I interrupt my Curaçao posts (or post, rather) to bring the updates of the medical variety. I'll finish the "Curaçao Diaries" in either one or two more parts, after this.
Anyway. Finally yesterday I had had enough and dragged my sorry butt to Urgent Care. I taught my class in the morning and then didn't have to teach again. I don't until tomorrow morning, actually. But I had 2 classes I was planning to attend but not until 4:30. So I went to Urgent Care, filled out a bunch of ridiculous paperwork and waited.
To their credit, the wait was not very long! I had time to read about 1/8th of a gossip article about Kim Kardashian and her baby body before the door open and the nurse called me in.
To my intense horror, the first thing she did was weigh me. I said, "Do I have to?" And she just laughed. So then I said, "well, okay, but PLEASE don't tell me what the number says!" She said, "Okay, I can do that." I then asked if I could stand backward on the scale. She gave me a funny look and I said, "if you look at the paperwork I just filled out, and look at the 'existing medical condition' section, you'll see why I'm asking this stuff." Of course that was the section I had written "Anorexia Nervosa." She didn't say anything after that.
She took me into Room 1 and took my vitals. It was one of those blood pressure machines that's mounted on a rolling stand and also takes pulse (and probably reads your palms while it's at it!). While it was constricting my arm like a boa, she took my temperature. She wouldn't let ME hold the thermometer... SHE had to do it. And jabbed it into the back of my under-tongue area. I swear it took forever. Finally she pulled it out and said, "98.3." I was thankful she didn't blurt out my weight too. My blood pressure was high for me. 117 over something, and my resting pulse was 91!!!! The nurse didn't seem bothered by that though, which I thought was odd. A resting pulse of 91 is pretty high, even for me.
After a few minutes, a Physician's Assistant or something came in. She was really nice. She asked me lots of questions while standing a little too close to my face for my liking. But she was very nice. She had me lay back and she poked my stomach, asked me questions about my symptoms, and then listened to my heart and lungs. She also said nothing about my high resting pulse. Hmm. Anyway, she then went on to say that she thinks I'm getting better but that she would like to get a blood test to check for hepatitis..... what?? That made no sense but I just smiled and nodded. She also said I could have a parasite (which makes the most sense to me) or c. diff... so she wanted to get a stool sample too (sorry I know that's gross. Hang on, it only gets better!)
She sent in another nurse to bring me the stool test kit to take home and to take my blood. Not a bad blood test (I've had worse for sure) but not painless either. As for the stool test I told her it could take me a week to get it back to her at the rate I've been going. She said, "as soon as you can." But oh my god... the stool test. No details to ruin your day but.. let me just say I will never be the same again after that experience!!!!!!!
The nice lady also gave me a scrip for Zofran to help with the stomach aches and nausea. So that's good. Because I'm getting pretty tired of that shit. But.. we'll see. I've got to return the... ah... "specimens" to them this morning. Should be interesting to see what they come back with!
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