scrubjayspeaks

Hooooly shit. I probably should have popped this out into its own post, but it is basically The Event of the week, so here we are. I tried out a new* doctor. He's been my mum's doctor for decades, almost verging into the territory of old family friend. Mum updates him on the family, which has included my run of shitty medical experiences and chronic illness. So when my previous GP up and quit (and his replacement turned out to be virulently transphobic), mum's doctor offered to take me on.

He's...not actually a GP, normally, but that's what he does for mum and he's just sort of...looping me in on that. Sure, why not?

I was, predictably, terrified. I've already had multiple experiences of "doctor is great with my family members, treats me like trash," so there were no guarantees.

He didn't have one damn thing to say about my weight as such. He immediately, however, said we weren't going to just sit around watching my high blood pressure without doing anything. When I told him that multiple doctors, including a cardiologist, had done just that, telling me to lose weight and refusing to prescribe medication, he looked me dead in the eyes.

"You have PCOS," he said in tones of disbelief and disgust. As in, you literally have can't-lose-weight disorder, how was that their fucking recommendation???

So boy-creature here has just started on blood pressure meds. Yay? I mean, I'm basically happy to finally be getting treatment instead of lectures. He was really good about recognizing that I'm very physically active for my work, and short of putting me on a starvation diet, he doesn't expect to see my weight change much. He even--and this is still blowing my mind--outright told me that doctors don't really understand shit about weight loss and metabolism and why the body does what it does.

To say it was refreshing is an understatement of epic proportions. I was so shocked and delighted, my brain skipped right over the emotional breakdown I was all geared up for regardless of if it was a good or bad experience. I had even taken a comfort stuffie with me, because I was fully prepared to be devastated by what kind of felt like my last chance at competent care.

So. Uh. Neat?

*New-ish. Technically, I saw him a couple times in my teens. It's just been a casual twenty years since we saw each other in any capacity.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces, plus another bonus piece written

Day job: 35.5 hours

Cleaning: purged a bunch of clothing from the rack in my room and moved it to the "not emotionally ready to discard" storage area, pulled an equal number of things out of said storage and packaged them for donation now that I am ready to discard them

Gardening: weeding, garden club post

Listening: "Trickster Prayer" by S.J. Tucker (oooooh, I'm experiencing emotions, or possibly a religious event), Years by Sarah Shook & the Disarmers (wasn't sure at first, but yeah, totally working for me, queer-made country is very much a thing for me right now), actually listened to the whole Born in the U.S.A. album for the first time, "I'm On Fire" will probably always be my favorite thing off this or possibly any other of Springsteen's albums but "Cover Me" is doing things for me

Other: trip to my hometown

Aftermarket Parts: made my first appointment~~~!

I'm continuing to struggle with body issues for mysterious reasons. This was improved by neither the announcement that my rheumatologist is dropping my insurance provider and so will now be out-of-network, nor the discovery that the pharmacy accidentally put my meds on hold and I nearly ran out before they got it sorted.

(Also, gods and little fishes, the pharmacy has so many people out right now, they can barely cope. I spent 45 minutes in line just to pick up. Poor bastards.)

On the other hand, I had a very nice vacation (Wednesday evening notwithstanding), with two finished projects and a new one started to show for it. Also, I saw a post that explained how to use the "windows key" + "." combo to bring up an emoji selection panel in any program, and it has the classic Japanese-style kaomoji I came of age with, so expect to see a lot more of that peppering my posts. Because I am still, in my heart, 15 years old and a nerd.

Lewisia: 4 new pieces written, because I need to catch up on my padding ahead of March now... (* ￣︿￣)

Gratitude journaling: 35 new entries

Tumblr queue: 28 posts added

Day job: 19 hours, and I take it all back--I don't feel like a real person even with the shorter weeks, blarg

Cooking: peanut butter cookies, potstickers from scratch (no recipe and still a success eyyyyy)

Cleaning: toward Project Hang the Curio Cabinet--emptied cabinet and top of desk, boxed up everything for now, cleared section of wall for hanging, cleaned and polished desk

Crafting: mailed off baby blanket, bought initial fabric for patchwork quilt (mushroom edition)

Gardening: set up logs in their chosen areas

Lewisia Expansion: 2137 words, and I've realized the story doesn't end where I thought it did, so that's all my planning punted straight into the fan blades--I'll get there eventually, I guess

Playing: (why have I never had a category for this before?) started playing Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which is wildly different and yet still fundamentally a Pokemon game in the best possible way

Ongoing request: Voting is now underway for the Rose and Bay Awards this year. Check out the projects and people that got nominated and vote for your favorites.

I--???? I definitely posted on Friday to say I was taking the weekend off. I know I did this thing. The browser tried to give me shit about it, so I made particularly sure the post actually went through. The post...does not exist. Is not there.

????????

Right, so, sorry for disappearing without saying anything, a choice I did not actually make in this reality tunnel. Okay. Cool. *hands*

I'm jumping through a bunch of hoops for my work insurance this week. Technically, they've made this optional because of the pandemic and the resulting difficulties in seeing doctors. I am attempting to do it anyway because I'm already scheduled to see the doctor and I can get money back if I do this shit anyway. It's paperwork, and an online quiz*, and bloodwork. And I hate everything about it, but by god, I have spent many hours of my holiday being a Responsible Adult.

I'm going to have to convince my doctor to check my B12 levels. thebibliosphere, who blogs about writing/editing, vampires, and chronic illness, has described her experience with chronic fatigue that turned out to be pernicious anemia. And whoops, it sounds alarmingly familiar. I don't know how well this is going to go over. Am I a good enough crip, who has done penance for their sins by losing weight, to deserve adequate medical care?

*This quiz purports to tell me my "real" age, as compared to my chronological age, based on my answers about my Lifestyle Choices (tm). (It's my BMI. Don't lie, you assholes. You're basing a huge amount of this ~score~ on my BMI, which you insist on billing as a good and useful metric of individual health, despite its many flaws and inherent unsuitability for this task it wasn't designed to do.) I am put in mind intensely of the Quizilla quizzes for exactly this subject, among so many others. This would amuse me if it didn't involve an automated invasion of my privacy and a subsequent shaming of me and docking of points for not being healthy enough. I--I have too many opinions about this to fit in a footnote, but not enough fucks to turn it into a full post right now. tl; dr, fuck this shit.

[Content warning: under the cut is doctor fuckery, mentions of fat shaming/diet talk, and chronic illness. Anyone who hasn't been following along with my medical drama of the last three almost four! years can safely skip this garbage update. Otherwise, come enjoy a rant, I guess?]

So because of various scheduling-related shenanigans, I had a follow-up appointment with my rheumatologist yesterday which was actually conducted by the nurse practitioner who deals with his other office*. Which is to say, she's never met me before and can't remember what she read in my chart as compared to what's in the charts of an unknown number of other patients she was seeing that day. And hey, I get it: being the substitute teacher is hard, yo.

But goddamn, she earned my ire all on her own.

( snip-snerp )

This post is just chaos. I hate seeing doctors. Still have bronchitis, btw. Fuck.

*She is covering for the doctor in part because he is Older Than Dirt and wants to retire. Which is why, after this, my appointments with him are going to become exponentially more inconvenient as he cuts back on his office hours.

**Autoimmune disorders are a messy, incestuous bunch, so I understand the need to take that evidence with a grain of salt. I might be responding to treatment for lupus just because whatever I really have overlaps with lupus enough to get caught in the net of that medication. That's fine. Whatever.