No offense to any doctors but.....

Despite this week not including any medical surprises, it's been a rather tough week. As my mom says (not always in the most sympathetic tone) "your bad days are getting worse." And it's true, the wild mood swings that first marked a change in my brain chemistry over two years ago have become increasingly more and more annoying to those around me. There is, however, a reason for the insanity this week (a reason, now there's something rare). I can't get a doctor to call me back if my life depended on it.

I've never understood this phenomenon of being at your doctor's beck and call. Are they not the ones that are charged to help you? They're being paid large sums of money to make sure you are well taken care of. Even hypochondriacs have great doctors. But no, instead, nearly every week I have the same problem - I call one of my six? seven? doctors designed to help me out and I don't get a call back. My specialist is the WORST. I understand I'm not high on their priority list, but let's be honest, I at least deserve a call back. If only to say that they don't have time for me, which I would accept and move on. But no, three phone calls later, still no return call. It's a lot like waiting for a phone call from a guy you're not even sure wants to call you back - hopeful and disappointing, but you always manage to come up with the best excuse for them. So this week marks my search for a new specialist which if possible is even more irritating than waiting for the previous one to call.

I hate new doctors. There is no doctor that will treat me here in Oregon, so I'm currently traveling to Seattle to see one, and the next closest is San Francisco. In my mind, I might as well go to the east coast to see someone who actually knows what they're talking about. It's become a more and more viable solution as time wears on - there's even an awesome research center in NY. I wouldn't mind going to NY. After filling out all the paperwork several times over, when people ask your birthday it automatically comes out "08/31/86." And you're quick about it. (This usually saves you from even more waiting room time). But no, new doctors and their eternally perky assistants have no idea what your information is. Because it's so hard to make a damn copy. I should just print up labels with my name, address and birth date on them and stick it on the top of questionnaire. Or tattoo it to my forehead.

Speaking of questionnaire, I've filled out several of those in my day as well. It's always relatively comical how they're set up. I had one that asked me if I still had all four limbs. Is that a problem somewhere in this country? Random limbs just lying around with no body attached? I understand a war zone might have that problem, but Washington State? Really?

(Just to connect this next thought, I should say that I suck at word association games. The first thing that pops into my head is never what is supposed to... I blame my horrible SAT and GRE scores on this quirk of mine.) When I was 13, we moved to a new town. It was a huge deal to me then, but really, it was a grand total of 60 miles. It seemed like a different planet to my 13 year old mind, and I was terrified. However, half of this had to do with Kaci Boyd. She tried to scare me into leaving town by screaming like a loon on the front porch of a neighbor's house. I was pretty sure that the rest of the town was just as crazy. Anyway, the first day of school was my 13th birthday (another tangent, big school days tend to fall on my birthday, kindergarten on five, Dayton on 13 and college on 18) and we had a questionnaire in my social studies class to determine our level of intelligence on the subject. One question that was on there was "Name two countries the US fought in WWII?" What was the general consensus of most of my new 8th grade class? "Germany and Virginia." I had no idea that Virginia had seceded the union. Again.

Random fun filled tangents aside, this week has been a little crazy. I've been doing some more research, but one of the problems with memory issues is that once you finish one paragraph, the previous one is a total mystery. If you like to read, this becomes funny because you have an endless library with just a few options. Trying to research a disease that's trying to suck your blood, not so much. Researching makes me feel slightly better, but honestly, it's endlessly frustrating to know that you get paid every day to find information for people, but you can't find something to help yourself. Most of this is because it's just not out there. There are very few studies on Lyme that have definitive answers and results. I have access to multiple medical journals, but the reports come down to the same thing - doctors are biased about the disease and there's evidence to both support and contradict the current method of treatment that consists of multiple antibiotics and supplements (I'm up to 33 pills a day). This is, however, the only method of sorta maybe kinda treating the disease that might work.

It's a little like covering your eyes with your fingers spread wide during a scary movie. Not that effective, but people pretend that it might work.