10 posts tagged “doctor”
a) it's time to celebrate my darlings: after much phone tag, Mr. Pulmonologist himself pronounced me condition-free, meaning my heart and lungs are as good as they can be and I'm not dying of anything. I am, simply, batshit crazy.
hella.
b) I'm celebrating by having a gin and tonic with my cat, which means i'm drinking it, and he's licking the outside of the glass. He's sort of middle aged, for a cat, and when he goes, this is what I'll remember. i doubt another cat will ever share a drink with me the way Jonas Spawn of Satan has shared the drinks with me
c) i ate some of my awesome boyfriend's beef jerky. but i think he'll understand. it's a protein and iron thing. it's a girl thing. Honey i love you. Gomez.
d) there is no d.
e) someone asked me to partner up for some cool dance events, today. (hella)
f) I am in love and can probably count on living a long, healthy life with the man of my dreams. does it get any better than that?
yay.
HELLA.
I've just cancelled my 'follow-up' appointment with my pulmonologist because it was pointless. Or, at this point, it is pointless. I called today for results, and there are none; he hasn't gone over them yet and had nothing to report. So wait, I'm supposed to take off work, drive, park, pay $20 co-pay, sit in an office and WAIT for him to come into an office and tell me that I do or do not have some terrible disease? Why can't he do that on the telephone and save us both the trouble of a face-to-face? Why?
the answer is: no reason. I've decided not to like him because he wouldn't agree that I had asthma. He made me feel it was urgent that i go in for assorted tests and then he couldn't be bothered to process the results. He is willing to let me come in and waste half a day for what is potentially nothing, at the same time preventing actual patients in need (maybe those other FIFTEEN people in the waiting room with tubes and oxygen tanks) from seeing him. He's ridiculous.
If he calls me and tells me something useful, i'll make an appointment to see him. If he doesn't, I'll simply get the results from my PCP (who is altogether pleasant and accommodating) and she and I can discuss what to do next.
AHHH i feel like 100x better just having exerted this one measure of control.
i'm freaking out. I've got this echocardiogram tomorrow to find out if my non-asthma is something called pulmonary hypertension. Which is like, the worst disease ever. I wiki'd it, like a fucking dumbass, and even though I'm missing a number of the 'signs and symptoms', you know of course i'm just fucking convinced I've got it and it's killing me. I wish i had the kind of job that would get busy all of a sudden, distract me from all this shit. but i don't. So i took an ativan. which will probably help. I want to hug my boyfriend like, RIGHT NOW.
copied from my reply to the parents:
It's off to the cardiologist I go. My first ever specialist-type doctor.
Breathing et al was not so good yesterday so I'm anxious to see this man and get this all wrapped up. For ease of access I've removed my own heart and it's there --> throbbing in a tupperware.
Oh beat, beat little heart. You've got quite a day ahead of you.
by Kat S.
So everywhere I'm standing is uphill. Over there ---> is downhill. If I go there, it is, miraculously, uphill.
Things are a lot shinier than you think.
My hands are icy. My lips will not move the way I expect, but it's ok, I forget words. Forgetting them saves me the trouble of sounding like I lost the title-fight, when I say them.
My right side is much heavier than my left side. This makes placing myself a little awkward.
Actually, it's just that my right side is facing always downhill, here in my apartment.
Actually, it's just that everything is sort of leaning right. Including my computer and vox, and everything I'm typing.
I'm kind of tired. I slept 10 hours last night. My heart didn't race all day, and I had a SUPERB workout tonight. My energy level was great.
My breathing is still off.
But i feel kind of ok. Did you know that beta blockers decrease symptoms of stage fright? of social anxiety disorder? Did you know that they can cause crazy dreams? Last night I dreamed Katherine Heigl was running for president, and she was putting on lipstick and said:
"I think it's ok if girls want to be naked once in a while"
Then she smiled, and the screen flashed to a pundit who said "And that's where she lost the race"
My doc called today and left a msg to call her back about the heart monitor results. For all the other tests I've had, they've just sent a form letter with 'you passed' or whatever, so I'm wondering why the phone call. Unless something is wrong. right? SO here I am analyzing how she sounded on the phone (chipper? or fake chipper?!) and thinking about how quickly they worked on that (3 hours). Unreal. I'm not used to that kind of attention. And now I've left a msg for her to call me on my office phone, and I'm waiting. and waiting. And panicking. I've gotten pretty accustomed to the way panic feels for me, so I know when it starts. Which is totally weird, b/c I'm not a panicky person. Or I wasn't. gah. please call. please call now. please call now.. ok back to waiting.
normally I would have replied to your comments on the 'breathe' post, but I was so overwrought at the time, and most of today, I just didn't have a chance.
But I wanted to say thank you for putting so much thought into what you wrote. It made me feel immensely and rather immediately better to read what you'd written. I had renewed hope, and I felt valid in one of my weaker moments. Or one of my more honest moments, perhaps.
I'm not a person who accepts defeat easily most of the time, so it was difficult to try and fail with my own health. Twice, as far as I was concerned. You all made me feel like I had so many other options to try, and that I was justified to feel as frustrated as I did. That helped so much with the anxiety. I swear, 80% of what's going on with me is sheer panic, of not breathing, of illness, of being out of control of a basic human function. After reading your comments, I felt.. well not 'healed'. but better about being sick. Or something.
So today, I went to the doctor and just layed it out... How I'm feeling physically and how it's making me a crazy person, emotionally. I started crying right away, and she did just what you guys did, she told me it was ok and totally normal to get stressed out. She understood and agreed that I was making it worse with anxiety. She in fact offered to treat the anxiety at least temporarily, to take the edge off of what I'm experiencing. I said no, mostly because I'm functional right now, and so far I'm hanging in there with the occasional verbal nudge. I'd rather not medicate unless I'm desperate for it. I think antianxiety meds are probably a lifesaver for people who need them occasionally... I'm just not ready to be one of those people, not yet.
I get by with a little help from my friends.
A thousand thanks, guys, really. Super hugs.
kat
Just kidding. Just wanted to show you the new and improved cybernetic Jan Brady:
Electrodes are the new black, yo. These wires attach to my new best friend, my 24-hour heart monitor. It will monitor every skip and drip of my still-beating-heart.
The doc also gave me a breathing test (which I'm not sure I passed) and blood work. There's not much left to probe, so I hope they find something... (i'm a little protective of my brain and my ass).
Enjoy
The doctor was extremely pleasant, and she said she couldn't find anything wrong with me, that what I described was most likely an allergy. She sent me for a chest xray, and she gave me samples of Singulair and a Xopenex HFA inhaler, and a prescription for both. If I'm not feeling better in 2 weeks, I'll go back for something else.
I took the Xopenex first thing.. i noticed a slight difference, but nothing to write home about. I took the singulair with lunch and I'm hoping it will have solved all my problems by the time I go for kickboxing. Both drugs are appropriate for people with asthma and without, so if they work I guess it really doesn't matter. at any rate, i should have some improvement by this weekend. I will keep everyone updated :)
yay, onward to better breathing!!
