Getting Help

I have been fortunate the last few weeks to have the tremendous support and guidance of a relative who is an NP and another who is an RN.

The RN talked me down when my blood pressure was so low that I thought I would have to go back to the ER. And they listened as I poured out all my concerns in a long, breathless monologue of panic.

The NP is getting me a second opinion on the lung through a colleague at a major teaching hospital--assuming I can get a CD of the CT scan.(Mostly to shut my Dad up who has taken to calling me and shrieking 'you're gonna die and I'm gonna kill your doctors if they let you'--it's like a litany of fear, it needs to stop). She also hooked me up with some diabetes experts who are giving me some recommendations for good endos in my area. (Get this, the diabetes experts say I do not have a 'typical' history--they got me.)

It never occurred to me to ask anyone for this kind of help before. I mean, these folks are all out of town or out of state, I figured they wouldn't know anyone local and I didn't want to bother them.

I am so happy to be proven wrong in that assumption. I have names. I have a direction to go. I'm getting a second opinion. No one thinks I'm a nutty hypochondriac either. For once, I have people who know what they are doing looking out for me.

Now if I could just find doctors willing to do the same.