Well, I got increasingly wifty and confused due to fibro fog during the day. In fact, sambear called shadowkatt and set her to supervising me, insisting that I eat, take my meds, and not attempt dangerous things like, oh, walking.
I’d called the rheumatologist’s office every day this week with no response—hadn’t been able to get through to a human and my messages weren’t returned. (They just got a new phone system, and the doc today said things are still problematic.)
After being fortified with food, meds, and water, I tried calling again. I finally reached a human by punching in random extension numbers. I was told that for breakthrough pain meds I’d have to come into the office. I explained that I had no way to GET to the office because I certainly wasn’t in any condition to be driving. My choices were to get there today, somehow, and be “worked in” at the end of the day—or wait ’til next week because the doc wouldn’t be there tomorrow. Well, that answered that question.
My hero endured an odyssey of train and bus transfers, then a taxi ride, to get home to me. sambear is the most incredible partner in the world. And shadowkatt is a better daughter than I deserve. She shouldn’t have had to take care of me for another 40 years or so!
So he got me to Lawrenceville. The office felt like an oven for some inexplicable reason (they swore that the heat wasn’t on, and the rest of the building was nice and cool). I was even further out of it by the time I got to see the doctor—who, by the way, is an angel for seeing me after 5 pm anyway.
Then she tried to send me to the ER because she had trouble even figuring out what my pulse was and my blood pressure was ridiculously high. The physician’s assistant couldn’t quite get the pulse at first, either. I stopped doing anything but focusing on bringing it and the BP down, and succeeded in getting the pulse down to 108 (they didn’t retake the BP). There are some advantages to that old biofeedback training, even if it can’t overcome this level of pain.
Sam convinced her that the heart rate and BP really were due to the pain I was in. I think I remember her saying something about never having seen me so out of it before, but I’m not sure. Maybe Sam knows. Again, she wants to send me to a pain specialist—and I don’t have any way to afford that. Any new doctor is going to want lots and lots of new tests and is not likely to be amenable to me paying what I can here and there. In fact, the only one I’ve found locally who is listed as an FMS specialist who is really good won’t accept uninsured patients at all, period.
I have a prescription for hydrocodone-APAP, stronger than what I’ve had in the past (I think that’s generic Lortab). It works and it was cheap. So now I have a pain med I can take at night (only at night, really—I can’t drive or anything while on this stuff), which should help with the sleeping and maybe help stop this particular pain flare.
We stopped at Sam’s Club to fill the RX, and my Sam bought Club crackers for me, which I’m nibbling on as an alternative to Saltines. I may get really wild tomorrow and try ‘nilla wafers.
Doc’s office is supposed to be faxing a letter to my school tomorrow. I hope that’ll help some with the accommodation issue.
I mentioned that I am moving forward on the disability claim and that she should have some kind of request for info from them soon. She said she definitely supports my claim, which is A Very Good Thing.
I haven’t gotten the girl to the allergist’s office this week for her shots. That is NOT good. sambear is going to take her tomorrow. Hopefully, he’ll be able to go to work after that (the allergist closes at noon on Friday). I feel guilty for pulling him away from the office because I’m puny.
Obviously, I didn’t make class today. As much as I detest the speech class, I didn’t want to miss it, either. Oh well.
To bed now, to cuddle up with my sweet hero.
