On and On

Are you sick of it yet?  Not wanting to hear another installment of The Tale of Hives?  Amen brothers and sisters.  Me, too.  However, it is what consumes my waking and sleeping hours.  It is what I know at the given moment.  And we MUST write what we know, whether it is some sleazy adventure or the story of the heart.  So. . . .

I am puffy.  The hives have gone, but there are still red bumps that come and go anywhere on my body that they please.  Independent of that, however, I itch.  It is like a burning fire, this itching.  I try to ignore it because scratching it makes it worse.  But I can't always and forever.  And as I say, I'm puffy. The skin on my feet and ankles and wrists and hands are tight.  Edema and more.  And my face feels big.  I am definitely holding water.

Nobody takes it very seriously.  I can understand.  They think it an inconvenience, and one that has a bit of humor mixed in.  I, on the other hand, think only of transmitted diseases born by mosquitos or ticks or fleas or even airborne viral infections.  That is when I think "doctor."  But truly, I don't trust them so much.  It is not that I think they are not vigilant, but when do they study?  Hospitals and clinics are full 24/7.  There is no breathing room.  And then there is all that golfing and investing that goes on. There is no time to keep up with medical things.  They practice what they know.  They went to school, studied long and hard, and they know more about what they do than the rest of us.  All day they must talk to idiots who cause their own diseases through smoking, drinking, eating, drugs, inactivity, etc.  Sit in a waiting room at any clinic or at an emergency room.  Would you want to have to deal with these people?

"Hey, doc, I've got this terrible cough."

"Do you smoke?"

"I reckon."

"I got a pain in my liver, too."

"Do you drink?"

"A bit, I guess."

"O.K.  Let's get you on this scale.  265.  Do you exercise?"

"I don't have time, doc.  I mean to, but I just don't have time."

Do you eat at McDonalds?  Like donuts?  Watch Dancing with the Stars and America's Got Talent?

Who can blame them for passing along a handful of pills and telling patients to come back if things persist.

What I want is someone who is intellectually curious, who tries to figure things out, who reads all day and is part of medical studies.  And s/he isn't going to be found at the clinic.

So I go online and read for hours, long enough to scare myself.  But I know all the treatments that a Nurse Practitioner knows.  One recommended Benadryl for my condition.  Really?  Who would have thought?

There is a meningitis epidemic in Tennessee.  Terms like meningitis mean little.  It is like pneumonia or pleurisy.  They are descriptive terms that make patients feel as if the doctor has found the disease.

"I've got pleurisy," they'll say, satisfied.  "Doc says it was from the pneumonia."

The meningitis is being treated with corticosteroids to limit the inflammation.  It treats the symptoms.  And it helps keep some people alive.

I'm not dying, so I treat the symptoms as well as I can given that the fucking shit ass government won't let me buy opiates.  I don't watch Dancing with the Stars.  I'm O.K.  I don't have an addictive personality.  You can trust me with that stuff.  I'm like a doctor, almost.

I didn't go to work yesterday, but I will return to The Factory today.  They will expect me to catch up, but my theory is that stress is bad for any medical condition.  No doctor, no matter how bad, will prescribe stress as a cure for anything.  So I plan to work at a non-stressful pace.  I've learned from staying home.  I would look through the mail and pay some bills.  Then I'd have a cup of coffee.  I'd return the call of the fellow fixing my Polaroid SX-70 camera, then I'd write some emails.  Then I'd gather together some shirts and take them to the laundry. Then it was time for lunch.  Etc.

I would be happy to work that way.  I'm good like that.  I think my symptoms would eventually subside.