Archive for December 2021
Time to Heal…
Folks, I’m glad to finally be able to tell you that I think I’m on the mend.
Note that I said “I think,” because I’ve had health reversals before. Still, I am hopeful that I’m not speaking too soon, as I now have antibiotics and steroids and feel much clearer of mind. (Thus, the hope is that I’ll be sounder of body soon as well.)
How did this happen? Well, yesterday I marched into urgent care, and told ’em that I felt like I was getting weaker and weaker, and sicker and sicker. I also had a temperature, which is very rare for me; it was 99.8 F when I went in there and it was 99.4 on the way out. As my normal temp is lower than most people’s, this was almost shocking. (To them as well, as they’ve seen me a lot in the last two years.)
I have another sinus infection.
It’s frustrating that this one got so bad, especially since I’ve been trying to take care of my health. I did call my doctors, but every single one said I needed someone else to make the call. Only the ENT doctor was willing to try to get me an appointment, and he didn’t have one until after the first of the year. (I took it.)
That said, I now have medication that has helped — after only one day — to clear my mind significantly, as I said before.
The other problem I had yesterday was that my phone’s battery was low even though I’d charged it before leaving the house. I was supposed to take my mother to a dental appointment. She needed this. Unfortunately, I had zero bars, and the phone was just barely working. Text takes less energy than a phone call, so I sent her several texts.
And, of course, she did not get them in a timely manner.
I feel very bad about this. But I don’t think I could have done anything else.
She did call me, but I was waiting for medication at that time and the phone was still low battery anyway. I didn’t see that she’d actually called until I got back home and was charging the phone. At that point I called and left her a voicemail.
That I was not able to help my mother saddens me greatly. That I couldn’t reach her due to technical problems to do with my very old phone (at least eight years old, and a flip-phone; the cellular carrier has said it must be upgraded next year) is extremely frustrating.
I don’t blame her for being furious.
Anyway, that is all I know. (Time to heal, I guess.)
Have you ever been failed by technology? Or had to work through months of illness? Tell me about it in the comments! (I hope you’re reading out there…)
Struggling, but Alive
Folks, I am dealing with some health issues that aren’t getting much better (despite all my trying, and despite the intervention of the most thorough allergy doctor I’ve ever known). This is the main reason I haven’t blogged much in the past week. (Hell, make it more like the last year, and you’d probably be closer to right.)
I get to trot off to the urgent care clinic in the morning, again, in the hopes they can do something — anything — to help me.
Note that I called my own doctor’s office three times in the past week, and tried to talk with a nurse about two things: this lingering illness, and whether or not I can get a Covid booster shot while I’m ill. (Most people say no. Now I’m going to have to ask them in urgent care about that, too.)
Urgent care clinics have been overwhelmed since the pandemic, because of doctors elsewhere being asked to do too much (so the urgent care clinics also get to do way too much, as crap runs downhill), and also because no one seems to know much about what policies any given clinic should have. (Some doctors are flexible. Some aren’t. My own primary care doc seems to be on the less flexible side, but it may be that people are out due to the pandemic and again are being asked to do way too much.)
I feel sorry for the urgent care folks. Truly, I do. I agree with them that they should not be having to see me so often, and that someone, anyone else should’ve responded this past week (so maybe I’d have had antibiotics earlier this week; this has to be bacterial in origin as it’s gone on for much of the past year, and it does respond to antibiotics, as viruses do not).
But as they’re the only game in town on the weekend, and as I continue to be so ill that I can barely hold my head up, I’m going to have to force myself out there in the morning.
Wish me luck with this nonsense, will you?