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omorkaWell, at least I have a name to put down when someone asks me for my primary care provider. I'm not thrilled with the new doctor - we ended up having a 15-minute talk about my weight despite my best efforts - but she did take the complaints I came in with seriously and didn't blame either of them on obesity. (The lose-weight conversation mostly centered on the somewhat elevated blood pressure reading, which was high because the stupid machine can never read me correctly, so by the time the nurse realizes she needs to do it herself my arm has been squozen like a dry lemon twice and it hurts. When the nurse does it manually the first time, it's almost always just on the higher end of normal. And to be fair to the doctor, she was honest about some weight variation being genetic and massive weight loss probably not being healthy. She was also sympathetic to my pointing out that it's hard to exercise when one's feet hurt from gouty arthritis.)
I left with lab instructions for four different tests and an x-ray order for the back pain issues. I had expected both the lab and the imaging department to be closed by the time I got out, but I was half lucky; there was no one in radiology, but the last phlebotomist was still in the lab. My veins are historically hard to find and deeper than normal, so getting blood drawn is almost always an ordeal (I have a favorite lab tech who is so far batting 100%, but she's at a different location). The tech did better than average; she only had to stick me once, although it wasn't the cleanest stick I've ever had & the bruise is pretty ugly. (And I forgot about the medical adhesive allergy I developed when I had gallbladder surgery, so now I have a rash from the bandaid right next to the bruise, too.)
Fortunately, while there wasn't anything I could do about it today, I managed to beg and plead a favor from one of the science teachers with the last period of the day off tomorrow - she's going to watch my knuckleheads for the last 30 minutes while I run over and (hopefully) get the x-ray taken care of. I'm hoping that's enough to either make a diagnosis or rule out what the doctor had in mind, because if not, the next step is probably an MRI and that's going to be even harder to schedule (and possibly more expensive).
Meanwhile, they didn't take the elevator out of fire safety mode after today's fire drill, so I had to climb up and down the full set of stairs, and my feet are profoundly unhappy about that.
I left with lab instructions for four different tests and an x-ray order for the back pain issues. I had expected both the lab and the imaging department to be closed by the time I got out, but I was half lucky; there was no one in radiology, but the last phlebotomist was still in the lab. My veins are historically hard to find and deeper than normal, so getting blood drawn is almost always an ordeal (I have a favorite lab tech who is so far batting 100%, but she's at a different location). The tech did better than average; she only had to stick me once, although it wasn't the cleanest stick I've ever had & the bruise is pretty ugly. (And I forgot about the medical adhesive allergy I developed when I had gallbladder surgery, so now I have a rash from the bandaid right next to the bruise, too.)
Fortunately, while there wasn't anything I could do about it today, I managed to beg and plead a favor from one of the science teachers with the last period of the day off tomorrow - she's going to watch my knuckleheads for the last 30 minutes while I run over and (hopefully) get the x-ray taken care of. I'm hoping that's enough to either make a diagnosis or rule out what the doctor had in mind, because if not, the next step is probably an MRI and that's going to be even harder to schedule (and possibly more expensive).
Meanwhile, they didn't take the elevator out of fire safety mode after today's fire drill, so I had to climb up and down the full set of stairs, and my feet are profoundly unhappy about that.
