Michael Moore was SO right (when is he not?)

I've had two doctor appointments in less than 24 hours...something I do NOT have time for at this time of year. :-(

For a little over a week, I've been feeling "fluttery" in my chest about once a day. My gyne (who prescribed my thyroid meds) told me to let her know if I ever felt anything in my chest so I sent her an e-mail last week. She said to keep up with my same dosage and not increase as she had told me to and that the feeling should go away. Over the weekend it got worse and by Sunday night my pulse was 92 when I was lying down (it's usually in the 60s). Yesterday morning I was feeling fluttery, jittery, tired, nauseous and dizzy. I e-mailed the doc again and she said to take one grain less of the medication than I had been. But I felt really sick and worried so I made an appointment to go see my GP. He took an EKG (all good), blood, and told me to start reducing the thyroid meds. My thyroid levels in April were "good" via the blood tests he ran when I was in for my physical. Then in Sept. when my gyne did the Thyroflex (not blood test) I was hypothyroid so I started the meds. My GP is not familiar with the Thyroflex, but he says he's pretty positive that my symptoms were from taking too much medication. We'll know for sure when he gets the blood work back later this week.

Then, this morning I had a follow-up with the toe doctor. After waiting for TWO HOURS, when he finally came in I let him have it (nicely) -- this is far from the first time that I've had to wait this long in this office. I told him that at my job if I kept a client waiting for two hours, I would expect to be fired. He got very defensive saying he was "working me in" (what? I had an appointment!) and that "lots of people need to see me". I told him maybe he needs to take less patients. I absolutely HATE certain doctors who think their time is more important than mine. Grrrrrr. I am furious at this point and trying very hard not to cry (which I tend to do when I get furious). I didn't cry and we went on to the meat of the appointment (he never apologized!):

My toe is infected. It has been off-and-on for probably two months. I took a 5-day course of antibiotics back in November and it seemed to clear it up, but then it came back. I'm now on day 6 of a 10-day course of the same antibiotic. My toe looks better, but it still is red and the wound is still not completely closed (3 1/2 months after surgery!). I told the doc I am worried about creating a "super bug" in there that is resistant to antibiotics. I asked him flat out if it was normal for the toe to look like this after such a long time...NO. He said maybe I should go see an infectious disease specialist. Ya think? Grrrrrr. Why didn't he recommend this? Why did I have to ask? It doesn't make me feel good to have my DOCTOR say "oh, ok, I agree with you". I made sure he wasn't just saying this to appease me...I believe he does think that I should see someone and he is out of his depth. :-( So he recommended me to someone...yeah, right, I'm going to go see someone you're in cahoots with? I think not! (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I dropped the lawyer-bomb with him and his assistant today...saying "in my law firm, we wouldn't leave someone waiting for two hours and expect them to happily stay". Funny...all of a sudden, they got a wee bit more responsive...worried about malpractice much?! Not that I think this is malpractice, by the way...just shoddy practice.)

Anyway, I called my GP immediately from the car when I left Dr. Toe to get an infectious disease recommendation. As I hung up, Dr. Toe's office was on the phone -- "these are the blood tests you need to have done before going to see our infectious disease doctor and I've made an appointment for you on January 3 at 11 am."!!! NOOOO. I told them I was probably not going to go to their person but to another doctor of my choice but that I appreciated their "help". UNBELIEVABLE.

Sigh. Michael Moore was so right...I actually HAVE insurance and it's not MY problem with our health system in the U.S. My problem is the medical CULTURE here. And I'm afraid nothing will ever change. Go rent Sicko.

On to happier things: weekend was very fun if still way too busy. I finally got some time to just sit and look at the internet late on Sunday night. Food has been ok. Booze too. Although I must admit I did have two teeny cookies yesterday from a gift basket in the kitchen at work...I think most "normal" sized people can do this and not gain weight...why do I gain the minute I cheap a little bit? Well, I'm not going to assume I'm going to gain this week...I'm still sticking with the program...exercise and eat right and try to at least maintain.

Oh yeah, and I'm going to get my yoga going too...not this week probably...way too much going on...BUT I do have a yoga DVD coming to me next on my Netflix queue so maybe on Thursday night... :-)

Thanks for listening to me rant... :-)