that vision thang - February 5th, 2008

Why, oh why, do I listen to doctors? Shouldn't the woman with seven major conditions and as many specialists on speed dial know better?

SIGH.

Five hours in the emergency room last night. Waited to go until dance class was over and the kids were in bed. Poor Hubby-- who didn't really sleep the night before-- waited up for me.  Three hours sleep before hauling my pained and exhausted ass back into school to teach from my desk, using movies. Five periods, five kids falling asleep, and five assigned detentions (for tomorrow) later, I left school early with no guilt (for a change.)

I had a pain in my calf yesterday. The pain was different from the usual RA/Fibro pain. It was like a muscle cramp ache with out the cramp. And it wouldn't go away, and kept getting worse. I was bothered enough that I went to the school nurse, who I've ASKED people to keep away from if I should be unconscious and in need of medical aid. She said call my doctor. Duh. Called the primary, because the specialists were all gone for the day. His receptionist called back two hours later, said ti sounded like a blood clot, and told me to go to the emergency room.

I really considered not going. I listen to the doctor, get aggravated, and its never anything. Case in point-- the unresolved pneumonia spot on my lung from almost four years ago. (I went for 6 month CAT scans and checkups for two years before I refused to inconvenience myself anymore or spend any more money on co-pays.) Or the allergist, who gave me four shots once a week; made me completely allergy proof my house, aside from the cat confined to the basement (which he insisted I get rid of, but I was too soft to do so), a treatment plan that didn't even last out the month of September because my schedule is too hectic to spend two hours in a doctor's office plus traveling to it once a week.  If it is something, its always just something annoying I have to live with. Like the lump I found last year, and had to take a day off from work to get a mammogram, which turned to be a huge but normal cyst.

Plus, I'm switching anxiety meds; RA meds; muscle relaxer dosages. It could be any of those things, too.

I am nothing, however,  if not responsible. I have a husband and two children. If I were my children, and I (the mom) threw a blood clot and died because I (the mom) didn't listen to the doctor, I (the children) would be mad at me (the mom)  forever, dead or not. I did this for them and Hubby. I knew I had to. I knew I should. Still, it took some butt kicking (and scary links e-mailed) from B to nudge me into it.

At first, it looked like I might beat the Monday evening rush (every Monday I have had to go to the ER, it's been packed) and get fast tracked. A half-hour there, and the doppler/ultrasound thingee was done. The tech, when prodded, said no clot, definitely. Then back to the waiting room, to listen to white trash teenage baby-mommies order around retarded brothers and explain how she's been in here three times in five months because the hospital doesn't take good care of the baby-- the hospital she is sitting in. (No wonder no one was running to help her out when the kid puked on her.) To listen to kids retching into bowls and looking heart-breakingly pathetic. Bad re-run sitcoms, stuck in a wheel chair, the ex-Navy nurse mumbling very badly at me every time (3, after the initial triage, I might add) he checked my vitals. At one point, my blood pressure reading was 145 over something again. (Can't imagine why. I had just found out that there were still NINE people ahead of me, after having been there for four hours already.) Then the pressure miraculously went back down to something close to normal.

At any rate, here I am drudging through life exhausted and absent-minded and just spent. I didn't bring anything home to to do for school-- despite stacks of papers all over my desk today (one of the reasons on the list of why I couldn't call out, after the Flowers' Pajama Party at Pre-K/Daycare.)

Hopefully some muscle relaxers and an early bedtime tonight (sometime close to the kids', after I get a little bit of writing done) will help me be a wee bit more patient tomorrow. I can't tell if it's the drop in anxiety meds, the pain/fatigue, or just the students themselves, but my tolerance for senioritis is at an all-time low.

I need to count just how many more class days we have until graduation.

Current Mood: cranky