in which our heroine spins the wheel of medical misfortune.

today I had two appointments: one with my primary care doc to redraw blood to see if I'm still anemic and also to check out my wrist (I sprained it five weeks ago) and see if he thought I need to see a specialist; and one with my endocrinologist, just the standard every-three-months checkup to draw blood and make sure my hormone levels are okay.

at Dr. L's, he got a quick rundown on my wrist situation. after doing some range-of-motion tests with me, he determined that the sprain was not worse, but in fact I have tendinitis in my still-healing wrist. that's just beautiful, isn't it? he prescribed anti-inflammatories, heat, and staying off the computer. that will, of course, make work so much fun. but hey, what can I do? the doctor said so!

then he drew blood for the anemia testing. or rather...he tried. I have very tiny, very stubborn veins. they do not like to be stuck with needles. they roll around and are generally uncooperative. this has led to my getting stuck in both inner elbow areas (on a single visit) in an attempt to find some/enough blood more times than I can remember. last time he drew blood, he checked one elbow, then the other, then eventually switched back, found a vein after a good few minutes, and then I spent ten minutes lying on the table while he tried to coax blood from my spiteful little veins. if you've never had a needle stuck in your arm for longer than it takes to get an injection or have blood drawn (for tests or I guess for donation), I don't recommend it.

so I laughed about all this with a latex tie around my upper arm, my hand balled into a fist, and Dr. L searching for a potential vein. he decided he found one in my right inner elbow, so he stuck me with the needle (I'm not a big baby about needles or anything, but damn this one hurt), and a few minutes later I heard an "...aw". turns out he got about a quarter of a vial before my vein sputtered and died. so he checked the other arm. nothing doing.

after that, he just gave me a lab form with their information and asked if I'd have the endocrinologist's lab draw a vial for my anemia tests while they're in there anyway. fine, whatever. I went back to work for a couple of hours.

later in the afternoon, I left work for the day and went to my endocrinologist appointment.

(a quick rundown on why I see an endocrinologist: two years ago, I had a lump in my neck that I had Dr. L check out. he said it was probably just an enlarged nodule on my thyroid and referred me to an endocrinologist. I picked Dr. B from the provider list based on location and positive reviews on some websites -- seriously. I saw Dr. B and he scheduled a ultrasound. the ultrasound showed a golf-ball-sized mass protruding from my thyroid. Dr B. ordered a biopsy. the results of the biopsy were "abnormal"; he couldn't tell me for sure that it wasn't cancer. he advised me to have my thyroid removed, and I set up an appointment with Dr P, the surgeon he recommended. about a week later, I was in the hospital having the surgery. I stayed overnight and was out of work for ten days to recover. the mass was benign, but my thyroid itself had patches of malignancy. I went through radiation therapy and had a full-body scan afterward and was pronounced cancer-free. I've since had another treatment and scan, and I remain so. for reasons I won't bore you with, I no longer see Dr. B; Dr. G is with the endocrinologist's office that Dr. L referred me to.)

anyway, back to Dr. G. standard procedure there is for the nurse to usher me back and take my weight and blood pressure, as well as update my chart. after she did all that, I waited a few minutes and Dr. G came in. she asked about my general health, and I told her about the wrist sprain and anemia, then I sat on the exam table.

the first thing she told me was that my blood pressure was high this visit, and she wanted to check it again. now, normally I'm right at "normal", usually hitting about 117/78, and not once in my life has it been high. today, both times, I was 140/80. then she stuck my finger to do the blood sugar test thing. they typically want the number around 99-100, and mine was 109. again high and again abnormal (I think I had a 97 the last time). she was checking the lymph nodes in my neck, praising the scar from my surgery (she always does this; I have to say that the surgeon did a really good job -- there's not much of a scar now and what's there is only a thin faint line), when she stopped mid-sentence, took her hands off my skin and exclaimed "wow, you're really warm!" I told her, again, that this is what I'd been telling her each time I came in, about how I always feel abnormally warm or cold, how my mother started feeling this way too when she was about my age, and Dr. G always passed it off by saying "but you're too young for that to be happening". (yes, well, I'm too "young" to be a cancer survivor too, but you were the one admiring my scar.) these three things, as well as the fact that I cannot seem to lose weight anymore (I'd lost some in the three-month period between my next-to-last and last visit, and I gained it back in the three-month period between the last visit and today's), she started to be concerned. (well, good, and finally; if only I didn't have to have all this stuff happening to get her attention, but I digress.)

she decided to forgo drawing blood today and instead asked me to come back, fasting, for more tests, including a glucose test. I'm going first thing tomorrow when their lab opens, because fasting until an afternoon appointment sucks rocks. for this new test, I get my blood drawn right when I come in, then they give me something sugary to drink, and then they draw blood again an hour later and then again an hour after that. so I get to spend my morning at the lab, doing my best impression of a human pincushion.

what they are concerned about is that I'm becoming (or have become) diabetic. these are fun fucking times, my friends.