Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." Genesis 9:13

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Not fun

I got a call yesterday from my doctor's office from someone who wanted me to explain what I meant in my note to him about not understanding what is going on and what  it means when I think I feel really sick and nothing shows up.  It was very awkward, esp. as I had no clue who I was talking to and she wound up pretty much talking down to me, meaning she probably was a nurse I've never met who read the thing, didn't talk to Dr Body who would have gotten the main idea, and called me instead.  She never did answer my real question, which is what thermometer is right if 3 of them give widely variant readings?  How do you know you have a fever?

Then I got a nice note from him that it was ok, sometimes they don't find the cause of illness, that it just adds up to virus, don't worry.

I do think though that I've left him out of the loop that he needs to be in, the one where I've discovered that I don't react normally to pain and I find myself lying during exams if I think that saying something does hurt would sound silly or fake.  I'm trying to get better about this but I did it again the last time.  So I made an appointment, asked for a double block of time if possible and am going to talk to him and explain this.  Because I can really get myself into a bad spot doing this, and right now it's possibly worse that ever before because I'm anxious about the process.

Between just life in general sometimes requires you go to a doctor, state symptoms, accurately respond to questions, and accurately go through an exam.  In thpe last few years my inability to do this well has resulted in almost needing IV antibiotics for a near-septic abscessed tooth, the scary-almost-got-too-confused-to-make-it-to-the-hospital with significant dehydration and way too much MAOI in my system, and my ankle being more injured than I admitted because I didn't describe the pain well.

I've improved, for a long time it took a friend  practically shaking me to get me to go to a doctor or go near one and now I'm do.  But I still need to be more honest with him.  I trust him, I've followed him everywhere, I don't know why I don't just give up and trust him fully, but that is a work in progress.

2 comments:

Michal Ann said...

Is the spammer more horrible that we realize from the reader's view. I see them occasionally and wondered but..........

You're on a good path with "self-examination," I would say. Abdominal pain is hard to describe, as you probably know. The place you "think" hurts might not be the place that's of concern. A person close to me had all kinds of lower right pelvic pain. After many years of this, she finally had laparoscopy and the doctors discovered that she had half a uterus, no tubes or ovaries and a tiny kidney on that side. She'd had one perfectly normal birth so lots of doctors were peering in the laparoscope to see the phenomenon (combined 100 years medical practice). My mom's appendix was in the wrong spot, etc., etc. That's why I had that "shake a person" test for my peritonitis. It's some weird way of determining the condition. Anyway, don't try to read the medical folks to see if you're "doing o.k" and being a "good patient." Just be yourself and figure that your track record is to IGNORE and bear with, not to malinger.

Happy for your upcoming appt. w/ Dr. Body.

You're doing great! Glad you're feeling better. Let all the reassurance inside and take a few deep breaths! Whew! Oh, and a drink of water, too! I hope you feel refreshed.

God is love. Sing Jesus loves me?

Just Me said...

The Chinese character comments were really driving me crazy because they tended to give some rote little statement that managed to apply to whatever I wrote in a way that hurt. Things like "time heals all wounds" while we were waiting to be sure that my niece did not have a potentially serious disorder. This is the only way to deal with it, so here we are. Fun stuff.