This was a bad one but it's easy to admit that it was no one's fault. My regular doctor was out sick so I was thrown back to the lions...err...back into the main group. Please keep in mind that I was in moderate to severe pain before I even arrived for the appointment. The practice had CNN on the TV as is usual but this happened to be during the Republican National Convention so there were lies being repeated left and right all over the place. I was starting off at a pretty high agitation level in any case.
A face more familiar to Melissa than me brought me back to a room I'd never seen before. Turns out there's a new proceedure where you go back to have your vitals updated and then you get back in line for your real appointment. It's gotten to the point where having my vitals taken scares me. I've experienced severe pain from blood pressure cuffs for years but this was a new level of pain. Since this nurse has helped me out on a couple of occasions recently, I did my very best not to complain. Instead, I panted with the pain and the nurse got the point very easily.
The funny part came when they weighed me. I'm not talking the sort of funny that anyone could get but the sort of funny that comes from years of severe pain. I tried to climb on the scale which was to my left only to have my left arm utterly fail on me. I fell against the wall and scared the nurse and Melissa and I insisted on cooperating as best I could. No one will be able to say anything about me being a difficult patient outside hospitals. After this, I was brought to my real room and I came to a horrible yet true conclusion. I was going to be in agony and bored out of my mind at the same time. It shouldn't be possible but I've experienced it more often than I'd care to admit.
There was only one thing left for me to do and that was make a joke out of it. In Las Vegas, you can bet on just about anything or so I have heard. One common bet is the over/under bet. This usually applies to the combined score of two teams in a big game. I joked with Melissa many times that the over/under for pain doc visits was three hours. I believe that is a pretty accurate number when you take the decade or more that I have spent going to the practice especially if you don't take into account the improvements from the clinic system. There have probably been an equal number of visits that took over three hours than those that took under three hours.
When one of my favorite doctors looked slightly dazed from the long day she was facing, I caught up to her to deliver the news. Vegas is taking a beating today. You guys missed the over/under and now all those poor bookies are in trouble. That got me a sympathy laugh.
I left in horrible pain and it took me a week to recover enough to write this. Worse yet, I left in terrible financial straits and with no samples of my most expensive meds. I've since begged for and gotten enough to make it through payday so that helps a lot. I was fretting about spending a whole week going off that medicine and now that doesn't need to happen. Hopefully, the two weeks I'll need before the next visit won't start the next financial crisis.
It's hard to depict just how bad it was last week because I'm so calmed down compared to then. I spent a fair amount of time discussing hopelessness with anyone who would listen. You might say that I'm half a step ahead of those feelings now. I won the small victory over the fear of withdrawal so that helped. It's just hard to see any scenario in which things improve any time soon. I'm beginning to think that death could be a blessing again. Then again, I might just need some more sleep.
It was August with temperatures in the 90s when my Fall/Winter symptoms started to set in this year. There is no such thing as fair so I won't ask what planet that would be fair on. I just feel as if I'm being attacked from all sides again. As if I didn't have enough to worry about, I have to contact the court system and figure out how best to prove I'm disabled. That deadline is approaching fast and I'm so tired. Please make it stop.
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