I’m Not Dying

A little over a year ago I had an incident where I was experiencing a very odd sensation in my abdomen. At times it felt like hunger pangs, but in the wrong location, at others it felt like a hot bayonet. So, I did what any sensible man would do and waited three days before going to the doctor. I went to my physician group’s urgent care center where a doctor poked at me for a while before settling on gallstones as the most likely explanation. She suggested an ultrasound, which I scheduled. Now my HMO was very particular about where this should be done so it took seven days for them to fit me in, by which time all of my symptoms had disappeared. (See, I should have listened to my inner man and just waited it out.) I went to the ultrasound appointment anyway where no gallstones were found. What they did find, however, was a fatty liver. (An absolutely horrible, but accurate, name.)

I was informed that this was not the source of my previous discomfort, and not a cause for immediate concern, but something I should talk to my regular physician about. Right. I should get me one of those, I thought to myself at the time. So, that very day I promptly did nothing about it. I continued to do nothing about it for the next year or so.

More recently, over the past six months, I have been sick a lot. Like a fucking lot. If anyone around me gets sick, I tend to get sick too. And when you have a four year old and a two year old, they’re pretty much always sick. Which means I’m always sick. And there has been this pain in my throat that feels like swollen glands except when it feels like broken shards of hot bayonet. A pain which never goes away even as my colds do. In August I realized that the powers that be were trying to tell me something; either “drop dead” or “get a regular doctor, moron, before you drop dead.”

So after fretting over how I was going to find this doctor I finally decided to just go see Liz’s regular doctor. I came to this decision for a number of reasons. First, it was easy since I didn’t have to do any research. Two, the more information she has about our family, the better care she’s probably going to be able to deliver. Three, she’s extremely aggressive in treatment and always up to date with current research. So I made an appointment. Which turned into three appointments.

The first appointment was a meet and greet with general questions about my health history and pressing concerns I might have. We discussed my fatty liver. She said I’m at higher risk for cirrhosis, liver cancer and diabetes. She said that alcohol was highly discouraged. (I know!) She also said that it’s reversible if I were to reduce my overall body fat. (”Lose weight you lard ass,” is what she was trying to say. It’s a common unspoken phrase in her office.) About the colds she said, “you have young kids, your situation is not unusual. Get over it.” About the throat pain, she said nothing because I forgot to bring it up.

The second appointment was a poke, prod and prick with a needle type deal. (I also mentioned my throat pain, which was gone and still hasn’t returned.) The third appointment was to go over the results of my blood work tests.

Most of my results were good. However there were a few that were troubling. First of all, while I’m not diabetic I certainly appeared to be heading down that path. (Hey, thanks fatty liver!) Also, my good cholesterol levels were curiously low. And some genetic testing indicated that my diet needed to undergo some changes. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but you can’t eat anything other than bland vegetables for the rest of your life. Now let me tell you about the giant juicy porterhouse steak I had for lunch. I mean this sucker was massive, I could barely finish it. That’s why I was 30 minutes late for our appointment. Ha ha, but you understand, right? Say would you like a carrot?”

“Oh, yes. One last thing,” said the doctor. “You appear to have a sluggish thyroid. But I would like to conduct a couple more tests, just to be sure.”

“Was the reading border line?”

“No, this is pretty low.”

“Do you think it’s inaccurate.”

“Nope.”

And this is where I decided to let it drop. Maybe she wasn’t telling me what she was testing for because I didn’t really want to know. Unless I had to. Or maybe not. Either way, I let them draw more blood. And then I scheduled another (fourth) appointment.

And this is where I found out that I have hypothyroidism. Which apparently explains everything. Except for the fatty liver and genetic stuff. So there. I’m not dying, and thanks to my funny new doctor I can delay it as long as possible. Acts of stupidity notwithstanding.

(So for those of you following me on Twitter who have seen my health related tweets along with all my doctor office tweets, well now you know. See, I told you I’m not dying.)