Finally Made it to the Doctor

Yesterday, I had about had my fill of feeling the way I’ve been feeling and decided to try getting seen at an urgent care clinic here in town.  Not knowing how I’m going to feel from one day to the next, trying to “schedule” an appointment can be quite difficult and at least at urgent care, you don’t have to have one… just walk right in.   Getting a busy signal when I tried to call my regular doctor was the deciding factor, you could say.  So I expelled what energy I had on getting a shower and actually “doing” my hair and off I went. 

When  I arrived, the waiting room was packed.  I sat there for 30 minutes (palpitations, rapid pulse, shaking, and weakness in full force) before they ever called me up to give me the new patient forms to fill out.   After another prolonged wait, I was called back to the desk at which time they told me, “We’ve had two traumas come in and it is going to be about a 3 hr. wait.”  Sitting there waiting was going to make matters worse, so I took my co-pay back and went home!  I called my doctor and finally got through, so they sat me up an appointment for today, but not with my regular doctor (or PA, actually).  I was torn… I don’t like having to recount my history because, let’s face it, it is a lengthy one, but I needed to be seen ASAP.  Besides, she would have my file right there.

As I walked in the door, another patient was standing at the counter and I heard the receptionist say, “We’ve had an emergency and it is going to be a bit of a wait.”  I nearly crapped my pants!  Not this again!  When I checked in, she didn’t say anything, so I was hoping it was just for one doctor and that I’d still be seen in a timely fashion.  Thankfully, I was right.

The new doctor was pleasant enough and had a great sense of humor.  I’m racking my brain at the moment to remember everything we talked about, but I was having some “issues” and I just can’t remember everything clearly.  It seems like even physical activity can start up some anxiety-like stuff and I was still trying to get “settled” after a short simple walk from the parking lot to the office door.

We talked a lot about the symptoms of anxiety and it certainly goes along with what I’ve been experiencing.  I brought up the fact that I have hypoglycemia and didn’t much care for what she had to say about that.  She said that some doctors don’t buy into the whole “hypoglycemia” thing.  HUH?  Don’t “buy into it?”  Did I miss something somewhere about this being a “made up” condition?  I know there are two different types of hypoglycemia and perhaps that is where the confusion comes in, but fasting hypoglycemia is not something to be taken lightly and certainly not something that should be dismissed.  Now she didn’t come right out and say she was one of those doctors who didn’t buy into, but that’s what her comments that followed her statement suggested.  I explained to her that my type of hypoglycemia came with the same risks and symptoms of those experienced by insulin-overdosed diabetics.  She seemed surprised to learn that when my sugar was dangerously low, I would become altered and such.  She did a lot of head nodding, but I just got the feeling that she had her ideals about it and I had mine.  So let’s hope this isn’t related to hypoglycemia cause I doubt she will ever feel inclined to investigate it further.

She directed me back onto the subject of anxiety and that’s pretty much the “working theory” we have now for me.  I know next to nothing about anxiety, so I’m game for trying anything at this point.  I think I am more open to her opinions and suggestions because she was right about a lot of my traits and personality quirks and it is those very things that could be causing a lot of this anxiety stuff.  For instance, she talked about always putting myself last and that’s very accurate, but that’s just what a “mom” does, in my mind.  She also said I had a “boot strap mentality” in that I handle tough situations by “pulling it all up by the boot straps and just getting on with things.”  Here again, I see that as a very good way of getting through the “hard stuff,” not wallowing in it things or getting mired down by them, but she portrayed it in a very negative way, so maybe that’s not the best way to handle things?  I don’t know… maybe I am “managing” my life the wrong way and it is catching up to me?

So here’s the game plan, for now… she prescribed me a medication I can’t even recall the name of and since it was phoned in, I’ve not had it in hand at this time, but it is supposed to be similar to Valium or Xanax in that it provides quick relief to anxiety symptoms.  As she thinks my “anxiety” has been a long-term issue despite only having these profound symptoms in recent weeks, she also wants me to start on Effexor.  Also, she wants me to join a Yoga class and do that three times a week as well as walking every day.  Yoga we sort of agreed on because I like “stretching” and it does help with some of the stiffness in the short term, but actually going to a class isn’t in the cards right now.  I’m supposed to be avoiding stress, right?  Well, having to scrounge up the money to buy clothes to “work out” in (simply don’t have workout attire suitable for public) is going to be near impossible and leave me stressing about what doesn’t get paid because of it, actually doing Yoga in front of other SKINNIER people is going to make me more anxious, and then there’s having to find someone to watch my son three times a week while I attend this class.  There’s a “Yoga for Beginners” thing on one of the On Demand channels, so I figure I’ll start doing that and it will be a happy compromise.  As for the walking… well… I’ll have to figure something out.  I didn’t feel like explaining to her that walking in cold weather was a huge no-no for me and starting something I can’t do consistently sets me up for feelings of failure.  Gosh… there’s a lot of stress that goes along with just having someone tell me to exercise!  If I have a string of good days and I’m cramming in all the activities I’ve been missing, I get “you’re over-doing it.”  If I’m not exercising because I’m in a flare or have the serious fatigue (the sort that makes me ill) I get “you need to exercise more.”  I would like to see all them try to EXERCISE around this body’s schedule and to do so without making three or more of my symptoms worse!  I just had a funny thought… if the walking is supposed to get my heart rate up and do some aerobic stuff for me… why not just forget the meds and I can experience rapid pulse and heavy breathing in the comfort of my own bed up to five times a day for 30 minutes each time!  HE HE HE HE  OH…. and I meet with their psychiatrist in two weeks for an evaluation.  Wonder how that’s going to go?

She gave me a long speech about giving the medicine time to work and I feel that came from having had to stop the Cymbalta and Lexapro before.  She was quite insistent that I call if I have any problems and made certain that I understood there were going to be some “side effects” of sorts, but that it would all pass in time and, given the chance to work, it would all be worth it.   She was kind of comical when she’s explaining all of this stuff, by the way.  “If you have a headache, take Tylenol!  DUH!  If you get diarrhea, well… you have that anyway…”, ha, ha.

While what she was saying was humorous, I couldn’t get past feeling she saw my quitting the meds before as a failure on my part.  Like I gave up too easy.  I know better.  The decision to stop the meds was far from easy.  Those were supposed to be my “miracle cure,” ya know!  I was barely functioning when I started them and after several weeks of taking them, things went from bad to worse.  I was having a lot of problems with the neuropathy at the time and the medication just magnified it all.  My feet were burning and hurting so badly that I just wanted to chop them off!  Unless you’ve experienced nerve pain, words just can’t describe it.  And the fatigue turned into fatigue AND extreme sleepiness.  My doctor at the time said that some people did experience a worsening of symptoms on the medication and he didn’t feel continuing it was going to make any difference (meaning it wasn’t likely to just improve with time) so he changed me over to Lexapro.  Stopping that one was an easy decision because it was causing bleeding.  Nose bleeds… mysterious bruising… bleeding gums when I brushed… a bleed in one of my ovaries… damn skippy I’m going to stop taking them!  By the time I survived all of that, I was already over my “flare” and didn’t feel the need to try anything else that could possibly just add to my problems.  Now, did I take the time to tell the new doctor all of this?  NOPE!  I didn’t see where it really mattered, in the grand scheme of things, and Lord knows doctors don’t much like to debate such issues.  After all, it was only my overwhelming need for understanding and approval that was at issue.

I think all my bad experiences with doctors has scarred me for life, seriously.  I over analyze everything they say now.  And I say this because I’m about to vent about something else she said that didn’t sit well with me, ha, ha.  She made it clear that she was going to “go the distance” with me and wasn’t going to just drop the ball.  Hmmmm…. where have I heard that before?  Oh… I know… FROM EVERY DOCTOR I’VE EVER SEEN!   With the way this “illness” is, there just aren’t answers and eventually, they all get tired of hitting dead ends and we go from “going to do all that I can” to “going to do as little as necessary to pacify my patient.”  Along the way, I have had some big “wins” so I guess in the end, each of them has accomplished something.  The neurologist did fix the nerve pain in my shoulder and I have regained full use of my right arm as well as the burning and pain in my feet and hands.  That’s a major WIN!  The cardiologist proved to me that my heart is perfectly healthy and that’s one less thing I’ve had to worry about.  The trip to the rheumatologist prompted my call to NIH where I learned my eosinophilia is still quite a ways from being something to really worry about and more importantly WHY it is nothing to worry about just yet.  So I guess that I am getting somewhere.  It has just been an excruciatingly slow and painful ride.

I just read over all this (correcting 500 misspellings) and realize how much anxiety there is now with doctor visits alone.  I’m clearly on the defensive and probably had no reason to be today.  Further proof that I have a real problem here or justifiable considering the history?