Showing posts with label doctor. Show all posts

In early December (yes, I'm well aware that it's now the end of March), Matt thought it would be fun to get food poisoning the night before a scavenger hunt at Disneyland. I ended up going with our only other teammate, so we had to make due with second place. Matt's map reading skills would have assured us first.

A few days later, I suddenly got very sick, complete with explosions out both ends. Because Matt was still weak from his bout of food poisoning, he caught whatever delightful bug that I presumably brought home from Disneyland. For about two weeks, we laid on the couch occasionally ordering delivery food when one of us could muster the energy to use the computer. It got to the point where we admitted we had to cancel our trip to Las Vegas.

Since we weren't going on our trip, we decided that we were damn well going to the doctor that day. Being a Sunday, the only places open were various Doc-in-a-Box™ clinics. Matt selected the nearest and least skeevy one, and off we went for proper medical advice. The clinician we saw, who shall henceforth be known as Dr. Idiot, did not give me any antibiotics because he was worried they would further disrupt my already impaired digestive tract. Dr. Idiot gave Matt cough medicine with codeine and prednisone and no antibiotics either because reasons. He also suggested that Matt stop coughing. Shockingly, neither of us got any better. In fact, we got worse.

A few days later, Matt was coughing so badly he literally couldn't drive. After Matt pulled over, I called our real doctor, Dr. Internist, from the car. He had some choice words with which to describe Dr. Idiot. He also had a proper prescription pad and order forms for chest X-rays. He determined that, from lack of proper intervention, our weakened immune systems had allowed us to both develop secondary bacterial infections. I was "lucky" to only have bronchitis, whereas Matt had full-blown pneumonia. Dr. Internist gave us proper medication, which thankfully kept Matt out of the emergency room. After a few more days, we finally started feeling better.

Then I started to go crazy. Literally.

As it turns out, methylprednisolone has a possible side effect of mood and behavior changes, especially when combined with an SSRI. Let's just say things did not go well, and Matt ended up calling both Dr. Psychiatrist and Dr. Internist. For future reference, I will not be taking that medicine ever again. Dr. Internist switched me to a different medicine with less crazy involved. A few weeks later, I was finally better. Oh yeah, Matt recovered too, though he had a lingering cough for nearly a month afterwards.

Friday was a day of disasters. It all started when I made a rash decision to walk the mutts. We hadn't even left the courtyard when an evil space monster from the Andromeda galaxy jumped out from behind a stone wall. With no warning, the devious being, which resembled a white poodle mutt, attacked. Zero took the first blow and ended up on his back with the creature from the blue lagoon on top. I had no idea what to do, except to try and pull Zero away by his leash. I was in a bit of a hurry to get the hell away, pulling both leashes with me, but Cerberus got in one last chomp. Unfortunately, it was on Tawny's tail. The worst part is that Cujo was on a flexileash (the thin leash that extends out of a plastic handle for somewhere around 20 feet) the entire time and his owner did nothing. And I mean NOTHING. Didn't move, didn't pull El Chupacabra back, didn't say a word. Her psycho "pet" was barking and attacking completely unprovoked (unless you count happening to walk by as provocation), and she stood there! Seriously, who does that?

After my initial round of panic, Naomi, who thankfully was already on her way over, helped me take the mutts to the vet. Zero's nasty looking stomach wound turned out to be superficial, but due to the area x-rays were required to check for abdominal bleeding. If the external injury had been worse, the vet would have recommended exploratory surgery to visually inspect the area. My eyeballs fell out when the vet first said surgery, but Naomi promptly dusted them off and popped them back in while the vet said it wouldn't be necessary. As for Tawny, the vet had to shave part of her tail to get at the puncture wound. With the fur gone, it really looks like something took a bite out of her tail, but as long as no one goes near her tail, she doesn't seem bothered by it.

After we brought the mutts home from the vet, Naomi and I went shopping. There's nothing like a bit of retail therapy after absolute chaos and bleeding tails.

Later that day, the phone rang an ominous death toll. As I ran for the office phone, my socked feet lost traction on the hardwood floors. SMASH! My right pinky toe was rather displeased with its violent introduction to the base molding it had previously only viewed from a distance. The worst part? It was an automated marketing call from Verizon.

Late Friday afternoon is NOT the time to injury oneself since doctors tend to have stopped making appointments for the week. In other words, I spent the weekend hobbling around on a swollen and oddly colored toe. But I did wake up early today to get an appointment, and get an appointment I did.

The doctor took x-rays of my foot and pronounced my toe to be officially broken and me a klutz. Here are the before and after x-rays:
 
I highlighted the newly-formed gaping chasm in red for your viewing enjoyment.

As of press time, Matt is yet to be injured. I can't help but expect a fork-wielding koala bear to attack him in the shower tomorrow morning.

Today marked my most recent biannual check-up. A fun time was had by all. Oh wait, that's completely wrong. It all started when the doctor said:

"I found a polyp."

"A what?"

"Nurse, hand me the long evil metal thing."

"What's a polyp?"

...

"WHAT'S A POLYP?!?! Oh my god you just yanked that giant wad of puss off?"

"Yep."

"But..."

"It's benign, but I'll send it to the lab anyway."

"Oh."

Obviously.

Tra la la, time to leave. To the receptionists' desk, where I get to bask in the glory of a $0 copay!

"Am I free to go?"

"Well, the charge is going to be a bit more than you probably were expecting."

"How big a bit?"

"You can pay half now, half later. Or we can work something out."

"You're kidding, right? Are you unable to grasp what half of zero is?"

Oh fine. I said something slightly more reasonable.

"Uh, how much?"

"Your total is six hundred."

"What! For what!"

*reading noises*

"Polypectomy."

"SIX HUNDRED dollars for what took about twenty seconds?"

"Actually, it comes out to six hundred ten."

"Oh, well that's much better. Sigh. I'll just pay the whole thing now. At least I'll get $6.10 back from Citi."

*credit card processing noises*

"Oh, I almost forgot! Do you validate?"

"Sorry, no."

Heathens! They charge $10,800 per hour, then make me pay for my own damn parking? That's when I gained a few hundred pounds of green muscle and started throwing pregnant women around the reception area. Or I calmly walked to the elevator. I can't exactly remember, but I'm sure it was epic.

So I woke up this morning with a trails of blood from the corners of my mouth and down my chin. I was also in quite a bit of pain. I think all of this may have something to do with all four of my wisdom teeth being yanked yesterday, but I'm not entirely sure.

In other news, Sam Adams is having a home brewed beer contest. The winner's beer will be sold nationwide. I'm tempted to try it, if I can come up with a good idea. Hmmm, let me rephrase that. A good idea that is legitimately good and possibly even drinkable.

On Monday the weather finally decided that some rain would be good. I agreed, absolutely loving the rain all day. I even turned off the radio in my car to listen to the rain hitting the roof of the car. Then I was late for my 4pm class due to all the fender benders on Wilshire. Apparently no one around here figured out that the road gets wet when it rains.

After class, I offered to drive two guys, Kevin and Dave, home, since both were practically on the way and it was pouring. Unfortunately for me, before we got to the first apartment, the Jeep behind me decided to perform an experiment to determine the value of Planck's Constant. I was fully stopped due to the line of traffic in front of me, while he did not stop before my bumper. What was the result you ask? I'll give you a hint: h is still a very small number.

We pulled over onto a side street to examine the damage and trade information. That's when I remembered that I put my backpack in the trunk of the car since there were two other passenegers. Unlocking the trunk with a key wasn't enough; the trunk had to be pried open for my enjoyment. During the process, a large piece of plastic fell off in my hand. I just handed it to someone, Dave I think, and asked him to hold it. Dave tried calling 911 while I copied down information. It took five minutes to get an operator, which is pretty scary to think about. After determining that no one was bleeding, the operator said that there were no available cars in the area to file a report, so we should just write down eachother's info and let the insurance companies sort it out. Useful.

We happened to be down the block from Kevin's apartment, so he just walked the rest of the way. Now technically, my car was still drivable. That is, assuming you didn't want to see out the back since the trunk could no longer close. On the way to Dave's place, we actually had to stop for him to push it down enough for me to see.

I made it back to my place without losing any more pieces of my car. It's currently parked in my spot, waiting for the claims agent to examine the damage.

I called my dad to tell him what happened as soon as I got back. He asked if I was okay, and I replied that my upper back and neck were a bit sore. He insisted that I go to the emergency room. Blech. But to UCLA Medical I went (with Matt driving his car).

They put me in a neck brace upon arrival, then poked, performed x-rays, and poked some more. The doctors declared me to not be permanently damaged, just a victim of whiplash. I was discharged. By then, it was around 10:30, and we'd been at the hospital since around 8. However, as we were walking towards the exit, one of the doctors came running up to me. She wanted to perform another test. That wasn't at all worrisome.

A few more pokes and a CT scan later (and 3 more hours), I was pronounced alive, but with a bi-fit spine. This is not an injury, but a common abnormal spine. The resident didn't know this at the time, and it was the source of the extra worry. Then came leaving the hospital, take two. This take was significantly more successful.

Having been pronounced alive, I went to sleep. The next day I began the process of getting my car repaired. My insurance covers $30 worth of rental car per day, so the agemt contacted Enterprise (normally I would not be allowed to rent a car by myself due to my age). I'm currently driving a Ford Fusion. It drives pretty well, but you can't see well out of the back. When all is said and done, this minor disaster is going to cost me about $700, if I'm lucky. The repair bills for my car are going to be between $4000 and $7000, depending on whether or not there is any frame damage.

Yay!

Well, I gave it a chance. After my first appointment with the chiropractor, my back didn't hurt. After the second (first follow up) appointment, my back didn't hurt. For all of two days. That was five days ago, and now it's been hurting quite badly, worse than it has in quite some time. I think I'll cancel the final appointment for the end of January. No point in wasting any more money on this failed experiment. Time to get me to a real doctor.