I was feeling “great” (in relative terms) the other day when I was sharing a bit about my condition. Fine until about 1:30pm when I had my one-on-one with my manager. Then bam! over the course of an hour I went from feeling decent to my heart’s palpating, I’m short of breath, I’m dizzy, I’m disoriented, I can’t focus on any kind of cogitation necessary to being a software engineer), and from then on the rest of the day was a long, uphill battle. Fortunately when I had Lyme I picked up a shit ton of skills for surviving the daily grind while experiencing brain fog (or what was previously they were calling “Fibro Fog”—yes, obvious to anyone who’s been through the system, if they can’t figure out what you’ve got they used to throw you in a big, non-specific bucket called Fibromyalgia [despite having no scientific way to diagnose it—at least back them]). The next day was shit, of course, and by “shit” I mean I spent a good portion of the day monitoring my vitals and on the verge of asking my wife to take me into Urgent Care / ER again—which I would have done but they really don’t do shit. For example, they have everything to do a sonogram on my lungs and heart, but they didn’t do that last time because, well, it’s a simple case of bronchitis. Yeah, sure, the steroids helped (a lot) for a day or two, then back downhill. Doesn’t that indicate something more complicated? Possibly an underlying infection?
On that note, there’s nothing worse than going in to see the “serious” doctors, being treated like a hypochondriac (or just someone who’s not “really” going through something serious), and realizing later, when your head’s on straight again, when you’re feeling better, that they had at least half a dozen other tests they could have performed that you, a measly computer programmer, knew would have been prudent. And that’s the other thing, in order to really get any doctor informed of all my symptoms I’d need at least and hour with them. Hey dude, let’s talk about heart function. Now let’s talk about lungs. Let’s talk about stomach. Let’s talk about neurological symptoms. Nope. Best I can get, in this wondering first world country called America, is 15 minutes with a doctor that gives me (and my records) less time that a mechanic would if I took my car into the shop. And last I checked, I could care less if my car was still broken after a week of them looking at it. Hell, if needed I could rent a car, get an uber, or just stick to my own two feet while those idiots took a month to figure out the Tesla doesn’t have spark plugs. The care I get from medical doctors here is just—unacceptable—if not sometimes plain ridiculous. I have a shit ton of examples over the last or so fifteen years, but the point here is that you’re more likely IMHO to die from doctors not taking the time or asking the right questions and making the wrong assumptions that you are from any disease in this country.
I’m just going to post this as is. I have my new computer/blogging setup. Want to blog more even if I feel like I’m dying.
…asm…