works, works. And that’s a good thing - sorta.

So now I am taking this medication to make me not so sick anymore. But the catch is that the medication makes me sick. Like, I take the medication and my whole body goes into intestinal revolt. Or, I take the medicine and then can’t move for the rest of the day because I ache too much. Or, I take the medicine and start to run a fever and get chills and i can’t get warm even if I stand in front of the open oven (yes, I’ve tried). I am at a half dosage, and have been taking it for 9 days. I have to work up to take twice as much as I am taking now within the next few weeks. The omniscient “they” say it’s about a month before the side effects begin to abate.

One of the things that makes the reaction to the medication worse is carbohydrates. I am supposed to eat a lot of protein and not a lot of carbohydrates. But I don’t eat meat. I mean, I CAN eat meat, but I don’t enjoy eating meat. So that’s hard. And I am supposed to eat every meal with a balance of protein, fat and vegetable stuff, but not so much carbs. What the feck do you eat for breakfast besides cereal? I always eat cereal for breakfast, cereal or oatmeal. Is there other breakfast food? I know of none. I can’t (ha!) stomach the thought of eating eggs and bacon and that kind of crap for breakfast. Gross. Of course, pretty much everything I look at now I think “gross” since I know how sick it’s going to make me when I eat it and take this medicine. If there ever was a deterrent to eating, it’s knowing that you’re going to want to barf it all up twenty minutes later.

So, that’s the realistic, justified complaining part. The “complaining for superficial reasons” part starts now. Continue reading »