God, I feel so sorry for Dr. C- being my primary care physician is hard work. My mom just had a talk with me about things I need to do before January. As of right now, I have surpassed my out of pocket maximum on my insurance plan. So everything I have done and every doctor I see and every test I have, is free until January 1st, 2019. And there is a lot of stuff that needs to be done. I just sent a laundry list to Dr. C telling him everything I need.
First of all, I am selecting a new neurologist. Dr. A and her office have failed to impress me, or even make me content, a single time since I started trying to get an appointment there 6 months ago. I’m done with them. Tomorrow I will begin the process of seeing which neurologists are covered by my insurance and then reviewing those doctors to try to find a decent one. When I make my selection, which shouldn’t take too terribly long, then I will send a referral request to Dr. C letting him know which one I picked. Second, I probably need to see a gastroenterologist. I have wicked heartburn, which has previously done things like burn and scar my stomach and esophagus, and it still flares up and gets out of control sometimes. I have to take 3 Nexium a night to keep it under control and that is getting really expensive. I wonder if there is a more efficient prescription medication that insurance will have to cover. That would save like $30 every 3 weeks. I’m also having this nervous tick that gets a lot worse when I am on my pain meds….it’s like of like a snort, cough, throat clearing kind of thing. I can’t remember which doctor suggested this but it I was told that this could be a sign a gastric reflux. So I should probably get that checked out. If I need an endoscopy or anything like that, then I need to have it done before the new year. Plus I have been nauseous and vomiting for like what…3 or 4 weeks now? Sometimes I throw up 4 or 5 times a day and sometimes only once. Sometimes, for a day or so, not at all. But yesterday I puked my ever living guts out for no discernable reason whatsoever. At first I thought it was being caused by the migraines. Then I figured I had some kind of stomach bug. Then I thought that it was a side effect of the staph infection in my face and the antibiotics. Then I thought maybe I was smoking too much. Then I thought maybe I was taking too much pain medication. But little by little, everything keeps getting ruled out. Now I don’t know what is left but I know that it is inconvenient as hell. I have just been taking anti-nausea meds everyday. So seeing a gastroenterologist probably isn’t too bad of an idea. Third, the is that nodule in my lung, I think the left lung, that I need to keep an eye on. I don’t think I have had an MRI to look at it in over a year. When they did the second MRI to compare the size and shape from the first one, they said it hadn’t changed and that I was fine. I just want to make sure that it stays that way. Besides, the chances of having lung cancer are like 1% if you are 30 years old so I am probably just being paranoid. But still, keeping an eye on it won’t hurt and like I said, it’s free. Fourth, I need to see both the endocrinologist and the rheumatologist. Both the allergy specialist, Dr. O, and the pain doctor, Dr. S, recommended that. Just to check and see if there are any changes from the last time that I was there which was well over a year ago. I am hoping I can see Dr. B and Dr. C, which are the two doctors that I have seen before. They will have my records and everything. Though I am probably in for a lecture from both of them. I was supposed to stay in touch and get checked up regularly. Well for crying out loud, I have too much on my plate for just casual check ups! I need to make sure that my autoimmune results are still all negative, even though the initial tests suggest that they are positive. That’s gonna be a pain. They are gonna tell me that I may have tested positive for Lupus and that I need to have further testing done. Then I will stress about it for days and get the tests done and it will be a huge pain in the ass. At which point they will probably tell me that I don’t have Lupus after all. At least that is what I am assuming will happen, that’s what happened last time. But you never know, sometimes these things change. And it would certainly explain a hell of a lot. I want to see if I am still testing positive for Scleroderma. Which I have no symptoms of. If you have a disease but no symptoms of the disease then do you really have the disease? The proverbial tree in the forest question for health freaks. I also need to make sure that I haven’t developed Cushings. That looked so certain a few years ago. I was tested repeatedly for it, which includes filling up a jug with your pee and keeping it in the fridge (ugh!), and they always came back negative. But Dr. Daghestani, from a long time ago, said that it wouldn’t surprise him if I developed it at some point in time. It would explain a lot. Lastly, I was thinking about maybe seeing a nutritionist, since it would be free and all. And it would be helpful to talk to her about how to form my diet since I have learned about all the stuff that I am allergic to. Buuut, with all this other stuff on my plate, I don’t know if that one is going to get done.
That’s the list I sent to Dr. C. Like I said, plenty of work to do with me as a patient. At least he doesn’t have to deal with everything I need taken care of, like back injections and stuff. I also asked him if he could think of any tests or blood work that we should do, just to make sure everything is okay. It makes me laugh to think about people who maintain their health by going in for a physical once a year. Lucky bastards. Maybe Dr. C will have some ideas about my tummy trouble, that would be nice. It is going to be hard to take care of everything while trying to take care of Sharyn at the same time. But it will just have to be managed. We found out today that Sharyn has pneumonia to boot and that she is going to spend a week in a live-in facility for physical therapy and stuff after she gets out of the hospital. But we still have to stay out at her place to take care of her dogs. It would be so much easier if we could just bring the dogs home with us but we have no way of knowing how Annabel would react to that. And the drive is just too long to bring the dogs home, see, and then take them back if it doesn’t work out. Oh well.
I talked to Dr. O today about the allergy meds not really having an effect. He recommended an antihistamine nose spray to replace the Allegra. But he also said that it has a bad taste to it. Normally I wouldn’t be such a baby about something as minor as a bad taste but with all the nausea and throwing up, I am really sensitive to bad tastes right now. Plus I was wondering if there weren’t any prescription allergy medications that I could try. They would probably be much more effective and covered by insurance to boot. Getting Flonase and this other nasal spray every few months is going to start adding up. Dr. O also recommended salt water rinses for the drainage. I have never done that before but I am totally not psyched about it. Don’t know if I’ll do it or not….the spitting isn’t that big of a deal. He asked about possible infections but I was happy to reply in the negative to that one! I don’t often get to say that with confidence.
As these things get scheduled and the results come in, it looks like I will have a lot to write about. It seems like too much to ask for there to be no bad news. How about no new news? Think I could get away with that?