on being patient

Patience is a virtue. Patience is a form of despair, disguised as virtue. I am full of patience, and fully occupied with being a patient. And broke because of it.

The newest medical update is that I definitely had a UTI last week. My doctor looked at the results and sarcastically asked me if I knew I had one, “and boy do you.” She put me on Nitrofurantroin. But it didn’t work. Half a week later the symptoms came flooding back, straight to every toilet and porter potty I came across as I wearily strolled through The City streets during Fleet Week. What do they call it when you’ve been on antibiotics for five months and can’t drink alcohol or enjoy coffee or eat dairy when everyone around you is having a party and you have to excuse yourself every half an hour to pee blood? Patience.

Sunday, the day of rest, I anxiously called my doctors office three times and left messages articulating my patience for the matter. Then after a several hour exercise in patience, a doctor called her patient back. “Oh did you see me last week?” She said.

“I don’t know…” I’ve been a patient of 12 doctors since May, don’t expect me to remember their names, as I no longer expect them to remember mine or appropriately advocate for the bits and pieces of me that are falling apart.

“I’m the big fat stupid blond lady...?”

“Oh yes. I did see you.”

“Did we get a culture done for you?”

“Well, you said you would, but I didn’t get any results…”

Today I dropped into my doctors office and patiently waited for those results, but when another new doctor made time to speak with me, and after sending her nurses on a wild goose chase to find said results, the conclusion was that no culture test (the protocol test for patients with complicated medical histories that figures out what bacteria is actually the cause of an infection and what the proper treatment would be) was done. 

“Great," I drooled, proving that patients can be sarcastic, too.

The new doctor gave her patient two white pieces of paper with scribbles on them that pharmacists magically recognize as prescriptions. The notes were for - you guessed it - more antibiotics. We are in the 6^th round with Cipro in one corner, and a broken bladder patient in the other. Simultaneously the 7^th round is underway with another left right uppercut combo from Metronidazole that aims to knock the broken privates patient down down down. 

According to the World Wide Web and the warning label on the bottle, Cipro “may cause a severe intestinal condition (Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea) due to a type of resistant bacteria,” along with yeast infections, thrush, and irreversible tendon damage. Dairy and vitamins/supplements should not be taken as they may bind with the medication and totally screw up its effectiveness. No vitamins or supplements means no probiotics which means I have nothing to shield me from relapsing with C Fucking Diff for a 3^rd time. A 3^rd relapse means it’s time for this patient patient to get her ass back onto the doctor’s table for a transplant. And all THAT means is I am shit full of despair.

See a doctor once for a condition and you can call me a patient. I can tolerate the waiting room, the smaller waiting room after that where I have to sit naked under a paper robe, the $60 copay, the $45 prescription, and the lack of intelligence displayed by the doctor during the guessing game we call medicine. See a doctor 12 times for a condition and the 5 conditions that have spurred off as side effects of not effectively treating the main condition the first time, you may no longer call me a patient. You may call me anything but. First try calling me irritable, depressed, and extremely pissed off; I’ll respond to that.

I’m still waiting, though, for someone to tell me how to cope with this much physical and psychological damage. I’ll be verbosely honest in admitting that I am run down and beat up by the happenings of the last 13 odd weeks. I am not accustomed to being ill for any period of time and was not previously prepared for so much suffering. 

On top of all the side effects and debt from copays and prescriptions, there’s the emotional trench I’ve naturally fallen into. Coupled with a bunch of new beginnings at work, home, and relationships, all I can see of myself is a swollen shadow of who I used to be, a mere fraction of who I want to be. I don’t see how to handle all the new beginnings with the shit-tinted lenses my brain is giving me. If my body is too dependent on antibiotics and too fatigued to operate it’s immune system, how am I supposed to defend my soul? I feel like I’m under the weight of the entire Pacific Ocean to overcome these obstacles and be “happy,” be “successful,” be “good.” And all my doctors keep telling me to be patient with myself, and cross my fingers. Is that the best solution? Is all else lost?

Like a scab that won’t heal, the one thing I know how to do right now is remain open. I am stretching my arms out wide for a virtual hug from the world and a real validation that things are going to be OK. I’m writing, but mostly, I’m listening. I’m pleading with the gods to give me a resolution to this jagged despondency. I can’t stand being [a] patient anymore. I want to be me. I want to open because that’s who I am, because it’s godly, not because I’m desperate to achieve health and sanity. I want my wanderlust mind babbling to be more about how the sunlight reflects on people’s skin and how humans tattoo themselves on the skin of nature without regret, not about diarrhea, side-effects, and self-loathing. But that’s where I am. This is “now.” Now is crappy… now I have to take more antibiotics and keep holding my breath for that infamous moment when all is right with the world, when living life the way it was meant to be lived doesn’t require so much patient patience.

One thing after another

Since my last little novel was posted, it seemed like things were getting better for me. To my optimistic self's surprise, my health remained seated for the roller coaster ride. It's been a bumpy, turmoil-ridden experience to say the very least. But when do I ever say just that?

1. I did get the re-promotion, or un-demotion as it really was. Lots more work, no more pay, but I shouldn't complain... because as our wise old predecessors in their high pitched, nasally, dreadful sounding voices always say, "In this economy, you should be grateful to have ANY job. it's hard to get a job at McDonalds these days!" Meh.

2. Took a week off from the work for a road trip up north. I wish "up north" had the same meaning as it did in Michigan, where a few hours up I-75 meant Pine-lined lakes, hammocks, rednecks peacefully shining their shotguns on their stoops, and ultimate bliss. This time, however, up north was by way of Bend and Portland, OR and Seattle, WA. The facebook pictures are nice, I'm sure you agree.

3. Retested for C. Diff, and it was positive. ("So I've got that going for me.") Started on Vancomycin and the 4 more weeks of antibiotics plan.

And with #3, today's story begins:

When my doctors say positive, what they really mean is esteem-destroyingly negative. After 16+ weeks, I still had the toxic bacteria eating me up from the inside out. So I wasn't going to hesitate any further to do whatever it took to be rid of it. The 4 week plan was this: 4 pills a day for week 1, 2 pills a day for week 2, 1 pill a day for week 3, and 3 pills a week for week 4. Sounds like a cake walk, right?

But after week 1, I was still experiencing the runs in a fashion un-writable. Imagine saw-dust.... ewwwww, now you got the picture. So I called up my specialist and he exasperatedly told me either I don't know what I'm talking about and going crazy (in so few words), or that the "Vanco" (abbreviations make people sound smarter/cooler, I suppo.) was not working for me, which would make me the first person in history to not be positively (or negatively?) effected by the drug, or that I have some other problem on top of having C. Diff - like Crohns Disease or another nasty colitis. He told me to come in for an urgent colonoscopy. Too bad for him I was going on my vacation in two days, so he wouldn't be able to stick his probes in my no-mans-land. But it was too bad for me, as well, as I stuck to my 2 pills a day stage of the plan for an extra week and sucked up my discomfort throughout my holiday, and hoped that I get more constipated than anything else in order to veer away from the subsequent plan: a fecal transplant. On a side note, it was alarming how many of my friends and family stepped up to donate their fecal matter for the potential operation. Seriously alarming.

Back in the Bay Area again, I went in to see Mr Specialist. 60 bones for the copay - 5 minute consultation. "You look fine!" my doctor exclaimed. Apparently the modern medicine is based on outward appearances and who can afford to actually get such stellar advice. "Go to church, say your prayers, be nice to strangers, and hopefully you won't have to see me again. But if you relapse again, you know how to find me." If only I was a church going nice person who knew strangers!

With no surprise left in me, I have had a repeat of the runs since the breakthrough medical opinion was shared that September afternoon. But I also have had a lot of time this summer to examine the different types of runs one emits, and I know that these runs are different runs than C. Diff runs. Now the cause of my perpetual discomfort is a diet issue. Lactose Intolerance is the culprit. It's a crying shame for this milk loving cheese eater. Pizza, quesadillas, cheese-burgers, milk shakes, ice cream, and morning cereal are all serious no-nos now, among alcohol, coffee, and most regrettably, popcorn. Even if I do get better next month or some day and time over the rainbow, I know my life is less full because of the May through October (or beyond) in 2010 without such edible essentials. It's like taking away worms from a bird or Steve Irwin from the crocodile that ate him. How will I possibly get along?

With rice, rice cakes, bananas, and most recently added to the list, cranberry juice. Sounds like a diet for an old person who wears depends , unquestionably. But that old person is me, trapped in a 26 year old, Hottie McHotterson's body.

So what does cranberry juice do for a dame with intestinal problems? It helps her urinary track infection! I woke up yesterday morning at 5 am (aka way too early) from a bad dream that involved finding the ladies bathroom to discover the urgency of finding my reality bathroom asap. When I found it, I also found the classic symptoms described on wikipedia of a bladder infection, which I'll highlight for anyone who has also never had such problems: urgency without much product, cloudy smelly urine, severe pain, and a desire to cut out your insides. I couldn't get back to sleep because any way I laid I felt pressure on my bladder and I felt like getting to the toilet again.

It was a memorable scene, me sitting there slouched over my lap wishing I could stand up or lay down for more than 5 minutes without rushing back to the porcelain bowl. It was a scene I've played out a hundred times in 4 months. The only luxury was that this time I was focused on a different hole, and nothing was coming out.

I cautiously went about my day with a third eye on my bladder, but except for some upset stomach and general ickiness, which I've grown accustom to, I ignored the early morning signs of danger as a fluke to having bad dreams.

Today I woke up at the still ripe hour of 6 am and history repeated itself. I gotta pee, but I don't pee. I gotta pee, I can't freakin pee!

So I called the doctor - she must think I'm a hypochondriac - and made an appointment with her for tomorrow. About 10 minutes after that, my bladder announced it had to be relieved again, so even though I knew too well what would result, I plopped down on the porcelain again. Trickle trickle pause trickle stop. Wipe. Blood?

I moved my doctors appointment up for two and a half hours from now. Blood in urine, I'm pretty sure, is frowned upon. After all this, I may very well become a church going nice person who stops every stranger on the street for a hug. I need a freakin miracle. I know, and am scared to death that I'll be prescribed more antibiotics for this UTI, antibiotics that will rip through the walls of my stomach and intestines and persuade C. Diff to return with unstoppable vengeance.

Why me? What did I do in this life time or the last one to deserve this? Why am I not getting better?

Before all this, I was a healthy, vivacious young woman who had her own share of ups and downs but over all had a good thing going. And now... what am I but a cesspool, an ill-shaped patient in a dozen doctors offices across the Bay Area without a glimmer of hope or end to the internal wreckage?

It's just one thing after another. If you can stomach it, start praying.