The plague
So, as you can see, it is 2-damn-thirty in the morning. I cannot sleep, because I cannot stop coughing, my throat hurts, my sinus pressure is building up again, and there's nothing that I can do about it. Why? because my jackass of a doctor is apparently too busy to actually appear to give any concern about his patients. Now that I'm on my rant, let's rewind a bit and recount you all with the story of what the hell has been going on with my health for like... 8 months.
Let's start years ago. I have had this perpetual cough. I've had it in Florida, and I've had it here in Virginia. I've been to doctors, and they have tried inhalers and allergy medicine, all of which didn't do anything.
December of last year (conveniently on my birthday), I started feeling really bad. It was like a cold, but the mother of all colds. I took myself to the doctor, was told I just had a cold and it should pass soon. Then I start getting pink eye alternating between both eyes, and the cold gets worse. I'm feeling like the walking dead at this point. Turns out, it's not just a cold... it's a sinus infection, and a pretty bad one.
I start taking round one of antibiotics. Then I lose my balance. When I say I lose my balance, I mean I have no counterbalance whatsoever. I step with my left foot, I just keep on falling to the left. I can't walk a straight line, and if my husband would take the slightest turn when driving me back to the doctor, I would basically fall out of the seat of the car. The doctor then tells me "ok, here's some medicine for this. If it doesn't clear up, you will need to go to vestibular therapy. Also, if one of your limbs stops working, you'll want to go to the emergency room because you might have a brain infection".
Let me just take a moment to point out that yes, he said I might have a brain infection. I guess if I'm going to get sick, I might as well go balls out, right? Well, all during this my cough is horrible, and they can't give me anything strong because I need all my mental faculties so that should a limb stop working I can tell...
a week later, I finally get my balance back, but I have now managed to get a tertiary ear infection. So round two of antibiotics, and tussionex, because codeine is the only thing to relieve the cough.
I start feeling reasonably better- i.e. still coughing up a lung perpetually, but at least I can walk a straight line. Then I start "having difficulty breathing". I put that is quotes because it wasn't like I couldn't breathe, I just felt like I needed to breathe shallow breaths, even though I was breathing normally. I would also get this pain t the base of my throat, almost as if I had exhaled all the air out of my lungs very hard. I go back to the doctor again, and decides to refer me to an allergist (though I am sure it is not allergy-related).
Now's where it starts getting shitty. So first off, I can't even get in to see the allergist for a month. Then when I went for the first time, I was not reacting to the histamine tests because apparently I still had codeine in my system even though I had not taken any for days. I come back a few days later, and get a "successful" allergy panel of scratch tests, which results in me being fairly allergic to some trees, molds, soy, shrimp, almonds, and a few other things. I told the doc right there that the test was wrong. First off, my skin was reacting to anything- it was reacting to places that were only scratched without any irritant on them. and I love shrimp. I eat shrimp all the time. there is no way I would have gotten through life with a shrimp (and soy nonetheless) allergy and NOT known. The doc says that because my tests are so weird, they want to also draw blood to test for false positives. He also wants to get me a ct scan, test me for whooping cough, and test my snot to see if there's anything else going on.
Well, the snot test showed I have (or still have) a major sinus infection. In fact, it consists of 100% neutrophils (the white blood cells that fight infection) which is apparently unheard of. Also, while taking out the six vials of blood to test for false positives to the allergies, I managed to not only pass out, but to pull a calf muscle while passed out. Oh, and apparently I did have whooping cough at some point recently, because I have the antibodies in my system from fighting it off... but I should be fine now and can tell the department of health if they call that the doctor says I'm whooping-cough free now...
So I took the CT scan 3 fridays ago. I even brought the film over to the doctor's office to speed up the process. In the meantime, I was told to take zyrrtec, singulair, mucinex DM and zonatuss (a different type of cough suppressant). All of the medication made me sick as a dog all weekend, so two mondays ago, (which of course had to be the day I start my new job) I called the office and said that I was having horrible side effects, I was going to stop taking the medication, and I needed to hear back from the doctor about what I should be doing. I didn't get called back for four days, and then I was told to just try a zyrtec at night. Also, I still haven't heard anything back about the CT scan. I don't actually hear from the doctor until the following saturday.
I don't know about you all, but I feel like more than a week is a bit long to completely ignore a patient, especially if they're waiting for test results on a pretty major scale. So he finally calls me last Saturday to tell me that the good news is that all the allergy reactions were false positives (no shit), but the bad news is I have a massive polyp or cyst in one sinus cavity and multiple others of various sizes in other sinus areas. He says that they are definitely the cause of the cough, but since he doesn't know whether they are polyps or cysts yet, we don't know what the course of treatment it.
The plan was to start me on an antibiotic for the sinus infection, and have me take prednisone in hopes of shrinking the polyp/cysts. If that works, we can see how long I feel better. If that doesn't work, I'll probably need surgery.
I spent all last week on the antibiotic and prednisone with no improvement, and in fact getting worse. I called the office first thing on friday to tell them that I was not doing better, my cough was bad, and to please let me know what I can do. I talked to one nurse who said she would pass the message to the doctor. A few hours later, another nurse calls me and has me tell her the exact same thing I did to the first nurse. She then told me SHE would talk to the doctor and get back to me. Want to know what she told me when she got back to me? Yeah... me too because they never did.
I have never felt so passed on and uncared about in my life. I'm sitting here freaking out about possible surgery (which I've never had before in my life), coughing all the time, and not getting a bit of help from the people who are supposed to be making me feel better. The only thing I can see as a SEMI-understandable reason is if they are just so busy they can not adequately care for their patients. But if that is the case, refer me to someone else! It's already been established that this is not allergy-related. Send me to an ear nose and throat doctor that might actually give a shit about me.
I am hoping I hear back from them on monday. If I don't, I fully intend to call them up on tuesday and try to get referred the hell otu of there and never go to that god-forsaken place again. In the meantime, I will have to keep trying to go back to sleep, even though every time I lay down one of my nostrils closes up, my throat starts hurting more, I feel pressure all in my sinuses, and my cough gets worse too. On the plus side, I got this little rant off my chest, so maybe that'll make me feel better.
Moral of the story: I hate doctors, and I just want to not be sick anymore.
Let's start years ago. I have had this perpetual cough. I've had it in Florida, and I've had it here in Virginia. I've been to doctors, and they have tried inhalers and allergy medicine, all of which didn't do anything.
December of last year (conveniently on my birthday), I started feeling really bad. It was like a cold, but the mother of all colds. I took myself to the doctor, was told I just had a cold and it should pass soon. Then I start getting pink eye alternating between both eyes, and the cold gets worse. I'm feeling like the walking dead at this point. Turns out, it's not just a cold... it's a sinus infection, and a pretty bad one.
I start taking round one of antibiotics. Then I lose my balance. When I say I lose my balance, I mean I have no counterbalance whatsoever. I step with my left foot, I just keep on falling to the left. I can't walk a straight line, and if my husband would take the slightest turn when driving me back to the doctor, I would basically fall out of the seat of the car. The doctor then tells me "ok, here's some medicine for this. If it doesn't clear up, you will need to go to vestibular therapy. Also, if one of your limbs stops working, you'll want to go to the emergency room because you might have a brain infection".
Let me just take a moment to point out that yes, he said I might have a brain infection. I guess if I'm going to get sick, I might as well go balls out, right? Well, all during this my cough is horrible, and they can't give me anything strong because I need all my mental faculties so that should a limb stop working I can tell...
a week later, I finally get my balance back, but I have now managed to get a tertiary ear infection. So round two of antibiotics, and tussionex, because codeine is the only thing to relieve the cough.
I start feeling reasonably better- i.e. still coughing up a lung perpetually, but at least I can walk a straight line. Then I start "having difficulty breathing". I put that is quotes because it wasn't like I couldn't breathe, I just felt like I needed to breathe shallow breaths, even though I was breathing normally. I would also get this pain t the base of my throat, almost as if I had exhaled all the air out of my lungs very hard. I go back to the doctor again, and decides to refer me to an allergist (though I am sure it is not allergy-related).
Now's where it starts getting shitty. So first off, I can't even get in to see the allergist for a month. Then when I went for the first time, I was not reacting to the histamine tests because apparently I still had codeine in my system even though I had not taken any for days. I come back a few days later, and get a "successful" allergy panel of scratch tests, which results in me being fairly allergic to some trees, molds, soy, shrimp, almonds, and a few other things. I told the doc right there that the test was wrong. First off, my skin was reacting to anything- it was reacting to places that were only scratched without any irritant on them. and I love shrimp. I eat shrimp all the time. there is no way I would have gotten through life with a shrimp (and soy nonetheless) allergy and NOT known. The doc says that because my tests are so weird, they want to also draw blood to test for false positives. He also wants to get me a ct scan, test me for whooping cough, and test my snot to see if there's anything else going on.
Well, the snot test showed I have (or still have) a major sinus infection. In fact, it consists of 100% neutrophils (the white blood cells that fight infection) which is apparently unheard of. Also, while taking out the six vials of blood to test for false positives to the allergies, I managed to not only pass out, but to pull a calf muscle while passed out. Oh, and apparently I did have whooping cough at some point recently, because I have the antibodies in my system from fighting it off... but I should be fine now and can tell the department of health if they call that the doctor says I'm whooping-cough free now...
So I took the CT scan 3 fridays ago. I even brought the film over to the doctor's office to speed up the process. In the meantime, I was told to take zyrrtec, singulair, mucinex DM and zonatuss (a different type of cough suppressant). All of the medication made me sick as a dog all weekend, so two mondays ago, (which of course had to be the day I start my new job) I called the office and said that I was having horrible side effects, I was going to stop taking the medication, and I needed to hear back from the doctor about what I should be doing. I didn't get called back for four days, and then I was told to just try a zyrtec at night. Also, I still haven't heard anything back about the CT scan. I don't actually hear from the doctor until the following saturday.
I don't know about you all, but I feel like more than a week is a bit long to completely ignore a patient, especially if they're waiting for test results on a pretty major scale. So he finally calls me last Saturday to tell me that the good news is that all the allergy reactions were false positives (no shit), but the bad news is I have a massive polyp or cyst in one sinus cavity and multiple others of various sizes in other sinus areas. He says that they are definitely the cause of the cough, but since he doesn't know whether they are polyps or cysts yet, we don't know what the course of treatment it.
The plan was to start me on an antibiotic for the sinus infection, and have me take prednisone in hopes of shrinking the polyp/cysts. If that works, we can see how long I feel better. If that doesn't work, I'll probably need surgery.
I spent all last week on the antibiotic and prednisone with no improvement, and in fact getting worse. I called the office first thing on friday to tell them that I was not doing better, my cough was bad, and to please let me know what I can do. I talked to one nurse who said she would pass the message to the doctor. A few hours later, another nurse calls me and has me tell her the exact same thing I did to the first nurse. She then told me SHE would talk to the doctor and get back to me. Want to know what she told me when she got back to me? Yeah... me too because they never did.
I have never felt so passed on and uncared about in my life. I'm sitting here freaking out about possible surgery (which I've never had before in my life), coughing all the time, and not getting a bit of help from the people who are supposed to be making me feel better. The only thing I can see as a SEMI-understandable reason is if they are just so busy they can not adequately care for their patients. But if that is the case, refer me to someone else! It's already been established that this is not allergy-related. Send me to an ear nose and throat doctor that might actually give a shit about me.
I am hoping I hear back from them on monday. If I don't, I fully intend to call them up on tuesday and try to get referred the hell otu of there and never go to that god-forsaken place again. In the meantime, I will have to keep trying to go back to sleep, even though every time I lay down one of my nostrils closes up, my throat starts hurting more, I feel pressure all in my sinuses, and my cough gets worse too. On the plus side, I got this little rant off my chest, so maybe that'll make me feel better.
Moral of the story: I hate doctors, and I just want to not be sick anymore.