Warning: Medical Ranting, Venting, and Complaining Ahead

Don't say I didn't warn you!

In the next 2 weeks I am scheduled for something nearly every day.  FYI: last week wasn't much better.  But I digress...

• We're talking aquatic therapy 3 times each week.
• There is therapy once a week.
• I saw my psychiatrist this morning (and traffic was a mess, so was taking some deep <fat girl> breaths as I made it to my appointment)
• I have the CT urogram this week - where they catheterize me and inject a dye in my bladder, then follow it with a CT (hence the name LOL)
• I had blood work to do before I could do the CT
• I will be seeing the physiatrist for a follow-up
• There is the oh-so-fun EMG at the neurologist's to evaluate my carpal tunnel
• Then I see the hand specialist the day after the EMG to see where things stand, since I had the cortisone shots in both hands during two separate visits.
• A week after the CT, I will see a urogynecologist who will do some sort of test requiring catheterization
• I am on a committee for a seminar at my church.  I have a meeting for that tomorrow night.  The event is on Saturday.

I can barely breathe just typing it.

Now, I did contact the physiatrist this afternoon to let her know that I fell on Friday.  In the basement.  Onto the concrete.  I'm in some serious pain.  My back seems worse.  My right knee took a hit.  My right ankle twisted when I landed.  I think some damage was done to my left ankle, on which I had surgery that had me laid up for the better part of 2 months.

Yeah, I'm cranky.

I'm a stress eater.

I'm trying to get back onto the Weight Watchers program.

This does not add up.  But.... I won't be home very often to be tempted.  Oy!

As a PS: I know that most people would be envious of my schedule.  I just have to respond by saying that I am bipolar currently in a depression so severe the docs have talked of me being hospitalized.  Oh, and my agoraphobia has surfaced a little bit, so going out, especially by myself, is pretty scary.  So, I'll go back to working full-time if I could get rid of some of this junk!!!  I'll leave it at that.

I want to add Bible study to this list.  It's something I look forward to each week, but it makes life (and dinner!) more insane.

Thank you if you've made it to the end of this post.

Medical Update (so that doesn't sound as good as "Weekend Update" on SNL, does it?)

Well, onward and forward....

I went to the doctor on Tuesday and she found the same results as I had.  She said that there is this CT that would be the next test, but she wanted to speak with the associate from prior to this appointment to make sure she is on the right track (she's a young doctor, but like I said... she's amazing!).  My Mom is a nurse in the office and after seeing me, the doc said to my Mom that it's "unusual" (or a similar word) and Mom said "if it's rare, that's my girl!"

When I got the return call she said she is ordering the test.  Ugh.  Let me explain why:

OK, so I did a search online and couldn't find anything on my "go to" medical sites other than abstracts, which are by definition, pretty much less-than-helpful to a peon like me.  To start, three hours prior to the test, they want me to have 32 oz of water.  And hold it!  They will catheterize me (woo hoo) and put dye up into my bladder just prior to doing the CT scan.

If that isn't enough fun for you, I go to a uro-gynecologist (who knew?) the following week and he will catheterize me again to look into my bladder.  I have to question if this isn't a larger catheter so he can fit a small camera in it, much like a lower endoscopy or something similar.  In which case, OUCH and more than the first time.

I think this does beg the question: do people in the medical field really like catheterizing people that much?  I've had one catheter in my life and it was inserted while I was under anesthesia.  I asked my doctor if I was going to be awake (jokingly) and she said "no, but I can give you something."  I thanked her and said that I had plenty of stuff here.

Of course there is has been a lot of co-ordinating of services - there has to be blood work done at least 2 days prior to the test, the test needs to be pre-auth'd or pre-cert'd (I can't remember which) and after I was done with setting all of that up, I had to schedule with the uro-gyno and make sure that appt is far enough out from the test so the full results would be available.

There are far too many people "down there" - as if the annual gyn appt isn't bad enough.

For fun, in the midst of this, I've been doing aquatic therapy for my back 3x/week, seeing a hand specialist, seeing my neurologist for a hand-related test, and have my monthly psychiatry appt and my weekly therapy sessions.  I'm tired just writing it.

Anyway that's my Weekend medical update.

Any chance I can get on SNL, just for one update???  I didn't think so.