Wednesday, May 23, 2007

General

Note: I was originally going to post this in the comments section for "All in a Week", but it was posted kind of awhile ago, plus the response got so long I decided to make it its own post. I did, however, finally respond to "a mom who thinks too much", "medblog addict" and "angel" in the comments left in the "Tagged" post. I may be slow to respond to comments, but I will eventually respond. Don't give up on me!

Anyway, here's the original comment I am responding to:

From Angel: Dagnabbit, Bloglines hasn't been updating to show me you had new posts. My apologies!

And UGH new doc time, seriously. I think if after bleeding that long a doc compared my uterus to wallpaper, I'd have to hurt him. A lot.


Hey, no worries Angel! It's not like I'm the supreme updating queen anyway. I'm contemplating blogging tonight (note: see how neatly I turned this into a post? hee), but what about? Maybe I'll get tagged again. That often helps.

And yeah, I'm thinking about what to do about good old doc. I have a recommendation from my kids' pediatrician. However, I also have time, testing, and familial/ personal relationship time invested in this arrogant piece of work, so I'm not quite sure which way I'm going. I had lunch today with a friend of mine who has the same GYN, and she said if I go in and have a nervous breakdown in his office he'll come around, i.e., realize that this is definitely having an impact on my life that requires a little more input from him. Thing is, I've been trying to present this all matter-of-factly to him, including expressing my very real embarassment over hauling my dizzy self into the ER that day. I think he believes I'm overstating matters.

Thing is, I'm not. Frankly, going to the ER for me is HUGE. That's the only time I've ever been in an ER outside of a bad car accident 17 years ago, and one visit with my elder son when he was three years old. I mean, that is IT.

So maybe I need to stop being matter-of-fact and turn into a crying, hiccupping, hysterical woman talking about how I've been bleeding more than half of the past 90 days, and how I have NO SEX LIFE which is starting to freak my husband out a little bit, and just become a hormonal raging mess.

I hate to do that, though. I mean, I blow off steam here, but I'd rather conduct the doctor/patient relationship in a professional manner, especially considering that his specialty already is more personal than I like. The annual "spread-em-and-grin" appointment is anything but grin-worthy.

So I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do I keep trying to work with this doctor and convince him that yes, dude, there IS a problem and it is a bloody damned mess, or do I go to another doctor, request all my records from my current one, thus likely screwing up my parents' relationship with him to some degree, and possibly end up with yet another doctor who is going to think I'm blowing all this way out of proportion?

Yuck.

Bleeding 49 out of 90 days? Not minor.
Soaking one super-plus tampon and its backup pad more than once an hour for 24-72 hours every month (or more)? Not minor.
Being so cranky and sometimes so freaked out that my husband is wondering where his wife has gone? Not minor.
Having my doctor completely ignore the statement, "I seriously feel like I'm going crazy," from me? NOT FRACKING MINOR.

And yet with all of this, I'm still wondering if I should soldier on.

Yuck. Again.

If anyone has a good idea about how to go about changing doctors with a minimum of muss and fuss, please let me know in comments here. Thanks y'all.

Oh, and Angel, you are SO Tagged for the "8 Things About Me" meme below. Hehehehee.

4 comments:

The Rainbow Zebra said...

You can try being OCD like me--I will type up a page of what I want to discuss with a doctor: dates, meds, what's been tried, what works/what doesn't, what I expect from the visit. They are usually quite impressed. Adding bullet points usually gets their attention ;)

Thanks for the tag!!

The Rainbow Zebra said...

My Meme is up ;)

Mauigirl said...

I sympathize with your problem. I had the same thing off and on for years! I'd get my period, have it a week, be OK for a week and then boom, get another 2 weeks of bleeding after that. Once it turned out to be a polyp and removing it helped, but then it was happening again to a lesser extent just because of hormone fluctuations. I'm 53 now and FINALLY starting menopause and I am so glad! I did switch doctors in the middle of the problem and the second guy was the one who found the polyp.

Amanda said...

Angel, my doctor is impressed by my Excel spreadsheet charting my cycles, but then he forgets that I do this and scolds me to remember to chart them. Either that, or he assumes that the months I've got on my Excel sheet were an abberation.

And yay, meme! Feel free to tag me for one if you get caught by someone who isn't me :)

Mauigirl, thank you for the sympathy. It's so blasted annoying! I mean, it's not like I'm dying. Things could absolutely be worse, and I'm grateful they're not. Still, it doesn't change the fact that being so very intimate with the "Hygeine" aisle is aggravating both on a personal and even a financial level. Plus there's the sex life thing.

It's a matter of knowing that in the grand scheme of things, this just isn't that big a deal, but at the same time feeling dismissed about something that, in my tiny little world, really *is* quite a big deal. I feel guilty about wanting my doctor to understand that this is an issue since it's not like I'm terminal or anything...

Bleah. I'm conflicted, to say the least. And I'm PMS-rambling, so I believe I'll quit yammering on in my comments :)