Monday 21 May 2012

Of spiders and Rab Bruce

Today was my turn to have a doc appointment.
I'm shockingly bad at going to the doctors, even when I need to. I'd been putting off this visit until the doc I've been seeing about the fatigue was free but he seems to be off until mid-June and seeings how I've been struggling to get over a cough and sore throat for six weeks now, I figured I'd better bite the bullet.

What's rough about going to the docs about this 'thing' is that I feel like such a moan. I try not to complain too much, I try to be co-operative, I try to be upbeat. I have to be patient, as well as A patient. Except that I'm trying to convey that while I look and sound outwardly healthy and normal, I'm not.

I don't even know why I've decided it's so important to keep being persistent about it and get a proper diagnosis down. I first noticed the symptoms when I was 18 and have been getting fobbed off by various GPs ever since. Will it make a huge difference to my life to have more than a preoccupied GP say 'oh if you're not better yet it must be CFS. We can't treat that, sorry. Bye'

Of course it will. For one thing, two close female relatives of mine have been diagnosed with different auto-immune disorders in the last year. Although I'm apparently clear for both of them, I may well have a different one and one that could be managed rather than suffered. Hey, maybe even treated and cured! Who knows right? Even if I don't and it is "just" Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I will feel vindicated, relieved, less like a crazy, lazy hypochondriac.

Therefore yes, I will go get yet another round of blood drawn for testing tomorrow. Before breakfast too, so they can check something new - my glucose levels! - as well as everything else.

I don't mean to whinge, I'm sorry. That's not what the blog is for but I've made a commitment to myself to post every day and some days I struggle for a topic more than others!
I'm inordinately fortunate to have had big, bad, serious, life threatening problems ruled out so far. I'm inordinately fortunate to live in the UK and go trailing back and fore to the doctor looking for answers to the unanswerable without having to worry about the bill, or the negotiations with the medical insurance company.  I'm lucky that I have friends who have odd, hard to define conditions themselves and can tell me off for being too compliant with the doctors and shove me back to the surgery to try, try, try again.

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