Sick and endo update
I’ve hit the 10-day mark with being sick with a cold/sinus crap. I keep hearing that people have been sick for over a month with this.
It’s been migrating into my ears, which is why I went to the doctor the other day. Today is even worse. Headache won’t stop despite 1000mg Tylenol, continued neti pot flushings, 1200mg Mucinex twice daily, Ocean brand salt spray applied throughout the day, zinc and vitamin C twice daily, lots of fluids, and laying on my side (alternating) to drain the Maxillary sinuses.
On my way to work this morning, I got a killer headache, my ears became more plugged, I developed light and sound sensitivity (which has been intermittent for days but is now continuous), and my frontal sinuses are the source of the major head pain at this time, rather than the maxillary sinuses. The snorking of snot has produced what I told Dr. Fisher it would – a bloody nose.
I called the doctor’s office this morning and filed a complaint against Dr. Fisher. I put in a request for a new doctor to be named as my primary (I have PPO coverage which means I don’t need a primary, but I want one assigned because my health condition warrants that SOMEONE be a stable point of contact. I’ve learned this over the years – all my medical file needs to be in one place and one person securing the knowledge. The problem seems to be that doctors PREFER to NOT know all the details about patients anymore, and just treat us like cattle on a conveyor belt).
I’ve had an on-call nurse call me back already for more info, and asked if my doctor had discussed antibiotics. HAHAHAHA! NICE.
I launched into a tirade against the doctor, and the nurse said she’d have an on-call doctor call me back and likely prescribe the antibiotics.
On top of all of this, the Endometriosis symptoms have started, because I’m due on Sunday (in 4 days). It started yesterday afternoon, with moderate jabbing pain in the left pelvic/ovarian region, and migrated down my leg (as Endo is known to do).
Despite the endometriosis pain, I couldn’t take not being able to enjoy the warm sunny weather any longer, and so yesterday I took the baby I care for for a stroller ride down to the local seaside car park and back. It was a total of a half a mile round trip, and it’s all my body could take because I’ve not had much exercise in the past couple of months due to various reasons and excuses.
Today the pain is centered low in the uterus, near the bladder (that’s where the remaining disease was at time of diagnosis and had to be left in me to grow, because removing the disease from the bladder would have punctured my bladder and I’d have been on a cath for the rest of my life). It’s a dull, continuous pain, and radiates down both inner legs to my knees. This is ‘normal’ behaviour for the endo for me. I feel like I should check myself every half hour or so, because it feels like I could start at any second. This is also ‘normal’ for me.
The fatigue should set in full force by Friday. As if I’ve not been out of breath and tired as it is from being sick.
I understand getting sick. I just want prompt treatment. While healthy people can just let it run its course, I can’t afford to do that. And I’m tried of proving this to the doctors.
AHA! The on-call nurse just called back. A new doctor is faxing in a request for Zithromax for me right now.
FASCINATING.
So we have two ends of the spectrum, folks; doctors who absolutely refuse to prescribe antibiotics out of fear of contributing to drug-resistant bacteria, and doctors who still let patients dictate when they need antibiotics. And what happened to the in-between? You know, the throat culture swab? Looking with a scope in my ears, nose and throat?
Despite my strong desire to have this illness remedied ASAP, it’d still be nice to know EXACTLY WHAT IT IS, because it needs to be documented in my charts as part of my history. Not just, “pt req antibiotics” or somesuch without further explanation.
Yeah yeah I know, I’m never happy. It’s just that the medical industry, at least in the U.S., is seriously flawed and needs a major overhaul.