Journal

Judging by the progress made and even taking in my account the joy of having a good dr again there are some things that I need to get used to I guess. My new reality if you will. At least at this point no one has come up with a way to work around these problems. No one seems able at this point (so I suppose there is still hope, I sure hope so) no one has been able to define the cause of most of my new symptoms or problems much less figure out how to resolve them.

I haven’t been able to really work since 92 when I went on social security disability. In that year I was in the hospital 4 times in 2 months and they were unable to resolve anything, only to relieve the symptoms and that only partially. (Chronic DVT or thrombophilia (they finally came up with a name for it)) accompanied with intense pain, heart attacks, pulmonary emboli, and the occasional stroke. That has not changed over the years. If anything it has gotten worse. Under social security disability I ended up in a local clinic that did a sliding scale and not very good care at all. During that time things just got worse and worse but with social security to live on I didn’t have much choice. They were managing the thromboses ok I guess. But any new stuff that came up you can forget it. But it’s what I could afford. I knew I wasn’t getting the help or treatment I needed but didn’t have much choice. They didn’t even have hospital rights when any of their patients ended up there. Including me of course. The only reason they found out was because I filled them in when I went in for follow-up work.

That sort of sets the stage for the current stuff. Fortunately I was able to recently find a good dr. that accepts Medicare assigned. Made me feel like I had died and gone to heaven. He even listens to me. LOL  Anyway, I had some problems that resembled a stroke (do to bad care and bad prescriptions and went to the ER where they were able to diagnose it properly, adjusted my meds (I quit one of them entirely and it was totally unnecessary and caused the primary problem that put me in ER) However in the mean time I have fallen many times, lost my focus completely making it difficult to do that little bit of work that I do (web site development) with any consistency. Fortunately my clients are very understanding and are willing to still work with me in spite of the delays. Apparently in one of my falls I damaged my spine. Now the pain is even worse then before, my ability to focus on work is almost gone, I still fall a lot in spite of my cane, I have extreme difficulty walking and at times even just standing.

At this point I am hoping my new dr will be able to resolve things so I can at least function in some way or another but my hope is slim. Part of that is sure to depression I am sure but regardless of its cause I still have to deal with it along with the depression that seems to accompany it.

I saw my new Dr today under very unusual circumstances. In my previous entry I discussed the new pain and what not. It just got worse and worse. I was trying to hold out until my appointment but today I just couldn't handle it any more. Called the new dr and spoke with his assistant and explained the situation to her and on a Friday before a holiday they saw me. I was even just  a touch late. Again he took the time to do a complete job. Ran through the tests and diagnosis and stuff. Overall He probably worked with me about 40 min or so  (very unusual) and made an educated guess (which is all any dr does) on the cause of the pain, gave me some sample pain pills and also did an INR for my blood and stuff and we discussed his diagnosis and what I could do to alieviate the problem or at least get it down to a managable pain level.  Last night was a little rough (aprox 2 hr sleep) but today the pain is down to a manageable level and was even able to get a little bit of work done and expect to actually sleep tonight.  My first impression of him from the original consultation is even better then before. 

I'm still falling and bumping into things but that is something I expect to take longer to fix if it is even fixable.  My biggest problem of the moment was the pain. I did a couple of extra things and that made it even better. Won't say back to normal but at least I can function and work a little bit and expect I will be able to sleep tonight. Anyway I am still a mess but I do see things as improving overall with this dr.

He seems to take the time to actually listen to me, addresses the root problem rather then try to make something up as my previous dr did and I fully expect that this will continue to work out to be an excelent patient/dr relationship. All of this after almost 5 years of substandard drs. I am totally pleased and impressed with him.