dumb doctor!

The last few days, I've gotten up in the morning feeling a little tightness in my chest. Not congestion so much (no productive cough), but just a tight feeling like I do when I have bronchitis or asthma stuff going on. It's rained here off & on all day long for dayssssssss so I really figured that all the rain had stirred up some pollen/molds & it was aggrivating my lungs. It's happened before & it'll happen again. I used my Proventil inhaler a time or two just to open things up a bit and it worked. The tightness of the early morning hours passed & produced no other symptoms, so I put it all off to allergies & asthma.

Today I went to work feeling fine, other than that tightness in my chest. Around lunchtime I started getting a headache, but since I had my hair in a ponytail I figured that was why. By 1:00 when the parents picked up their kids, I was beginning to feel a little 'off'...just worn down & tired. But need I remind you? I teach preschoolers for a living. Of course I'd be tired at the end of the day! It wasn't til about 1:15 when I felt like I'd been hit by a freight train. All the sudden, my legs felt like they weighed 500 lbs. each! My back & shoulders & arms ached. And then there was the cough that had suddenly begun. Ugh.

We've had 2 confirmed cases of Type A flu at the school. It's going around all my kids' schools too, so of course that was my first thought. When I started feeling so bad I realized I needed to go home! When I got here about 1:45, I took my temp. Sure enough. 101.5! I swallowed a handful of Vitamin C & garlic along with my Ibuprofen, then I got on the phone. That's where the title of this post comes in.

I called my doctor's office to see how quickly I could get in. The lady who answered the phone took my name & put me on hold. She came back to tell me that due to the fact that I've been healthy & haven't needed to see my doctor for the past 4 1/2 years, I was no longer on her current patient list. To see my doctor, I'd have to be considered a new patient and she is not taking new patients right now.

I sat there, stunned for a minute & repeated to the lady "I have fever....I think I may have the flu...but I can't see the doctor?"

She confirmed this fact to me & when I asked what I should do she gave a real unconcerned sounding "Well, I don't know. Unless you come in to see the doctor once every 3 years, we remove you from the patient list."

You've got to be kidding me. I'm being punished for staying healthy & having a strong immune system? I don't see my family practice doc unless I'm sick. I see my ob/gyn every year & she does all the "girl stuff" plus blood work, BP check, etc, so I see no point in paying a 2nd doctor to do all those same tests over again. The last time I saw her was in 2005 when I had a UTI.

The lady offered me an appointment with another doctor in the office for tomorrow morning, so I took it. I called our insurance company to have my primary care doc switched to this other doctor only to find out that (grrrrrrrrr!) she wasn't in our network! I called the doctor's office back & cancelled the appointment & then I was back to the drawing board. I got on the insurance company's website & looked up primary care doctors. There was one here in our little town, 5 minutes from my house. This doc has been in this same office for about a hundred years so I knew he was an established doctor who isn't going anywhere. One phone call got me an appointment with him, so I called the insurance co back & had him named as my primary care doc.

And I'm glad I did. I have the flu!

Thankfully we caught this veryyyy early so I am not as miserable as I might be if I'd let it go a bit. I got a steroid shot today & was prescribed an antibiotic, an antiviral med (like Tamiflu--but it's a generic version) and Tussi-Pearls for my cough. Although I do feel bad, I don't feel miserable. Larry made me lay down & take a nap tonight & each time he's seen me standing up since, he's nudged me & said "shouldn't you be in bed?". He's a pretty good nurse when I'm sick. So grateful for him!