Catch-up - Third Installment

Third Installment 24 Oct. 2009 - later in the day:

So far, today, I am feeling more at ease, I suppose because Rog is here and we did get some errands done this morning. I will be glad of a good night's sleep tonight. Part of last night's problem was dehydration...still having some effect today, but getting better.

I was going to post the long, dreary story of all that has gone on, but I don't think I want all of that "out" there. It's enough to say every week from the first of April to end of Sept. was the doc wanting more blood tests, wanting many more invasive tests, etc. with me saying "no wait, let's see, I know what this is...we've been here before," to him then, him warning me with all kinds of dire predictions, his nurse calling to say he really wanted me to reconsider because WHAT IF...they gave no credit for what a person can really know about their own body...no pollyanna shite in sight, based on past medical records of past 5 years. (Looks as though I am going to blither anyway:-)

On top of all of that, when I said no to all of the extreme tests he wanted to get done, he sent me to the cardio to make sure THAT wasn't causing the "problem." The cardio scared the hell out of me muttering something about loose stitches around the mechanical heart valve AND open heart surgery to fix any they might find! I told him he was causing some REAL anxiety to which he replied, "I don't mean to." AFTER all of that, my regular doc's in-house tests show the heart and lungs doing fine and well and I proved I know my body, but they put me in a horrible tailspin and I became fearful and dependent thinking I had to look to them for every little thing which bugged my body...they undermined my confidence and I am just now starting to get it back. To be fair to the regular doc, I did confront him at one point and he apologised, but it's the authoritative way of him that I will not deal with any more.

The other thing which really pushed me over the top in the past two weeks was a friend with whom I have counselled before...she is not as skilled in non-threatening, non-accusatory language as I am, but she is brilliant and comes up with good and helpful stuff, usually. Not so recently. She went off on how much she hates allopathic medicine and how it had made me a hypochondriac, though she agreed it had only been in the past few months that she heard me talking so much about my health and the docs, and a bunch of other crap. I felt as though I'd been sucker-punched and it took me a week to get her out of my head. She sent an email apology, but again had to just "reiterate" what she meant, as if I did not get it! Okay, that's enough. Thanks for listening. And, thanks for your support...better, but still fragile.