I visit the Doctor

So you remember when I said I was having a problem with the whole wanting to pass out and stuff and a few people suggested that I should go to the doctor? Well, I went.

As much as I love my doctor, I am annoyed by the fact that she switched offices last year. She used to be located about a 15 minute bus ride from my apartment and on a bus route that had busses going by it every 1/2 hour or so. Now she is located in an office about a 30 minute bus ride but there is a bus that goes by, oh, every 4 hours. If you're lucky.

So, my appointment is at 9:50. I check the handy little bus schedule that I have. Hey! Look at that. In order to get there on time, I have to leave at 7:15. Wow. I am so blessed. Oh, and look. Forget about taking a half day from work. The first bus after my appointment leaves at 2:30. I pack 3 books to get me through the day.

At about 8, the office opens. I go in, settle myself down, see my doctor in the hall, tell her if she's running late (which she usually is), it really doesn't matter to me. We laugh at the horrendous schedule.

9:50 comes. I am called back by a nurse I don't recognize. Hmm. Is Amy not working today? Turns out, after some questioning, that I've been scheduled to visit a different doctor than mine. How did this happen? Well, it appears that they schedule by numbers. My doctor, Deb, is #26. This doctor is #28. How silly.

The nurse leaves and comes back to tell me that Amy will come back when they have a room available. I go back to the waiting room. Where I wait. And wait some more. And start nodding off to sleep and drop my book (number 2, finished the first one at about 11) while people stare at me, all this before Amy finally calls me back at noon.

I did tell Deb about what happened after Beth and I went to Tomah. She agreed with my sister (who has informed me that I can start calling her Doctor Kari since she is always right when she tells me what is wrong with me) that it very likely was an iron deficiency. My hemoglobin is low so apparently that means I'm anemic. May I just say that I've heard the word "anemia" before but never really knew what it meant? Well, now I do know. It means that I get to continue taking the lovely iron pills and maybe eat some liver now and then (which isn't so bad because I like liver but don't like to cook so I'm going to have to talk Keem into going to Embers one of these days)).

I also had some incredibly ugly skin tags removed. I tried to find a good image of this but will leave this to your imagination. A skin tag is a flap of skin, fleshy kind of a mole, that just kind of hangs around and annoys you (Okay, I guess I'll have to post an image I found on the web because that's not a really good description).

Normally, this would not be a big deal for me because I'm not one to obsess about my appearance but they itch. And they get caught on things and rip and then that hurts. So I had 11 of the biggest ones removed. One on my neck, four under my right arm and six on my left. She had to numb them first and that was less than pleasant. She stuck me with some sort of numbing stuff that burned but then numbed the areas because I didn't feel her snip off the tags. I did feel it when she dropped one of them and it rolled down onto my neck. That was kind of weird.

Anyway, I got my prescriptions for the iron pills and my Effexor, I got a six month prescription for Effexor so I don't have to go back to the doctor unless anything major happens. I'm in fairly good health and am not dying anytime soon.

I have to say that I was really glad I didn't have to go back to work on Thursday. Once the numbing stuff wore off, I was in some serious pain (In fact, today is Wednesday, almost a week has gone by, and they still kind of hurt). So, as you can imagine, going to play darts at the Chalet with Beth was not the wisest decision I have ever made. It was great fun and all but about two or three games later I had to sit out. Fortunately I brought a book along (you can never be bored when you have a book) and sat at the bar and read for awhile. I also had fun making fun of infomercials with Devon (non-singing regular) and Beth later on in the evening.

If any of you might be wondering why it took me so dang long to write this post when I went to the doctor on Thursday, I would like to let you know that I was felled by the evil Bronchitis and spent the entire weekend lying on the couch and watching Angel episodes or sleeping or hacking up a lung or throwing up or getting a lecture from Doctor Kari on the evils of smoking (direct quote "Have you heard of emphysema? Imagine having it") even part time like I do. It was a great weekend. Yeah.

I did get to watch fireworks. There are benefits to living in your own personal phobia nightmare by inhabitating the 26th floor of a 32nd floor building (with elevators!). You can sit on the couch in our living room and see the displays from at least 4 or 5 different cities plus a few homes that were shooting off the fireworks as well. It was really beautiful.

Hope you all had a happy and safe 4th of July as well.