Done with Doctors

As many of you know, I have been very sick these past two weeks. It started with nasty aches and pains, accompanied by rotating fevers and chills. I was waking up at least twice a night just drenched in sweat. It was awesome. You know it's bad when you work from home and you still have to call in sick. After about 7 days the aches and pains finally left and were replaced with an intense sore throat. And then I happened to look at my throat in the mirror one evening and saw nice white spots on my tonsil.

Due to these fun symptoms, I went to the doctor twice in the past two weeks. The first time I went to an urgent care center. It was actually a relatively nice place, but there was certainly a bit of that "if you're not dying, we're not worried" atmosphere. The nurse was, well, less than friendly, but I got her back by coughing on her when she stuck a cotton swab up my nose for a flu test. :-) The doctor who saw me was actually nice, but not what I would call thorough. He basically said it wasn't "the flu" and was probably a para-flu. The fact that I didn't have any cold like symptoms didn't seem to bother him. Anyway, basically I was dismissed with the orders to eat as much as I could and come back if it wasn't better in 10 days.

Then, after I noticed the spots on my throat I decided I should go to another docter and make sure it wasn't strep or something great like that. I actually got an appointment in a regular doctor's office, which I thought was a good thing so that perhaps I could find a primary care physician at the same time. Didn't turn out that way. I ended up with one of my favorite kind of doctors - the ones that just give you these looks like you're totally wasting their time. He put one foot in the door and said, "It's probably not strep. And if it's not, you realize there's nothing I can do about it." Off to a great start, I forced him to listen to a quick background of how I'd been feeling the past 2 weeks. He still had one foot out the door. He responded with, "That doesn't change anything. " After the nurse administered the strep test, he came back in (obviously from eating lunch because some of it was still lodged in his beard) and told me it wasn't strep and began to walk out the door. A little exasperated I stopped him with, "Look. I'm only pressing this because this is the 2nd time I've been to the doctor in two weeks and I would like to not come back. Is there anything else this could be?" This made him pause for a brief moment, but after pressing on my throat for a second he ruled that there was nothing else it could be.

I HATE doctors like that.

Now, granted, it's two days later and I'm finally feeling MUCH better, so it turns out he was right, but still. I'm a new patient, I would like to think that the doctor would at least TRY to give a favorable impression. I'm sorry they booked me during his lunch, but I really didn't have anything to do with that.

Anyway, I'm done with doctors. The whole experience really made me miss my primary care physician in Chicago. She was awesome. There's a lot I don't miss that I thought I would, but I definitely miss a) my doctor, b) Irie's daycare/boarding place and c) Jamba Juice. So far I have not been able to find anything that even comes close to comparing with any of these three things.