Medical Tip #1

Schedule your emergencies around Tuesday.

Seriously.

Don't be like me and get seriously sick on Monday, wait a few days until hubby decides he's gonna force you into the doctor.. Give in on Friday cause you just can't stand being this damn sick and even YOU know deep down now that its not just a virus that has to play its course... Drag your lethargic, puking tush into the Dr's office to see another dozen or so faces that look JUST LIKE YOU. Meaning they are all in the "Sicker than Sh!t" stage too, and realize your gonna have to compete for this doctor's attention. Freak out the nurse with medical information, realize you can't give that urine sample you just agreed to cause you puked everything up for 5 days, and then proceed to almost pass out while hunched over the sink in the exam room after the doc checked out that "spot" thats been hurting you for years.

Then, Friday afternoon, at around 3:30... be rushed in after school traffic (why must there be an elementary school on every corner in this town!!) to get to the imaging place so that the Doctor can have a Cat scan report before she leaves the office, and can call you with results. Realize that the time frame just isn't working out in your favor when they inform you that you will have to down 2.... 2..... did i say 2!!!!!! full water bottles of contrast liquid before they can start the scan. Remember, I dragged my PUKING tush into the office, the tush that had been puking for 5 days... "Please, just don't vomit in the trash cans. This stuff is red." At 4:30, be ushered back in for the scan despite my lack of finishing the second bottle of nasty red contrast... only to have two veins blown and an iv put into another in my upper arm. But I will have to say, the 20 minutes or so it took to do the actually scans where the quietest most relaxing minutes I've had in weeks. They even so kindly warmed me all up, as if they had wrapped me up in a heated blanket and stuck me in a hot tub... toes first.

After all of that, realize that you might not make it back to the office next door to the doctor to get your chest x-rays to determine if you have Pneumonia. Did I mention, this is Friday? Rushing again, in after work traffic this time, to get back where we started. Thankfully they were still open, but with no Radiologist on the clock. So the pictures couldn't be read till Monday... and by the way, why did the doctor send you all the way over there for the ct scan? We do scans here. ???? What? You don't say!! Crazy small world, huh... you do CT scans, I needed one, your right next door to the doctor, I was sent across town.... Wish we could have met in the middle. But, since the doctor pushed us apart.. I'll just take my already blown veins and contrast full kidneys and go home.

To wait.

And call mom.

And wait.

And in between that, I think I'll get a little worse.

and wait.

And wait

And explain again to mom

And Wait.

So.... you see... Don't be like me. Schedule your emergencies around Tuesdays. That way, you've got at least 2 days for all the crazy in between doctor crap... but yet you still feel like your accomplishing something. And 2 days for the doctor to get the results to you before you feel completely helpless and vulnerable sitting on the weekend wondering if she really meant a very very strict clear liquids diet or if you can nibble on some damn french fries cause you can't take another freaken spoonful of chicken broth or jello.

I promise you, if you heed this advice... you will save your self a ton of frustration. And jello.