I've said it before and I'll say it again: This whole process of healing over the past five months has made me wish that I had gone to medical school. Not so much that I actually think I'd be a better doctor than the doctors I've seen, but perhaps I wouldn't feel so much in the dark and feel the need to consult Dr. Google several times a day.
My friend MaryD, who suffers from a variety of annoying ailments, and I were howling a few weeks ago looking at our Google search history on our phones. Among the winners were: Feel like choking on nothing.
I'd share more but that about sums it up.
And it makes me even more convinced that my acupuncturist was right when he said that Google should only allow you to search the same symptom, say, three times, and then after that, you're locked out, done, you can no longer obsess.
But then what would I do for fun? I've built an entire life around obsessing.
Right now, I'm averaging at least three doctor appointments a week. Most of them aren't helpful. And it's not like I'm being a hypochondriac, which I have been guilty of on many occasions. Each time I go to the doctor, he or she decides I need to come back again or go somewhere else or have a test of some kind that seems unnecessary to me and seems like they're grasping at straws, which maybe they are, and maybe it's no longer helpful to keep going, but I'm too much of a hypochondriac not to follow their advice.
It just seems like sometimes they're not paying very much attention -- like the doctor who called to announce a vitamin deficiency that I already have and take medicine for. When I countered with, "Yeah, I've had that for years, and I take three supplements a day," the reaction was, "Oh, okay, forget that then." Or the URGENT test that I had to rush in to take the NEXT day because I was having horrible symptoms (which I still have) -- and then had to chase the office down for two weeks to get results only to get a voicemail from the doctor saying, "Showed nothing, call if more questions."
Yeah, I've got some questions. Questions like, "Well then what is wrong? And why am I still having symptoms?"
Thank goodness Dr. Google is always there. I can always get an appointment anytime day or night. Dr. Google always has an answer. Dr. Google never keeps me waiting. Dr. Google tells it to me straight: It could be very very serious or it could be nothing at all.
Aside from Dr. Google, I'm pretty sure that the only doctors I would fully trust at this point are Dr. Oz and Dr. Drew. Dr. Oz had put out a call for guests to be on his show and I'm ready to say I'm a man trapped in a woman's body who needs to lose weight (Dr. Oz loves weight loss shows so that would be my hook) just to get close to him. I'd even eat the twigs and eye of newt that he's always pushing on the audience to demonstrate how committed I am to health. But then he'd try to shove me in the Truth Tube, where they announce on national television how much you weigh, and I'd fight like a cat going into a carrier, and scratch up poor Dr. Oz, who, ever resourceful and a teacher at heart (like our Oprah), would use that as an opportunity to demonstrate to everyone how to properly dress a wound and educate everyone on what booster shots we need as adults (tetanus).
So far everyone seems able to agree on two diagnoses:
"Too much" and "A lot."
And by that I mean, when I go in and describe what's going on, they're always like, "Wow, that sounds like a lot" or "You must feel like it's too much."
I agree. And I didn't even go to medical school.
At this point though, I've crossed over into laughing about it. I know that this situation won't last forever and that I will be fortunate enough to feel 100% very soon. I wish it would come quicker, but I know too that my anxiety about feeling better (or not feeling better) is slowing down the process, so I'm my own worst enemy.
When I think about how I felt a few months ago, when my head was pounding 24/7 and I couldn't even open my eyes because the lights were so bright, I know I've come a long way and I'm grateful for it.
As I said, I don't necessarily blame the doctors. As my mother once said, "They're humans too, and they learned out of books just like you did." But as a control freak, it kills me to not know what's going on and to be at the mercy of other people to validate how I'm feeling. One doctor said, "Your neck is really locked up," and my response was, "I know, I LIVE in this body." I've already diagnosed myself for free with much of what the doctors have confirmed.
I'll just wait for the day that Google starts handing out medical degrees from GoogleMed.
Dr. Len does have a nice ring to it.
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