The Big Blog Update Volume 2! (Health Update)

A week ago was THE day FINALLY to see my hopeful new doctor. I had made it another week with no emergencies and all I had to do was wait until the afternoon to pick up an “approved” form and see the new doctor. Not so fast because that would be too easy.

My mom and I go down to the hospital and go to patient services/admitting. The same receptionists are there. I tell the same one who had no idea who I was (yet I had spoken to her previously) why I was there and whom I needed to speak to. Unfortunately my advisor I guess was at lunch. Fair enough, I was 20 minutes early. So mom and I waited…and waited. Supposedly the same receptionist was trying to get a hold of my er advisor. Now its almost 2:45 PM and my appointment with my new doctor is at 3:00. I’m about to make a plea when I see the advisor and almost with a quickness that would otherwise prove I’m not sick I go over to her. Turned out the WHOLE time all the receptionist had to do was go into the office, get my approved insurance paper and take my paper. I waited 45 min or so. When once I met up with my advisor, the whole ordeal took like 30 seconds. I told her, “this is why you have your job and she has hers.” I thanked her for all her help and we were on our way upstairs.

I didn’t have to wait too long in the waiting room. However I had to fill out what I would call the SATs of medical questionaires. Plus talk basically to a team of doctors. This was one reason I wanted to go to a group practice like this. You’re not always dependent on one doctor who only knows your case. I didn’t get to see my doctor until the end when we were trying to figure out “the plan.” Now I understand why. Part of it is that my doctor is the head of the department. Only the best for me!

Before I get into that as she and I are talking, I come to find out that their office staff never bothered to make a copy of my then, newest, low blood count. Otherwise this whole blog post would be different, well maybe. We, well basically she decided to admit me. I would have preferred not to have been, knowing my body and past treatments. While I didn’t like this, I had a feeling I wouldn’t be in the hospital long. Naturally my good attitude and humor came into play immediately.

That night I got my own private room (almost on par with a hotel room) and got situated. I was prepared to be there, at least for one night. My only real problem last week? Getting dinner after the kitchen closed. Someone was able to round up a passable turkey sandwhich, I still couldn’t wait until a real meal would come from home the next day.

At any rate I was giving a steroid I’ve been on before, except in a much high dosage. Blood tests were ordered and thank God, the low blood count had made a signigicant increase. It had better since I was admitted and the freakn medicine may have given me a low grade fever which made part of my night uncomfortable. If it wasn’t for such nice medical personnel and my loving, caring girlfriend, I’m not exactly sure how I would have got through it.

I was discharged the next day in the evening. You would have thought it would have been a longer day dealing with doctors, getting info, treatments, etc. It wasn’t that bad. The staff was friendly and both my doctors are great. One’s a guy who after having to talk to me about my health more times then he even wanted to, he began to get to know me. A welcome relief. Turns out we have some things in common and I think I might have made a new friend. After “hanging” out with the doc, my head doctor would come in the room to talk to my parents and I. She gave us more good news about my health improving and how we’ll proceed next. The doctor felt if I was feeling alright (interesting way to put it considering where I was) I could be treated as an outpatient.

So it began. Unlike back in August I’m in the right place and have the right doctors. For the most part the new, high dose of medicine has been working. Except for yesterday which was the worse for the side effects. Thankfully, that particular side effect has passed. I would never want that to come back.

I see my doctors on Thursday afternoon. So hopefully as it is a gradual process, I’ll begin to get off this steroid. And if works long term, no new medicines. Or if it doesn’t, they’ll continue to discuss new advances in ITP. With no side effects. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

This entry was posted on November 8, 2005 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.