Drive Thru Diagnosis

Once again I have a brilliant idea. What can I say? I am a mom so that pretty much puts me in the category all by itself. I mean really, if you've raised kids you can pretty much figure anything out because you are always a step ahead of everyone and everything. That kind of skill doesn't just disappear because your children grow up and move out. A mothers brain is always one step ahead of everything that is going on around her. Many times I feel like I am one step ahead of even my doctors when it comes to my health issues. By the time I finally go to the doctor for any health issue I am having I already figure out the differential diagnosis and pretty much narrowed it down to the actual diagnosis. The past two and a half weeks was no different. I ended up back in the docs office again last Thursday with worsening bronchitis and now a sinus infection. I pretty much knew I had a sinus infection for some time now and I am sure I am the kind of patient a doctor becomes very frustrated with. The first time I went in for the bronchitis I conviently left out the sinus problem at the risk of sounding like the hypochondriac that I'm not. It's funny when you are sick all the time because you learn to taylor all your issues and minimize them to deter the risk of sounding like an absolute nut job. I had to laugh last week when I saw a new doc in my primary's office when she looked at my diagnosis list and said, "By looking at you I never would have guessed you were dealing with all of this." My response as usual was, "I know I am great at covering it up." Of course that gave m some odd sort of satisfaction at that moment and I patted myself on the back for being such a master of disguise. On the other hand the more I thought about it the more sad it made me. The sadness of losing who I use to be and now feeling like a shell of a person living life on the sidelines. Sigh. Oh well life goes on. I'm happy I am feeling better than I was a few weeks ago but I am hoping and praying it keeps getting better as I am going to California next week to visit family. I can't imagine going on a trip and not being able to breath and feeling so weak. This week I will continue to will myself back into my normal state of health which really isn't normal at all. More sighs. 

I woke up this morning using that will to will myself out of bed. Believe me there are days it's hard to crawl out of that bed. The past few weeks have been so much harder than normal plus with the high dose of steroid therapy I'm tossing and turning all night long so morning comes and I'm still exhausted. As I laid there today I inhaled my albuterol because my wheezing and cough are much worse in the morning. I use the inhaler and wait for the relief and then pull the covers back and get myself in gear. Laying there waiting I was thinking about my toes and the horrendous pain I have been dealing with for so many months. The pain, burning fire, and other symptoms are getting out of control and I know I am going to hit that breaking point where I'm going to have to call my doctor for this issue but hey why call when you can put it off for months and suffer in shear agony? The life of a chronically ill person, why deal with something today when you can wait six more months? All of the mind games going back and forth about when to call about an issue is almost as exhausting as the physical symptoms that rear in your ugly head. This got me thinking about McDonalds. No not about burgers and fries but what about a drive thru diagnosis? Jump in your car drive to the drive thru look at the board and place your order, "Hello doc today I'm still dealing with my wheezing and coughing but I need to add a side of burning feet and pain." The person at the other end of the speaker tells me the total of my purchase and tells me to drive to the next window. Pull up to the window give her my insurance card, kerching, heres your receipt please pull up to the next window for your diagnosis. Next window doctor is there orders tests, gives you your scripts, and tell you they will contact you with the actual diagnosis. I love this concept especially since I try to avoid germs as much as possible, yes being chronically ill germs are always on your mind because with a compromised immune system you have to be extremely careful. I might be onto something here. Humm. Who knows what the future holds with medical care. I know you can now have a virtual doctors appointment if needed and that sort of blows my mind but it also intrigues me to some degree. In all honesty I don't know what the answer is to all this chronic illness garbage but I do know it isn't very much fun at all. My head wants to make it all easier but trythfully I'd really like to make it all go away. For now I'll dream about stupid sceneries that in some odd way help me to try to make sense of all this insanity that the rest of the world could possibly never understand. Fight on my fellow chronics! 

God Bless!

Dianne