My arms begin to resemble those of an inept addict

[drwex]

Yes, it's more health stuff. Skip away - I shan't be offended.


I knew I was pushing myself with the amount of social I did on Sunday. But the lure of a fabulous event celebrating the start of a new phase of life for two wonderful people was worth it. So I tired myself out and I ate a bunch of things that weren't well-considered. Or maybe it was just coincidence. No regrets, anyway.

This one started like the others, with an early AM (3:30) wake-up, bathroom trip and general badness. I decided I wasn't going to wait around for this to get out of hand, so I took Benadryl straight off, then lay in bed feeling the drug and my body battling it out while my various thought processes raced around in differing degrees of panic.

After about an hour I passed out. Woke up more or less normal time very groggy and disoriented. Benadryl does that to me. So do these "episodes." Choose your cause.

After a lot of brainless waffling I decided that it made as much sense to go in to work as to sit around at home, so I headed to the office. I called my doc after dropping K off and told the secretary I needed to talk with him.



Lahey how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways:
1. Telling me my doc will be in after 10 AM and he'll call then when in fact you know he won't do callbacks until after 1 PM.
2. A complete and total lack of ability to spell my last name. Despite repeatedly having it spelled to you. For godssakes people, I know it's an unusual name, but it's only nine frelling letters. Combinatorial and repeated f-ups of the name don't amuse me, especially when you're trying to look things up by a name you can't spell. No shit you're not finding the records for "Adam Greenblat" whoever he might be.
3. A communication system that seems to consist entirely of writing paper notes that get dropped on peoples' desks with no follow-up to see if they've been read. Left hand has no clue what right hand is doing.

The latest instance of this involves a failure to communicate to me that I do not need paperwork to go in for the blood test (the lab knows I'm coming and how much blood to draw and what to send it out for testing of) but I do need paperwork for the stool samples. Getting that latter involves me on Monday with all the lack of sleep and cramps and fatigue standing glowering at no fewer than three separate departments (the reception desk != the doctor's secretary != the nursing station) all of whom were supposed to communicate about getting these tests set up.

Eventually I glower enough at the desk that they walk me back to the secretary at whom I glower enough until she walks me to the nurse's station, who have no clue what she's asking about and SHE glowers at them until they hand her a massive paper filing book in which she's able to discover that they've misfiled the piece of paper that would have told them what to do to get me what I need. I neglect to mention that if she'd done more than just toss the paper on their overcluttered desk and walk away we might not be standing around staring frostily at each other.



The last set of tests all came back negative. The next round is more blood work testing for celiac disease, my doctor's theory based on something he saw in the abdominal X ray series, and stool samples testing for cryptosporidium or other parasitic infection, my latest shot-in-the-dark. Neither my doc nor I believe the other's theory, and he absolutely disbelieves my secondary theory, which is that I've got some kind of mold infection. I realize that latter is a complete wild-ass guess, but I am allergic to dietary molds in general (beer, soft cheeses, some wines) and histamine reactions aren't listed in the celiac symptomatology.

I find myself reciting Holmes's dictum that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

On the plus side he's trying to get me an appointment with a GI specialist and isn't happy with the "in a few months" answer he got to his first request. If the current round of tests comes up negative he says he'll use that as leverage, basically saying "we've run out of options - take a look at this NOW."

Comments

[kjc007.livejournal.com]

Just another point of info.

I and at least 3 other people got diarrhea from Sunday's potluck.

I have IBS (or something; I don't have the energy to figure out what exactly) and am prone to diarrhea, but Monday's event was clearly something considerably more extreme and short-term.

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

Hrm, might be interesting to figure out what you ate. The flaw in blaming Sunday's potluck is that he and I shared all the food on his plate except for one. If it was that one then we might have a trigger.

[drwex]

Maybe. Or as kjc points out it might have been something that only affected people who are prone to such things. Thanks for the info - that's a good data point to have!