I got to see the doctor this morning. Alas, there weren't marvelous trips through space and time, righting wrongs, dispensing justice and meeting up with attractive women who ask us to explain the plot and scream when the monsters show up.
The past few weeks I've had some pain in my right elbow. In the past, I've been diagonosed with carpal tunnel syndrome but it's honestly been on the backburner since I started faithfully swimming laps a few years ago (one of the many benefits of that whole excercise thing). At first, I figured that this was just a flare up, so I wore my arm brace and took some Advil. But it didn't really help all that much.
So, I made an appointment a few weeks ago with my doctor and went in for a visit. I was diagnosed with golfer's elbow, which is ironic since I don't play golf. But my ailment came from the use of the computer keyboard. So, I was given a prescription, told to buy and wear a special brace on my lower arm just below the elbow and to take a serious look at how my workspace was designed wherever I used a computer. So, I did all of that--got the brace and wear it (breaks the ice at parties!), took the medication and rearranged my desk at work. And it was all doing OK until the past few days when the problem began to rear its ugly head again.
So, I decided that it was time to head back to the doctor for another visit.
Which I did this morning.
Now one thing I hate about the doctor's office is that it's this whole attitude of "hurry up and wait" to get there. I was told that my doctor was running behind and it might be a bit longer than I expected. Which is OK by me as I had brought a good book.
As I sat there, one woman kept going up to the nurse's window. She was in a hurry and upset that they couldn't see her faster. Let me back up and add to this story, she was there waiting when I got there. On one visit to the window, she asked the nurse if the nurses could just test her for strep throat (at this point I was glad I was sitting far across the room from her) and was told she'd have to wait to see a doctor. She then got on her cell phone and complained loudly that it always took forever in this office and that everyone was useless.
Her head just about exploded when the nurse came out and called me to come back next. (I guess I was seeing a diffrerent doctor than she was). As I went back, I saw her get up and head to the nurse's window, probably to give them a piece of her mind. Though from my observation, I'm not sure she had that much to spare..
But anyway....
After having the blood presure taken and my weight checked, I went back and sat around for the doctor to come in and see me. When he did make it, he figured that what he'd done before was in the last stages of working but hadn't fully worked. He compared it to the stock market---where the tendenitis was like a stock--it was up and then we took medicine to bring it down. Now it had spiked back up again but it wasn't as high as before. As he said this, I wondered if he'd ever worked for iPIX and had stock in the company as it seemed like that was the story of the stock....
Anyway, he gave me a couple of courses of treatment. And then he hesitantly suggested I get an X-ray. I say hesistnatly here because last time I had an X-ray I fainted before it. Now, not to sound like a total wimp here, I had a broken finger at the time and I still don't see how twirling it around like you were winding up a proppler on one of those rubber band and balsa wood planes told him anything other than I have a low tolerance for pain. The fainting was a delayed reaction thing really and it's good that I'm needle phobic and have fainted enough in my life after getting shots to know the sympthoms as they hapen.
So, I was sent over to the main hospital to have my X-rays done. He wrote out a prescritpon which I couldn't read but I am sure said--this guy is a total wimp and will pass out from the X-ray...no, I'm not making thtat up. Seriously..he did it once before and we all still talk about it around the office.
I went over and got processed in. So, I got my very own armband, complete with a bar code that I'm pretty sure would tell you the whole story of the fainting and the whole needle phobia thing. You can see a picture of it on my wrist here. (Gee, this is a long post to explain a picture...)
I went to X-ray, got checked in and taken back. And then I figured out what else the scrawl had said. It must have said, "Use the cute female x-ray tech to help him since he'll totally try to be cool and overcompensate and not pass out." And let me just tell you--this plan worked very well. No fainting, not even a hint of discomfort even though X-ray techs try and make you manuever joints into all kinds of toally unnatural angles for the images. But then again--cute female x-ray tech..she could have asked me to put my arm behind my head and quack like a duck and I'd probably have done it.
Alas, there was no quacking like a duck to be done.
Then it was off to the pharmacy to drop off my prescription. And lo and behold, another attractive female there. From her name tag, I saw her name was January and as she asked my birthday, I told January, just like her name. She has probably never heard that one before becuase she didn't roll her eyes at me. Of course, she didn't volunteer her phone number so we could talk further, but you know she may be waiting untl I come by later to pick up my prescription. It was a busy time at the pharmacy and she probably didn't want to make anyone else beind me wait while we exchanged witty banter...
posted by Michael Hickerson at 5/17/2006 01:59:00 PM |
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