Stupid Ailments
I hate the ER.
Now don't get me wrong, I love what they do, and the fact there is a place you can go for 24 hour medical attention should you really need it...but I think they need to put more emphasis on the "24 hour" part.
So, my leg had been feeling kinda funny as of late...tingly and numb, not how a normal limb should feel unless you've been sitting on it for the past week. Figuring my body is constantly doing things to baffle and perplex me, I decided to ignore it until it really got bad.
A few days later, the numbness and tingling caught wind of my staunch determination to ignore it, so being the attention seeking irritation that it is, it began to move to various other parts of my body. Not making my entire body numb mind you, but rather jumping around every 20 minutes or so, trying to keep me guessing.
Needless to say this baffled and perplexed me more than usual, so it being 3:15am, and me always being accused of not taking care of myself, my wonderful fiancé dragged me to the car and took me to the ER. We got there, I signed away our first born child, and was told there might be "a bit" of a wait.
About the time I was about to screw the whole situation and simply amputate the offending limb where this whole mess got started, a nurse walked out, badly mispronounced my name, and lead both me and my sleep deprived betrothed back to a room. After being told to disrobe and cover myself with a flimsy little gown (which, who are they kidding, really doesn't cover ANYTHING!) my grogginess began to give way to hope. They wouldn't put me in a room if there wasn't a doctor somewhere in the vicinity right? Feeling a bit more hopeful I perched myself at the edge of the bed, while Kiro took the most singularly uncomfortable chair ever invented by man.
By the amount of time that passed while we sat in that chilly little room, I assumed the coming of the next millennium must have come and gone without my knowledge. You can ask anyone, I am usually the eternal optimist, but by this point my good mood was wearing thin, and I was just about to lie down and attempt to sleep (it was now about 7:00 in the morning) when the elusive doctor waltzed through the door.
Relieved, I related my story and looked at him with pleading eyes to give me some sort of positive prognosis as a reward for my tireless (well almost) vigil. No such luck. He "hmmed" and nodded, poking and prodding, knocking my knees with his little mallet. After a few moments he scratched his head and said "I don't know." I blinked a moment in consternation. I appreciate that doctors are not clairvoyant and don't know each and every ailment that afflicts mankind, but by that hour in the morning I had lost all of my reasoning skills. I think I sputtered a bit and nodded as he ran through the depressingly short list of things it COULD be, and that he would be sure to check once the blood work came back.
I blinked again...blood work? A nurse soon came in and the doctor made a hastey retreat. Perhaps he had seen the look on my face upon obtaining the information that I was now to be stuck with a needle after being frozen and sleep deprived. All I know is that nurses must be the bravest people in the world to have the gall to approach people at that time of night with pain inducing paraphernalia. My five foot six female frame is less than intimidating, but I imagine the ER gets their share of ill tempered gorillas. Kudos to all you nurses out there.
Forced to wait another millennium I had time to ponder the meaning of life, love, death, and cheese. The question I was struggling with when the doctor finally made his second appearance of the night is just why Kiro had not yet taken his ring back in frustration, deciding this type of torture was defiantly not worth it. Love conquers all I suppose. I get the feeling I owe him big.
Anywho, upon the return of the doctor, I was told that all my tests had come back normal and while that is normally good news, it did nothing to explain why my body was still trying to tell me it was asleep, when it was clearly not. He gave me a few documents, which outlined I had been to the ER and they had done nothing. Gotta love beauracracy...document everything, especially the nothing. Advising me to see a GP to get to the bottom of this problem, I simply nodded as his mouth moved, too tired to care.
Kiro an I finally got back to the apartment at about 8:00 in the morning, fell into bed and swore neither of us would move until the sun went down or the Apocalypse...and the latter only if it was too noisy to sleep.
To make a long story short (oh believe me, I could go on even longer!) I've bounced around to two other doctors, a GP and a neurologist. Neither of them could give me a definite answer to my mysterious ailment, but the neurologist assured me he was 99% sure it was nothing to worry about. Unless my limbs fall off, I'm not going to see another doctor until I absolutely have to.
Now don't get me wrong, I love what they do, and the fact there is a place you can go for 24 hour medical attention should you really need it...but I think they need to put more emphasis on the "24 hour" part.
So, my leg had been feeling kinda funny as of late...tingly and numb, not how a normal limb should feel unless you've been sitting on it for the past week. Figuring my body is constantly doing things to baffle and perplex me, I decided to ignore it until it really got bad.
A few days later, the numbness and tingling caught wind of my staunch determination to ignore it, so being the attention seeking irritation that it is, it began to move to various other parts of my body. Not making my entire body numb mind you, but rather jumping around every 20 minutes or so, trying to keep me guessing.
Needless to say this baffled and perplexed me more than usual, so it being 3:15am, and me always being accused of not taking care of myself, my wonderful fiancé dragged me to the car and took me to the ER. We got there, I signed away our first born child, and was told there might be "a bit" of a wait.
About the time I was about to screw the whole situation and simply amputate the offending limb where this whole mess got started, a nurse walked out, badly mispronounced my name, and lead both me and my sleep deprived betrothed back to a room. After being told to disrobe and cover myself with a flimsy little gown (which, who are they kidding, really doesn't cover ANYTHING!) my grogginess began to give way to hope. They wouldn't put me in a room if there wasn't a doctor somewhere in the vicinity right? Feeling a bit more hopeful I perched myself at the edge of the bed, while Kiro took the most singularly uncomfortable chair ever invented by man.
By the amount of time that passed while we sat in that chilly little room, I assumed the coming of the next millennium must have come and gone without my knowledge. You can ask anyone, I am usually the eternal optimist, but by this point my good mood was wearing thin, and I was just about to lie down and attempt to sleep (it was now about 7:00 in the morning) when the elusive doctor waltzed through the door.
Relieved, I related my story and looked at him with pleading eyes to give me some sort of positive prognosis as a reward for my tireless (well almost) vigil. No such luck. He "hmmed" and nodded, poking and prodding, knocking my knees with his little mallet. After a few moments he scratched his head and said "I don't know." I blinked a moment in consternation. I appreciate that doctors are not clairvoyant and don't know each and every ailment that afflicts mankind, but by that hour in the morning I had lost all of my reasoning skills. I think I sputtered a bit and nodded as he ran through the depressingly short list of things it COULD be, and that he would be sure to check once the blood work came back.
I blinked again...blood work? A nurse soon came in and the doctor made a hastey retreat. Perhaps he had seen the look on my face upon obtaining the information that I was now to be stuck with a needle after being frozen and sleep deprived. All I know is that nurses must be the bravest people in the world to have the gall to approach people at that time of night with pain inducing paraphernalia. My five foot six female frame is less than intimidating, but I imagine the ER gets their share of ill tempered gorillas. Kudos to all you nurses out there.
Forced to wait another millennium I had time to ponder the meaning of life, love, death, and cheese. The question I was struggling with when the doctor finally made his second appearance of the night is just why Kiro had not yet taken his ring back in frustration, deciding this type of torture was defiantly not worth it. Love conquers all I suppose. I get the feeling I owe him big.
Anywho, upon the return of the doctor, I was told that all my tests had come back normal and while that is normally good news, it did nothing to explain why my body was still trying to tell me it was asleep, when it was clearly not. He gave me a few documents, which outlined I had been to the ER and they had done nothing. Gotta love beauracracy...document everything, especially the nothing. Advising me to see a GP to get to the bottom of this problem, I simply nodded as his mouth moved, too tired to care.
Kiro an I finally got back to the apartment at about 8:00 in the morning, fell into bed and swore neither of us would move until the sun went down or the Apocalypse...and the latter only if it was too noisy to sleep.
To make a long story short (oh believe me, I could go on even longer!) I've bounced around to two other doctors, a GP and a neurologist. Neither of them could give me a definite answer to my mysterious ailment, but the neurologist assured me he was 99% sure it was nothing to worry about. Unless my limbs fall off, I'm not going to see another doctor until I absolutely have to.