Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Wow, a long day and I haven't even gotten to (or not gotten to) the evening stuff yet. Walked to clinic, got physical exam, will get referral to orthopedist (for my wrist) in the mail, got several prescriptions refilled, noticed that it had gotten late while I was there, walked even farther, got one remaining prescription at old pharmacy (last one there, I think; the rest should be at the clinic's pharmacy from here on), walked home, and ohjeepersIamsotired. Ow, my legs. And back. And head -- between the television showing an educational tape loop in the waiting room and somebody's very high-pitched children (they were just-being-kids, but my ears are hypersensitive to such things today) -- and then traffic when I was walking walking walking (and walking into the sun having forgotten my sunglasses didn't help either), I started feeling like I was being struck repeatedly on my skull from the inside. Ow.

But I got through a bunch of stuff. And I'm not happy about there being no progress on my wrist, but I'll get that referral to somebody who should actually be able to do something. With all the other referrals, I'm going to have a busy couple of months doctor-wise. Considering that the results of the blood tests in August and the exam today are that I'm basically healthy except for the things we already knew about, this strikes me as kind of ironic. Podiatrist for routine diabetic foot care checkup, referral to diabetic eye exam, the aforementioned orthopedist, dentist, I think I've got a referral to a pain clinic that won't be covered so I need to figure out how to pay for it ... and a referral to a specialist to look into my longstanding sleep problems.

Hmm. For the sleep issues, she's sending me to a psychiatrist. Argh. Okay, maybe the psychiatrist will have useful clues and be able to help, but the vibe I'm getting is along the lines of "oh, sleep disturbance is usually a symptom of a psych problem" (which I don't think is the cause of my sleep problems); in either case, I'm almost certainly going to have to have the argument over antidepressants Yet Again, since even if a patient is not depressed they like to try those first to help regulate sleep (as was the reason I was given antidepressants last year). I'm not looking forward to that.

I would have liked to have been feeling better starting out than I did, but I survived. But I certainly can't complain about today's weather! Just cool enough to keep me from feeling sticky (I did walk enough to work up a bit of a sweat), without being cool enough to feel chilly; and a very pretty day.

I have to go back Wednesday to have them look at my arm where I got stuck for a TB test (I asked whether I could just take a digital photo of my arm on Wednesday and email it in; the nurse said no, but he was amused and agreed that would be awfully convenient), and I may as well have them take blood for the tests omitted from the last time (whoops), like cholesterol. *sigh* I hate fasting blood tests. Let's hope I wake up in reasonable shape for lots of walking again on Wednesday. (I guess I'd better not plan to try to do too much tomorrow. So I'll try to get to the nail salon Wednesday after the clinic, if I'm up to it.)

Though I've got that referral for a more thorough eye exam later, they did have me read the standard wall chart ... I found the deterioration of my right eye downright scary, frankly, but it turned out that the line I could read was the one for 20/30 (which is a better number than the last one I remember for that eye, but it really did seem a lot harder to resolve detail with that eye than even a year ago). For my left eye they wrote down 20/20, which I was pretty sure wasn't exactly correct. I went back later and looked up the rating for the smallest line that I could read with that eye, which they didn't ask me for, and it said 20/13. And I know I don't see as well out of that eye now as I did several years ago, either (and that, in turn, was worse than my vision in childhood). All my life they've been telling me my good eye was "20/20". Why do they bother including the smaller lines on the chart if the doctors never bother asking whether anybody can read those? And how am I supposed to guage how my eyesight has changed over the years if they never want to tell me what it really is if it's 20/20 or better? Okay, fine, 20/20 is "normal" and therefore I "can't complain" as long as I can see that well -- what if I want to know abou rate-of-change, not whether-I've-crossed-that-threshold?

And if they never test for better-than-20/20, how do they know that the normal range hasn't shifted over the years due to, er, changes in health care, environmental changes, changes in nutrition, or even evolution?

So, 20/13 in my good eye but kinda blurry at that size (that is, I could be certain which uppercase Roman letters I was reading at that size, but would have had difficulty distinguishing between a Roman 'F' and a Greek 'Γ'. And still no clue what my vision was in high school, which bugs me more out of plain ol' curiosity than anything else.

(The other thing about the "you have nothing to complain about if you test in the normal range" meme is that even if a patient had no clue sie was lucky to have "supranormal" vision -- or any other ability -- before, if one has it, one uses it and one gets accustomed to using it and acquires habits and ways of doing things that depend on it. So a loss of ability still affects a) how sie does things and potentially b) safety, even if sie has merely been downgraded to "normal". This relates back to a years-ago neurological exam where I was told I had "nothing wrong, nothing to complain about" because short-term-memory tests showed me as normal for humans-in-general. The problem was that I was no longer normal-for-programmers, and found it very difficult to do my job. I didn't give a crap how I compared to "a normal person"; I cared that I could no longer do what I had previously been able to, and had been paid to do.)

But, ah, I digress. I started this post just planning to check in and describe my day.