Duh

Dear Self:

Do not go back to the rheuma­tol­o­gist with­out curiousmay9 or sam­bear. In fact, don’t go see any spe­cial­ist for any­thing but a rou­tine check-in with­out one of them. You’ll get too tired to think straight and for­get things or not get your point across.

Love,
Me

After sev­er­al months of try­ing to see the rheuma­tol­o­gist rec­om­mend­ed by my pri­ma­ry care provider, I went back to my old rheuma­tol­o­gist. That required dri­ving to Lawrenceville (50+ miles from home), but it seemed worth it. Besides, I was going across town to maid-sit for rid­inrab­bit, so it did­n’t seem that it would be too dif­fi­cult. It had to be eas­i­er than wait­ing for Octo­ber for an appoint­ment, any­way!¹Yes, I had an appointment—on the day of the wreck. The next avail­able appoint­ment is near the end of October.

I was tired enough before the vis­it that I got all brain-fogged and lost. I grew up in Gwin­nett Coun­ty, which is where Lawrenceville is. I learned to dri­ve there. I’ve spent many years liv­ing there dur­ing my adult life. But for about 30 min­utes, absolute­ly noth­ing was familiar.

I did final­ly get to her office about 30 min­utes late for my 3:30 pm appoint­ment. They did­n’t even notice that I was late since they were (as usu­al) run­ning hours behind. I did­n’t get out of her office ’til just after 6:30.

I real­ly, real­ly should have acknowl­edged that I was too tired to dri­ve safe­ly and asked some­one to come pick me up, but by that time I was too addled to fig­ure that out. It’s some­thing of a mir­a­cle that I did get home safely.

I have a pre­scrip­tion for a new-to-me drug for arthri­tis, keto­pro­fen. The COX‑2 inhibitors nev­er did much for me, so I have to say I’m fair­ly hap­py to have the docs going back to NSAIDs. She made a point of say­ing, repeat­ed­ly, that I have to take it with­in 15 min­utes of eat­ing a meal and can’t lay down for 2 hours after tak­ing it. I was too tired to fill the RX on the way home but will start it tomorrow.

She should let me know what the mess of x‑rays showed some­time in the next week. I doubt there will be any real surprises—more dete­ri­o­ra­tion, I sup­pose. And I need to go see the lab vam­pires for more bloodwork.

I’m sup­posed to see a phys­i­cal ther­a­pist for eval­u­a­tion for a scoot­er. That’s a big emo­tion­al thing for me, but I’m tired of miss­ing events because of the pain/fatigue/mobility BS. Cons, the Pride fes­ti­val, gath­ers, whatever—I go out less and less because I know I’ll be tired out before every­one else and will be a drag. My part­ners do a lot of things with/for Katie that I should and want to do with/for her. If a scoot­er will change that, I’ll deal with the hit to my ego.

Final­ly, the van is well and tru­ly totaled no mat­ter how gen­er­ous­ly one val­ues it. The guy who hit me was going so fast that he bent the frame of the vehi­cle. (I do hope that car­ries some weight with the traf­fic court judge.) curiousmay9 and I are argu­ing with the insur­er, as they’re still drag­ging their feet on the settlement.

It is iron­ic that the kinds of events that suck down spoons usu­al­ly lead to the ongo­ing need for more spoons to get things straight­ened out.

My baby comes home tomor­row! I’ve real­ly, real­ly missed her. We’ll have pic­tures Real Soon Now, I promise. 

The maids cleaned here today, too. There’s some­thing par­tic­u­lar­ly sooth­ing about a clean house, espe­cial­ly when you did­n’t have to clean it yourself.