Red Monkey: Blog Archives

August 8, 2005

When do YOU go to the doctor?

I hate going in to the doctor's office. It's generally a huge waste of my time. Spend at least fifteen minutes getting there, at least a half hour waiting in the waiting room and then the office visit room, another fifteen to check out and another fifteen or so to get back to work or back to the house. Plus, of course, fifteen minutes with the doctor - generally the shortest part of the visit.

So, I don't go to the doctor unless I really really think I need to go. I have better things to do with my time than waste at least two hours just to be told to take a pill or a test and we'll figure it out later.

On top of just not really liking doctor visits (visit? like it's a pleasant little chat? Come on!), I also have a very high tolerance for pain and discomfort. Now, I'll whine about a papercut on my finger just like most folks. But let me give you an example or two:

I am four. I have been swimming recently and got a little panicked when my swim teacher went inside the clubhouse to take a phonecall after telling me to jump in the deep end. This was not some missed social cue, she really did think I would be able to swim the pool without her. I jump in, flounder, she finally sees from the window and comes in after me. By this time, I've mostly gotten myself to the side of the pool anyway.

A few days later, we're visiting relatives and I begin, oddly enough, to complain about an earache. But, we're in a different town and it's a hassle to take a kid to a new pediatrician when you're visiting relatives.

"How bad does it hurt," Mom asks.

At four, I don't really understand this question. At four, for me, things either hurt or they don't hurt. I've got no way to decide the various levels of pain. So, I shrug.

My mom figures if a kid is not screaming about the pain, then it's not bad enough to go to the doctor. After all, a normal kid screams at a simple skinned knee, so anything worse than that would involve screaming, right?

A few days later, I am still complaining that my ear hurts. We are shopping in a mall and suddenly my ear feels different and doesn't really hurt so much anymore. Obviously my mom was right, and I didn't need the doctor.

A few minutes after this feeling of relief, Mom looks over at me and makes the disapproving face.

"What did you get into?"

"Nothing."

"Then what's that all over the side of your face?"

My eardrum had burst.

I didn't know. I was unaware of the increasing pain, that to hear others say, is evidently pretty intense. I thought it was normal, just something to deal with and move on.

One more, shorter example. I was eleven and I was hanging from one of the soccer goals at school. I was maybe an inch or two off the ground, just hanging there, like three or four other little monkeys. Some kid comes up behind me and shoves me in the small of the back and I lose my grip and fall.

No big deal. I land on my butt and put my arms out to brace myself on either side. I'm irritated with the kid who pushed me, but really, what's the harm? I wasn't high enough off the ground to do any real damage. My left wrist bothers me, though.

I assume that I've sprained my wrist and I don't want to listen to another lecture about being careful, so I don't tell mom that I've sprained my wrist because another kid pushed me off the soccer goal. I just try to be careful with my wrist and it will be better in a few days. But it's not. It still hurts in a few days. I still hesitate ... it's not a big pain ... is it?

I finally get around to telling Mom. She complains about having to take me to the doctor for nothing, that I am a hypochondriac. They x-ray the arm and mom looks carefully at the developed picture.

"Nothing," she says, disgusted. "This is a wasted trip and a waste of time."

The doctor looks at the film in his office. "Yep, it's broken, all right."

Mom is shocked and appalled, she was so sure I was just being a whiner. Now I'm treated to a lecture on letting her know when things hurt me.

So when I say that I ache all the time and my joints feel arthritic and painful, I don't believe that it's nothing. I don't even believe that it's just the way things are when you hit middle age (at 36).

But, the thyroid came back clean and the lupus tests came back all right. The only other things I've found that fit my symptoms are chronic fatigue (Epstein-Barr) and fibromyalgia.

And what frustrates me, no, I'll be perfectly honest, what seriously pisses me off, is that while my doctor took it seriously, this stupid rheumatologist poo-pooed the whole thing as "middle age." He dismissed it, quite obviously, as me whining about nothing.

The last time that happened to me, the last time a doctor thought I was just a whiner, he ignored my freaking CANCER symptoms for TWO YEARS!

So I don't have much confidence in this rheumatologist at all.

My question to the public at large is this: when do YOU go to the doctor? When, and how, do you decide that enough is enough and it's time to go get fixed?
And the corollary: What do you do when they don't take you seriously?

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:57 AM | Comments (5) | Blog | StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble

August 4, 2005

No Lupus

Well, the doctor did say this morning that he's not at all concerned about Lupus, based on my tests -- and that is what my general practitioner was looking for.

So I'm glad that there's no lupus as that is just a scary yucky thing. But I'm really frustrated that his answer to everything was: get better sleep. Maybe somewhere down the line, if I keep whining, he'll order a sleep test.

His secondary answer: lose the weight. Duh. No shit, you think maybe that's why I only eat about 400 calories between waking and leaving work, 'cuz maybe I'm trying to work on that? His response, "Well, I fast once a week to keep my weight down."
*sigh* So I'm gonna keep a food journal for the rest of August and see if I can prove to the doctors (and myself) that I'm really NOT over-eating. I don't really eat sweets; I'm not much of a chocolate person.

Basically, I've had it with people assuming that I can't drop weight because I can't quit eating. Now the exercise, that's a routine I can't seem to stay in, that'll I'll give you. So, this weekend, I guess I'll find a way to clean out something in the basement so we can get the "new" home gym all set up.

Finding out that I don't have lupus should have put me in a really good mood. Instead, I'm just frustrated (and whining - sorry about that). Your muscles and joints area not supposed to ache all the time. I don't have arthritis, the thyroid is fine and there's no lupus. I think all that's left is chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.

Oh, and of course, poor sleep.

Argh.

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:02 AM | Comments (4) | Blog | StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble

July 30, 2005

Ugh

Well, after deleting two posts for today, I'm just going to go ahead and vent for a minute.

This past ten days just sucked. A woman I knew from the community passed away and I went to the funeral last Thursday. Then, as things start to get a little better earlier this week, I come home to a message on the answering machine that my grandpa-in-law had passed away. Since he was one of the very, very few adults in my life who encouraged me and was truly non-judgemental, this was a tremendous loss for me.

Then, the following day, I get a message from the doctor's office. I've been having a lot of joint pain, but we've already ruled out arthritis. At least, we've ruled out any typical kind of arthritis. We ran a slew of blood tests which mostly came back negative, except for an ANA test which came back 1:80 speckled. This meant nothing to me, of course, but the doctor said we should do one more test, given my symptoms. She stated that the 1:80 speckled results were generally a false positive, but she wanted to be thorough and not ignore anything.

Sounds good to me. So, I go in and have more blood drawn. I get a phone call the day after I find out about my grandpa-in-law's death. A rather asinine and inexperienced receptionist from the doctor's office says "something's wrong with your blood so we're going to call Dr. Birnbaum and make an appointment."

No explanation, no indication of what the hell is going on. Just "something's wrong." Great. That makes me feel wonderful. Could you be a little more mysterious about it????

At least they didn't say we needed to schedule an appointment with my oncologist. So I call Dr. Birnbaum's, the rheumatologist, office and set an appointment. And then, "I don't suppose you could tell me what this is in relation to?"

The receptionist pauses. "Umm, well, you need a check-up in August ..."

"I know," I tell her. "But my general practitioner ran a test and then said I needed to see Dr. Birnbaum again. I don't suppose you have that result in front of you."

"I'm just the receptionist. I could have a nurse call you."

"Please do." That was Thursday. A week after Diane's funeral. I didn't hear back from the nurse Friday. According to the symptoms I have and the one test result I know about, I could have any one of a slew of not-happy things.

Fibromyalgia.
Lupus.
Thyroid issues. (probably not, don't have enough symptoms)
Crohn's.
Liver issues. (a fear since the chemo and meds before and after are hard on the liver)
And I forget the rest.

My appointment is Thursday morning, so I guess I'll know what the doctor's thinking on Thursday. If it has to be something "serious," I'm rooting for fibromyalgia. There's no cure, but hey, if it's "just" pain, I can cope with that. Lupus terrifies me -- my whole life I've had weird skin rashes and sensitivities which have caused various doctors to bandy that diagnosis around as a possibility.

Power of positive thinking: I say no lupus. Say it with me now, No lupus.

Argh. I hate waiting for stuff like this. I suck at it. I will say this about my Hodgkin's diagnosis back in 1999 - once I got to a competent doctor, there was no messing around. I was in the hospital before I knew what was going on. Of course, a hemoglobin of 5.8 kind of freaks health professionals out. And seeing the outline of my spleen through my t-shirt kinda freaks them out, too.

Thursday. Seems like a looooong time away.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:40 PM | Comments (1) | Blog | StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble

July 28, 2005

Trackback Spam

Before I started this blog, I'd read in other blogs about spam comments and I thought, "Well, that's par for the course anymore, I guess." It never ocurred to me - for some stupid reason or another - that there might also be trackback spam. The first trackback I got was legit. Every single one since then has been utter crap spam. The ones advertising "search engines" are kind of annoying. Bah-LETED. Then there were the trackbacks which were just a bunch of links for different poker and gambling website. Again with the Bah-LETED.

I'm no longer excited when I see a Trackback email in my inbox. I'm leery and jaded. "Oh, what's this going to be an ad for?" But what I found in my inbox this morning was beyond the limit.

The first link was for "hairy v*gin*" and the links just went downhill from there. I was incensed that this had been on my site if only for a few late-night hours. Do other people just not check their trackbacks to make sure they're really legit? Why do the spammers think this is a good way to attain traffic?

And why does it always piss me off so much when people do stupid shit like this?

Anyone know of an API or something for Moveable Type that will make trackbacks require approval before they go live to the site?

Sheesh.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:25 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble

July 27, 2005

World's Most Spoiled Dogs

I love wolves and coyotes. So, when the Brookfield Zoo had a stuffed wolf/coyote done in the really soft fur that I like, I just had to have it. It's bigger than a beanie baby, but it's not huge. Probably stands about 8" high, but it's maybe 6" squared since the wolf is sitting down. Very cute.

So after we get the dogs back from the kennel, I've forgotten that my new wolf is sitting on the bed. And that the dogs' stairs are actually in place at the foot of the bed (they're mini-dachshunds, they can't get up there without the stairs). Scrappy comes trotting out of the bedroom an hour or so later, pleased as punch and dragging Wolf in his mouth. He is so happy and so pleased with himself and with me for getting him this marvelous new toy.

The drop it command works well.

But, of course, he was just crushed, depressed and practically inconsolable that I had not, in fact, bought him a stuffed wolf to chew up and cuddle with.