Another One

 So I'm not sleeping much here. My spine is actually over its latest snit fit, but my foot thing is now beyond flared and hasn't let me sleep for over a week now. And then on top of that, my lungs decided to act up. I woke up at 2am with my foot and my lungs tag teaming me pretty hard.

Albuterol didn't help. By morning, I had to call hubby to come home and drive me and the teen to all the appointments for today. I did sleep some, but my breathing was too bad  and my sleep deficit too deep for it to be restorative. I woke up essentially drunk on low oxygen and successive days of very poor quality sleep.

I felt so dumb for having to call hubby like a big baby. However, at my appointment, my oxygen was lower than even I thought it would be, so my assessment of it being dangerous to drive was accurate.

Unfortunately, the next few infections that hit my lungs are going to damage things enough that these small attacks will become medical emergencies because they'll drop my oxygen too low. Right now, I can skate by, the oxygen drops don't get to 'go to the ER' level. They only flirt with it. However, that's not going to last as I accrue more damage that just drives it lower.

I am not looking forward to that future. 

Hubby did good though. He reminded me that I'd told him I wasn't always a good judge of how impaired I was and insisted on escorting me to my appointment. I'd planned to just lean on the wall and slide along to make it to where I needed to go, but he kept me upright. I then almost fell off the exam table--too groggy for balance--and he caught me.

I spent the rest of my functionality today getting an urgent appointment at a podiatrist. Any podiatrist. Anywhere. 

And taking a nap.

Thankfully the asthma eventually got over itself and let me go and that helped too. But I'm pretty in the hole energy wise right now. I'm planning to sleep as much as I can for tomorrow to try and recover somewhat.

This attack seems to be weather related. Again, pre covid, this asthma wouldn't have been an issue, but with covid seemingly in the mix, fucking with the substrate of my health, minor things are hitting me like major attacks. The only upside, recovery is at least still way faster compared to an actual major asthma attack.

As for my appointment...saw the hep. There was a lot of infantilizing minimization of things, which I wasn't happy about. This hep has been pretty good in the past, but was quite dismissive this time around. They're doing a whole training thing now. So I have to see the doc in training who then presents my case then I see the hep with the baby doc yadda yadda.

The thing is, I'm a pretty exciting patient for newbie docs. (Or at least it seems that way.) There's a lot of weird shit going on. I can end up pushing a lot of buttons. To where the baby docs run off to present my case convinced I'm infested with Martians and capable of shooting golden goose eggs out of my ass. In turn, that seems to cause the boss doctor to work extra hard to minimize my health issues and they are extra dismissive. 

To my face.

Suddenly, there's no room for me and my lived experience. I'm just a horse, a lowly horse and only ever a horse. I must be corralled away so the zebras can't corrupt the baby docs.

I've had this happen a few times now.

Oh, and the hep didn't remember pertinent details of my case. So basically, it was the worst hep appointment I've had to date which is wild given I'm diagnosed. You'd think this kind of bullshit would only affect yet to be diagnosed issues.

It doesn't matter, I guess. The hep is just my MRI dealer, right? And I've got the MRIs squared away so I'm good. I don't need them to be super sharp right now, but I suspect I'm pretty screwed if things ever get complicated.