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 6th round with Cipro in one corner, and a broken bladder patient in the other. Simultaneously the 7th 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 3rd time. A 3rd 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.
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