Assume Nothing

I finally got in to see the real doctor yesterday. I have to admit I did something I would not normally do. With the encouragement of one of the nurses, I finally complained about the nurse practitioner when they tried to give me an appointment with her once again. The last time I saw her I ended up in the ER about three days later. The doctor there had said that the nurse practitioner had unnecessarily changed maintenance meds, which had been working. He had shaken his head when he said that, in that why the hell did she do that way. She also did not give me antibiotics strong enough to kill off the infection I had. No big surprise there, I am way past the Z-Pak days, or even the Levaquin stage. These are the pitfalls of a weakened immune system.

Well I saw my doctor, who by the way has obviously never read my file, and he pretty freaked out. He cannot believe that I am continuing to loss weight, or that I am having chest pains or that I am not having changes in my bowel movement or stomach pains. I don’t know what he thought I had besides stress, fatigue, and laryngitis.

I am set up for a CT scan this afternoon. One of his lovely nurse, the one that is not as pleasant as the others, apologized, for collapsing a vein that I told her was deceiving and not to use. I know my veins… it is a roller. She said she collapsed it but truly I could feel her go through the other side, I warned her it was a roller. The second time she listened to what I had to say.

I have come to realize that the replacement for my much beloved now retired picture doctor is a great pill pusher, but not the best diagnostician.

If I were he, I would have ordered me a stress test, run a full blood panel, and started checking my heart out. My normal blood pressure now resides on the very high of normal. My old picture doctor also used to do a yearly cholesterol count since that was always on the high side too. Bad tickers run in my family, on both sides. I would have also insisted that I stop smoking. However, I am the patient, not the doctor. What a CT scan is going to tell him when the only pain I am having is in my left lower quadrant of my chest when I breathe is beyond me.

While I sit here writing, I received a call from the place that is going to force me to drink barium and then take pictures of me. They wanted to let me know that my insurance company needs to pre-approve my tests and that had not been done yet. I was told to call them before I headed out, because there is a chance that this pre-approval will not happen. Therefore, I could continue to not know what is going on with my screwed up body anytime soon, that is until I end up in the ER again, where I do not need to have everything pre-approved.

So much for the health update…

I am almost all the way through the “City of Bones,” the first in The Mortal Instruments books. I have downloaded the remaining books in the series. I just finished the lasted Sookie Stackhouse novel, which left me wanting for more. Damn you Charlaine Harris, I could have done with a little more this last book. There is also another series my daughter wants me to read. I suppose that will be on my summer reading list. June 3 cannot come fast enough for me.

With less than four weeks and counting until my summer vacation my stress level has been so high that all I have been doing is coming home, crawling into bed, and playing Scrabble until sleep comes. Of course, that does not happen without running to the shelter of my mother’s little helper. As I have mentioned before, I have a large rough group this year, the type that if they could talk would tell you to go fuck yourself, fortunately they cannot say that yet, however, they can hit, runaway, bite, kick and cause general mayhem. Seriously, these are 3,4, and 5-year-old babies. What is wrong with me I used to deal with big teenagers this should not be so hard.

Between the stress with the parents, the boss, the never ending change of staff, and all of the changes that have happened over the last few months… lets just say I am terrified that I will never get out of this hell I so lovingly call my job.

I went to sleep about an hour and a half ago only to be woken by two horrible nightmares, one could be turned around after I woke up yelling, okay it was three dreams now that I recollect them, and the last was the worse.

In the first dream, I was yelling as my car drove away with a stranger at the wheel from the front office parking lot. All I had done is run in to drop something off, and it was gone. As I ran back into the lot waving my arms over my dear, yelling, “Come back here!” I noticed a group of people who were going from car to car stealing them, in a very systematic way. I yelled, “You there! Where the fuck is my car?” Though I had locked my car, my purse was in it, which upset me most. I had already had to change my credit/debit card because it was comprised once this week.

This was not the end of that dream, the next things I knew I was being attacked by this groups and they had taken over my home, which is not located on the beach, or somewhere in a Hollywood back lot that looks like a beach, but it was my house, just placed in a different location.

Well I take up with a couple of the robbers, the one with the Scottish accent. … That dream fades away, as all my stress does. Then I literally wake myself up yelling at my son who asleep upstairs for taking dirty empty glasses two at a time into his room. Which I do not know at this point if he did or did not… but somehow I doubt he did, because I didn’t get out of bed until the third dream.

Then I fall back asleep and a vomiting Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) was my boss, she was bloated, so she could have just been a little fat or pregnant, but you know it is so hard to tell these days… Anyway, she had called me into a “closed the door” meeting to tell me that one of my students had been withdrawn. I questioned why since this one the specialist had visited two days earlier with a glowing review, not to mention, a recommendation for me to send my resume downtown for a consulting job (the last part really happened, but was incorporated into my dream). She said that there were allegations of abuse by a doctor, but she would not give me any specifics. Which made no sense, and she kind of blew it off, but of course she would have to put a letter in my permanent record which would mean I would never get a job anywhere else and I would have to stay in hell for the rest of my tenure. I woke up really shook up with this dream, to have to stay in my present position is …well lets just say… is unacceptable.

I took another mother’s little helper, and had to write this all down and have a glass of milk so that I could calm down enough to again attempt sleep. I hope for an uneventful, non-dreaming type of sleep. Liz Lemon/Tina Fey told me not to worry about it, but a letter did have to be placed n my files since it came from a doctor. Oh Alice, they were only dreams, they were only dreams, it was so close to reality, but only dreams.

I should be back up and running on a regular writing schedule very soon… well in a couple of weeks.

I was doing great this morning, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on the last nine weeks of school. I pulled into the parking lot at work, popped a piece of bubble gum into my mouth, and chopped my tooth into two large pieces. I could have gone through the day fine, if it wasn’t my canine. Usually all smiles, today all I gave where grins, no smiles. My kids knew there was something a wrong, student in the halls that usually get a big smile and a hello where given a weak grin… I felt like… I felt like shit!

I called my dentist’s office and they were able to squeeze me in right after school, but it is just a temporary fix, which I cannot use to eat with. It is nothing more than a gob of white stuff on this ity bity bit of what was left of the back of my tooth. What makes things worse, besides the cost of a crown, is that I cannot get an appointment until April 6. Argh! I was told I could drink, but what happens tonight, when I start my nightly teeth grinding in my sleep, will I wake up with another hole, will I look like a hillbilly (no offense to toothy hillbillies out there,) or will I make it until my next appointment. Damn I am hungry!