Condition Log 2009-01-09 - 7:30AM

Friday, January 9, 2009

Scale - 10 is worst

Weather - Cool and Clear

Shaking - 6
Neck Pain - 1
Upper Back Pain - 4
Fatigue - 3
Foggy Head - 3
Tinitus - 4
Ears Full - 4
Hand Numb - 0

I feel like I'm improving, regardless of the pain meds. The symptoms aren't as severe. Can it have something to do with the change in the weather? Am I going nuts? At some point, I'll graph the numeric data with the weather and the other benchmarks to see if it coorelates. That should be interesting to hand to a neurologist.
No posting last night, as I got tied up in proposals (felt like I wasted a bunch of time) and had to take Razor to his final class for Teen Court.
The GP called yesterday afternoon. Spoke with Bowman. Nothing changed, although from the tone of her voice she was proud of herself. "I''ll see you in March and we'll discuss it then". hahaha. So I only have to make it to March, huh? Did say that Bowman still "suspects" that I have Multiple Sclerosis. Nothing in her message about his "treatment plan" for me. Ugh. She said he wants me to fax over the BCBS list of participating psychiatrists so he can "pick" one. I'm thinking "screw that". Why would I go with his choice - because of his unerring judgement so far? This is so flummoxing and frustrating.
There are 3 troubling aspects to all this:
1) There's no way to expedite the process through the neurologists. She was going to try to pull up the appointment with Bowman's associate, but didn't mention anything about it. So the schedule that Bowman set is the schedule and there's no changing it. Cognitive testing on the 13th. Second opionion on the 30th. Set in stone. Go fish! (I'm secretely hoping one of them gets some fringe disease that throws their lives in limbo where they can't effectively work and they have to rely on the complacency and ambivalence of medical professionals to help them as their lives fall slowly apart!) ooooh that makes me feel better now.
2) The psychiatric component proposal, although it may be effective, seems counter-productive. If you have neurological stuff going on that you can define and are hesitant to treat, isn't using psych med treatments going to stir the pot and make the neurologic part harder to sort out? Doesn't make sense to me unless you're in the "treat the symptoms" mode. I don't have anything treating the symptoms because Bowman just "suspects" I have MS.
3) Basically, you're left on your own. Although the GP had a sympathetic bed side manner, nothing changes. Its amazing that the operators in the health care system have been reduced to having no curiosity, no initiative, no focused activity on the patient. 7 months, and no progress. No prognosis. No treatment plan. THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS? The human component is gone. See above #1 above for my secret hope for them.
Well, wasted enough time this morning. I'm actually doing pretty well with the amount of hours spent on work this week, although on Monday and Tuesday it was excruciating to put them in. More on that later.