Desert Diva

I’m in “The Land of the Living” – well sort of anyway. It’s been Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride lately at Desert Diva central. I’ve been “doctor shopping” lately. My internist, Dr. A (and her partner) do not have hospital privileges and I’ve worried that may not be quite “normal.” So, I “asked around” and made an appointment with a family care physician.

It just so happened that I concurrently had a severe allergic reaction to the high weed pollen count in my little town. We’ve had an unusual amount of rain and the dominant offender has been ambrosia weeds. So I took my congested, coughing, itchy eyed, runny nosed, and wheezing rear end to Dr. R.

Dr. R suggested that I have every possible medical test known to the medical community, and sent me off with a zillion prescriptions of potent medications. Two different types of inhalers (not asthma – it’s a “reactive airway”) nose spray, and pills. A “negative mark” for Dr. R was that she insisted that Zantac 150 mg was still a prescription drug. Nope, it’s OTC – I know because I’ve bought a few bottles…

The acid reflux drug made my stomach hurt, and I felt “drugged” by all the rest. For the acid reflux I went back to over the counter Zantac and I’ve ended up using one of the inhalers (Symbicort) as needed and bought over the counter Claritin. I was feeling much better.

Until today. Well, actually yesterday.

I’ve been having pain in my upper left arm. It’s difficult to do the back “towel dry” pose, and I have to be careful when putting my arm through my sleeve. I told my original physician about it some time ago. I had an EKG that turned out normal. It’s called an impingement. If I have a good massage or do hot yoga (or take a vacation), it mysteriously disappears. However, my current wrist situation rules out yoga.

Today I took 400 mg of ibuprofen and hardly noticed my arm today. However after work being the obsessive/compulsive person that I am, I thought “left arm pain” – we all know what that’s a symptom of a more “serious” condition. I went to Dr. L (Also a female – do you see a pattern?) who took walk-ins since I was contemplating going to the ER. She was so nice and I got “teary.” She gave me tissues before and after the EKG (which was normal), gave me a prescription for the pain, an order for a MRI to locate the impingement, and sent me on my merry way. I told her that it might be awhile since I’m trying to schedule my wrist surgery. She said “no problem.”

I got in my car and promptly started to sniffle, cry, bawl. I think I’m just so tired of not feeling “myself” lately and relieved that I’m basically OK. I came home, hugged Cali for several minutes, poured myself a glass of Pinot Noir, and then poured out my feelings in this post. Sorry, I tried to get off the dark and twisty rant, but sometimes life is that way.

I’m feeling better already…

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Tags: allergies, Cali, doctors, impingement, life, medications, pain, prescriptions, wine