Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Strep? As in Strep Throat?

To cap off yesterday, which was truly delightful, I missed a call from my doctor around 6pm. It was the results of the lab test I had done a week ago. I had already assumed, since I hadn't heard from her for a week, that the results were totally normal. Instead, the voicemail said the lab "actually found a few colonies of strep" in my throat. Strep? As in, strep throat? Awesome

When I finally got in touch with my doctor this afternoon, she said it wasn't a type of strep they always treat, so it would depend on how I was feeling. How am I feeling? As I already told her last week, I've got this crazy pressure/pain in my ear that won't go away no matter what I do and my lymph nodes are swollen and hurting. I've got a headache, I can't sleep, and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to alleviate my exhaustion. And, with the stress of law exams coming up, I don't see this improving much over the next four weeks. How much does my throat, in particular, hurt? I have no idea. As much as other stuff hurts? I think I'm so experienced with ignoring discomfort and pushing through pain that I've sort of lost the ability to evaluate how much stuff hurts. 

Granted, I didn't say all those words to her (though I probably should have). I basically told her my ear still hurt, my throat hurt some, and that I wasn't feeling that well and didn't make it to all of my classes yesterday. Her response to this was that we probably didn't need to treat the strep if my throat wasn't hurting that much. 

It wasn't until I said I was a little nervous about infection (based on my immune system already being compromised, taking immune suppressants every week, and past experiences with infection) that she decided I should take some antibiotics for the strep. She changed her mind pretty fast, in fact. It seems like there are two potential explanations for this behavior: (1) I've become a total hypochondriac, too worried about infection for my own good, and she was just trying to get rid of me or (2) she actually thought that I was going to have a normal immune response to the infection until I reminded her that I wouldn't.

APL thinks its the latter. He thinks this doctor isn't paying attention to my needs and consequently isn't taking very good care of me and my complicated health problems. He's pretty annoyed and says he wants to punch her in the eye. I am reluctant to take this position because I am pretty dependent on this doctor for my general health needs - I don't have a lot of options through student health. On the other hand, as APL points out, part of her job is knowing what I need, and if she's forgetting that I have a compromised immune system then she has absolutely no idea what I need.

In conclusion: I don't want to deal with bad doctors right now. I feel like total crap.

3 comments:

~kelly marie~ said...

:(. I am so sorry. Sending you lots of hugs.

Laurie Grassi said...

Hmmm. I think I might have to side with APL on this one...

Hope you feel way better soon!! :) L

~Mariah~ said...

Thanks, girls. ~;o)