Catching Up

A few weeks ago I decided to finally look into some new ailments that had been assailing my body (I guess I didn’t have enough excitement going on that I decided to go look for some on my own). I had a tooth that had been bothering me for some months now, which now was causing severe pain and discomfort. Then I had a situation going on with the back of my throat, not a new thing, but now it had become really bad to the point that the back of my throat was bleeding and extremely uncomfortable and painful.

Got into the Dentist…you need a root canal which will cost (a lot of money) even with insurance. Got in to see my regular Doctor who gave me antibiotics and referred me to an ENT specialist.

A few weeks ago I had my initial work done on my tooth. Not fun!!! It was very painful and uncomfortable. In fact, I had a really bad reaction to the point that I actually had a “panic/anxiety attack” – this has never happened to me. I had to be on pain killers for “ever” after this work was done.

This week:

Monday – ENT visit. An interesting visit to say the least – won’t bore you with the details. However, let me entertain you with this - I was sitting in the examining room minding my own business, trying to explain to an “overworked, hurry up I only have five minutes with you” kind of doctor what my problems where when he said, “Okay, I will look down your throat.” I’m like, “okay” As he is making his way to me with this thing in his hand, I open my mouth and he says, “O, you don’t need to open your mouth. This will go through your nose.” (PAUSE FOR EFFECT – yes, if your eyes are open and your mouth ajar, this is kinda-sorta my reaction). Before I knew it a foreign object was making its way through my nose – pain, discomfort, tears rolling – while two helpers looked on as the doctor breezed through the procedure without blinking an eye – after all, he has had this done twice, well that makes me feel better! After this extremely invasive procedure I was literally escorted (and that is putting it extremely politely) out of the room and told I will get a follow up appointment. I guess the doctor was running late and hadn’t met his patient quota for the day (just my observation).

Tuesday – Dentist visit. Continued work on my tooth. Once I began to sit in the chair and see all the instruments, then I saw the syringe and I felt myself getting anxious again. The work took forever and my mouth and jaw were in absolute pain…more pain medication.

Wednesday – Chiropractor visit. This was a nice visit, aside from the fact that because I’ve been Spring Cleaning I threw my back and other parts of my body out. But it was a nice visit:)

Thursday – I wanted to continue my Spring Cleaning so my goal was to tackle one of the rooms today and work all day, since I didn’t have any appointments and my body had been put back together. However, at around 10:00 a.m. I get a call saying that I need to go get a CT Scan of my neck to make sure that I have no masses. What?! (jaw and eyes wide open again!)

So, after fasting for four hours I head on to the Scan place. The nurse couldn’t find my veins…she finally got one on my hand which was extremely painful. Then we went through this procedure with dye shot into my veins. At one point I began to feel really “HOT” and began to breathe really fast – is this another panic/anxiety attack coming on??? Okay, so is this going to be a regular now?

And while I’m at it, is it just me or has office etiquette gone out the window? I have been amazed at the kind of conversations that medical office employees (and any other professional employee) carry on amongst themselves while there are patients around. Do they realize how unprofessional and uncomfortable this is for the patient? Do they realize that this gives their office an awful reputation? Does their boss know that they carry own these kind of conversations in the front office? Just wondering…

And a note on Spring Cleaning…I am so excited that I have been able to accomplish so much thus far. I haven’t been able to do any of this for a while and so for me to have done what I’ve done, it’s exciting. However, the down side is that today I already see DUST!!! Once work never ends – sigh!