In addition to all the fucked up shit that’s going on behind the password, I’m sick. And I hurt my back sometime over the weekend and I don’t know how. It was pretty bad, to the point where I left work early on Tuesday and went to see a damned doctor.
When I got to the nurse, I explained to her what was going on and why I was there, and also told her about my history of back problems. She was sympathetic, but there wasn’t really anything that she, the nurse, could do, so she sent in the doctor.
Who walked in the room, looked me in the eye and said, "Just so you know, I don’t prescribe narcotics."
What the fuck? I mean, seriously, here I am in excessive back pain and she thinks I’m a junkie? All I want is for the pain to stop – for real, not for an hour. I explained this to her and that I didn’t want any opiates anyway, because the risk of addiction is too great for (someone like) me.
As I explained my symptoms (oh yes, this story is in chronological order), she listened with a fully skeptical look on her face. There was some sudden dawning when she determined that I have sciatica and explained that she wanted to put me on prednisone. [insert confused WTF here] So, being a smart person and one who does her research I asked "What are the side effects?" She looked at me like "How DARE you question my methods and determination", sighed heavily and explained that it could have mood swings. This, I explained, was unacceptable. The things going on in my life (which I explained to her) do NOT allow for mood swings and I can’t have that.
She rolled her eyes at me and snotted "Well it’s only about 10% of the population that has mood swings. Do you think you’re going to be one of them?" Again I explained the situation to her, that I couldn’t have mood swings and if she thought it was a real possibility then we needed to find another solution. After some huffing and puffing she decided that wasn’t what I really needed to worry about.
"One of the side effects is an increased appetite. YOU, especially, need to be careful about that." Now, see, here’s the thing. I recognize that I’m a fat chick. Not to the extreme of not fitting through doorways or taking up more than one seat on a bus, plane or in a movie theater, but I’m a BIG girl. However, it’s not because I eat constantly. It’s not even because I have a poor diet. I’m not going to justify myself on my blog, but you know what? This doctor has absolutely NO RIGHT to judge me (and it was superficial judgement) when she supposed to be taking care of my back problem. At this point, an increased appetite would likely be a good thing, since I’m not ever hungry anymore and have to mostly force myself to eat. However, I have not had an increased appetite, and even taking the infernal pills with food is hard to force myself to do.
Anyway, after all of that I’m on the damned prednisone and my back still hurts. Not nearly as much, but still hurts. And I’m sick. And what I read about prednisone is that if you have any kind of infection, it will feed the infection, so I’m seriously thinking that that bitch of a doctor prescribed me something knowing I had a chest cold that actually made me sicker, and then told me not to take ANYTHING else – including Advil and Tylenol. Thanks… so when I cough until I literally puke and wind up with a screaming headache and my back hurting from the force of the cough, I should just… nothing. Great. Thanks.
I fucking hate doctors. I really do. I can’t even count how many shitty doctors I’ve had who have lied to me or giving me misinformation or, whatever you want to classify what this doctor did/is.
You may not believe me when I say this, but I am trying desperately to find the good. Maybe early next week I will have some, but it is awfully elusive at the moment.