From Munchies to Meds
My recovery from the sinus infection progresses like the proverbial racing tortoise: slow but steady.
Aside from nap breaks.
I was, however, thrown for a loop when I was finally over the worst of it, only to suddenly break out into some serious hives. This was, I think, a first for me, so while the itching and redness was highly irritating, it was also somewhat fascinating to watch as the rash and bumps, over the course of a few hours, constantly moved around my skin, like ripples in a pond– well, then again, given how slow the “ripples” were moving, more like ripples in an Bose–Einstein condensate.
I made a quick visit to my doctor, who, while doubting it was a reaction to the antibiotics, still took me off of them as I had made basically a full recovery from the infection. But, she did prescribe some steroid pills to clear up the skin, so at least I could still sing the chorus of Snoop Dogg’s “My Medicine” every night as I popped my meds.
And these pills worked – just a couple of hours after I started on them, my skin returned to its normal, pasty white self. The only downside is that given they were steroids, I had to fight the sudden urge to start doing a lot of deadlifts.
Anyway, all of this leads me to last night, when I had a very sad realization: when I went to take my last pill for the night, I realized that my new “medication shelf” over the past couple of weeks used to be my “snack shelf.” Yes, the shelf that used to be adorned with dark chocolates, freshly baked-cookies, and the quite possibly most perfect treat ever developed by human science, Pejoy sticks, was now it was festooned with antibiotics, nasal sprays, and the ever-popular Doxycycline MonoHydrate.
How the hell did it all come to this?
Okay, so that’s not really a mystery. As I get older, new and existing medical conditions appear unannounced on my doorstep, invite themselves in, park themselves on the couch and watch reality TV 24/7 all while getting potato chip crumbs down between the couch cushions. This is a known fact, and this month was a double underline on the point, as I have had more doctor visits in the past few weeks than I have had all year, and this was further compounded as I have switched doctors and specialists in the midst of everything.
The sinus infection was the inciting incident to finally switch my primary care physician. Now in all honesty, I really did like my previous primary care physician, but her staff was dependably less than stellar. One of them tried and failed 5 times to stick that little needle in my vein to take my blood, causing me to almost faint. Another one was setting me up to get an EKG, but decided not to shave my chest hair – hence when he tried putting on those sticky sensors, the hair prevented them from staying against the skin and his brilliant fix was to attempt to use MASKING TAPE to tape them down. You can guess how well that worked out.
So far, I am satisfied with the new doctor and their staff; I’ll see how things go over the next few months, but at least I have not seen any masking tape lurking in the examination rooms.
On top of that medical professional switch, I also changed up my cardiologist, but this one was not planned.
For those not aware, I was diagnosed a few years ago with atrial fibrillation (or, known to insiders as Afib). I was referred to a cardiologist practice that was about 30-45 minutes away, and they ran tests and even handled my ablation procedure, where they stick an electrical wire up into your heart and zap the chamber walls to scar them up. Not what you would think of as a good thing, but hey, it helped.
However, when I went in recently for my check-up, I noticed that I was scheduled to meet with a different doctor. And when I met them, they didn’t seem to know anything about my medical history, despite me being at the practice for years.
“If it helps,” I said, “I was with this other doctor.” I thought it might help as the new doc could talk with my old one to get the full lowdown on my heart.
“Oh, that doctor left,” the new doc replied, almost mysteriously. “They aren’t here anymore.”
“....oh,” was my intelligent reply.
Seriously, though, how do you respond to that? “Gone, are they? Did they leave because of malpractice? Embezzlement? Were they a government plant and actually just implanted a tracking device in my heart? I’ve seen a lot of series on Netflix, you know – I know how these things work!”
Ok, probably not so dramatic, but the lack of something like, “They moved,” or “They retired,” or even “They quit to follow their dream of owning a goat farm in Texas,” would have been nice.
Anyway, what troubled me was just that the new doc seemed to have not even looked at my file before the appointment. Probably not their fault, but since they basically wanted to start all over from square one, I wanted to try that with someone who was much closer to me, so I wouldn’t have to take out 2-3 hours from my day whenever I had to do a check-up.
Hence, I have been getting a deluge of doctor appointments. And I can expect even more in the future; I am sure that the new cardiologist is going to want me to come in for a series of tests and clipboard sessions.
This got me thinking, though: why don’t doctors give out loyalty cards, like you get at coffee shops or delis? That’d actually make me much more excited about going in each time, as I would know that after I get ten punches on my card I’d be eligible for a free medium latte or breakfast sandwich; heck, or even a lollipop.
At least I could put the treat back onto my snack shelf, for old times sake.