First I had to clear my head, get some fresh air, and go for a bike ride. Then I listened to some music. Now I think I’m ready to write. 

Tom and I talked it over some more and oh, the anxiety and frustration with this doctor/medication shit! There are so many different things I could do and they all seem both ok and not ok. I could just stick with my current doctors, one of whom I like a lot and who is attractive as hell. The only problem is that my endo doc isn’t very helpful, her staff is a bunch of idiots, she’s overbooked, and Sutter as a whole sucks shit. 

I thought of asking my PCP if she could refer me to another endo, but have put that idea on hold for now. The only problem is that if I get an endo not connected to Sutter, I have to first get a new PCP not connected to Sutter cuz I can’t go to a new endo without a referral from the PCP connected to the same medical group. 

This new group we might go with is Mercy. Four coworkers of Tom say they like them, one likes Sutter, and another went to Sutter and refuses to ever see another doctor ever again. So I think it’s safe to say they thought they were pretty awful. 

I would prefer an American female doctor, but she is the most sought-after doctor in the US and she is the most overbooked. Most females of any color/nationality are preferred when it comes to the health field, so they’re always going to be harder to see. Still, when it comes to Americans vs. foreigners, Americans want to see Americans and I don’t blame them. What is it with all these fucking foreigners becoming doctors here anyway? I asked Tom and as he reminded me, a nobody doctor can make more here than a popular doctor in another country. 

I was amazed that he could get me in to see Dr. F in just two weeks, but I’m not at all thrilled at the idea of seeing a Muzzie either. These people hate Americans! So it’s gotta be all about the money for him. On top of that, I’m not used to Arabic and Indian accents and I don’t want to have trouble understanding the guy. Hispanic, German, even Asian or American Indian would be fine, but I not only can’t stand Middle Easterners, but I also have a hard time understanding them. 

Even so, I’m usually willing to try most things once. Just because most Muslims are bad news doesn’t mean they all are. Just because most blacks are running around crying false claims of racism and are loud, rude, vicious, vindictive assholes who don’t care who they hurt, doesn’t mean they’re all like this. Most doesn’t mean all. So maybe he doesn’t hate Americans and maybe he’d do a better job of helping me than Doc Sexy. Damn, I’d miss her, though! I don’t know why and I know it may seem silly as hell but I’m going to be sad to let her go even though she hasn’t even been my doc for a whole year. There was just something about her. I never had a doctor so young, so pretty, and so damn nice, though Tom didn’t think she was that nice. I guess her tone of voice on some things came off as less than kind to him, but when I see her alone she’s very kind and compassionate. But there are other things I don’t agree with that she’s done or hasn’t done, and again, she’s with Sutter and Sutter’s fucked up. 

Dr. F, an internal medicine doctor, has a 4-star rating while his staff has 2 stars. 

All 3 of my sister’s doctors are American and 2 of Andy's are foreigners. I asked if Andy would see a Middle Easterner and he said he’d go to whomever he was recommended to see and then tell his insurance company if he didn’t like them. 

Tom thinks he should make more calls and keep calling around till I at least get a female doctor, and while I told him he could do that if he wants to, I think he’s going to find the same thing… the women are overbooked, and males will see you right away. For non-emergencies, that is. 

As Tom pointed out, though, what’s the urgency? Not that we’re ready to give up on doctors altogether, he read up on what could happen if I opted to go to no doctors at all and found that I’d most likely be many years away from anything life-threatening IF I got there in the first place, and it probably wouldn’t be the thyroid itself to kill me, but a heart attack or a stroke because Hashimotos drives your cholesterol up. That’s why I’m making a point to avoid cholesterol. I have no idea if this will help the numbers in my favor, but we’ll eventually find out. Even though I don’t cook, I’m staying away from processed and fried foods as well as red meats and eggs. What frozen foods I do eat are cooked the same way they’d be cooked fresh, only they’re thrown in a box and frozen. 

The most surprising thing we learned was that Hashimoto’s can sometimes go away on its own. Also, my highest TSH level was 32 which is actually considered subclinical. There are some people over 100 that say they feel fine. Again, I went to the doctor not because I felt bad but because I wanted to know why my body wouldn’t respond to diet and exercise. I later learned that the symptoms I do have were symptoms I’d simply written off as aging. Hey, we do lose a degree of our memories, libidos and some hair as we age. And our skin dries out, too. Some of the symptoms were ridiculous, though… puffy face, hands and feet. Well, if you’re fat of course you’re going to have a puffy face and of course your hands and feet are going to be swollen. Water retention at the wrong time of the month is a symptom I also have, but those late and light periods I thought was a symptom…? Well, according to what he read, they should be heavy, not light. 

He said if anything, he has more symptoms than I do – very dry skin, brittle nails, a pulse under 60 upon waking up, etc. His point is that if he does have Hashimoto’s, he’s had it for decades and yet he’s fine. Neither of us has fatigue. He did for a while but found that Co-Q 10 supplements help him, and I only get fatigued before periods. 

The problem is that everything seems so scary right now. I’m afraid not to treat it, but I’m afraid to take pills and risk insane side effects, too. That is if I can ever even get up the nerve to take them again in the first place. We’re going to try the selenium next as part of busting through this phobia last summer’s nightmare put on me. Words CANNOT express just how terrifying it was on me both physically and emotionally. To be sitting there one minute and then to feel your heart suddenly go booming to hell the next is utterly terrifying. So were all the other symptoms. The weight I lost was more due to being too sick to eat and cuz I was always on the toilet, more so than the meds themselves. 

I knew years ago that I would never lose weight. At least not the healthy way, since I either have to be sick or on damn near-lethal doses to lose on and it’s not worth it at all. Better to accept myself the way I was meant to be. Trying to get thin would be as foolish as me trying to get tall. But I DO have to work most days at staying within the same 5-pound range cuz entering the obesity range is NOT ok for me. I refuse. I will NOT go there! Uh-uh! No way. So I will count calories and ride that bike most days of the week if that’s what it takes to keep on being able to polish my toenails, wipe my ass, and put shoes on easily enough. I can’t bend over as far as I did at 100 pounds, of course, but I am determined to keep picking objects up off the floor with ease. 

What’s got me a little worried right now, more so than Hashimoto’s itself and what medication I may end up on and how it’ll affect me, is all the anxiety I’ve been having lately. Even though I still have almost half of the lorazepams she gave me months ago, I wonder if I’m becoming dependent on them because the thought of not having them around worries me. I don’t want to go down the road of addiction ever again. And just what is causing all this anxiety anyway? I don’t have it every minute of every day, but I shouldn’t have this much for one who has a wonderful husband, a beautiful house, and more money than she needs. I don’t have as much as I want, but I have more than I need. I’m hoping it will ease up once this doctor/med situation is finally worked out. Sometimes I wonder, though, if Hot Doc could’ve been right and maybe I do need a shrink for a while, but if I need more lorazepams I can always get them from whoever my PCP ends up to be at the time. Lorazepam, Xanax, Ativan… they all seem pretty common. 

Still, those anxiety attacks keep coming. They’re getting less and less frequent but last night I bit into a Tic Tac that tasted funny. Sure enough, my mind goes to nasty places like the possibility of it being tampered with and I break out in a sweat and my heart goes thumping madly. This went on intermittently for about half an hour. 

Later… 

Nothing woke me up so far this week, but how much do you want to bet that if I asked Bob if he were making a racket this week, he’d say no. How much do you want to bet that our lovely God is just waiting until I’m back on days for him to get the urge to saw and hammer so I have to listen to his shit? 

And how much do you want to bet that God made sure to have circumstances arise to pull me away from my sexy PCP, knowing full well she’ll never get my future friend request or accept it if she does? I swear it’s like He wants to make sure everyone I’m hot for isn’t in my life for long unless it’s someone I never met like Nane. I totally see a definite pattern there. 

I’d like to think in the mode of and take on the attitude of, “I’m going to get what I want and if I want a friendship with her, a friendship I shall have no matter what any God thinks/wants,” but I’m not stupid. I can pray for her, I can not pray for her, but in the end, I know what’s meant to be and what’s not. She’s not meant to be, like it or not. But does that mean I shouldn’t at least send the friend invite when the time is right? It can’t hurt and all it takes is one click, so I can at least do that much even if I can never change fate and what’s a definite and obvious pattern in my life over the years. 

Tom called around today but couldn’t find any female American doctors or even just female doctors who could see me this century. I’m not surprised. So unless something else comes up, I’m on for seeing the foreign male internal med doc on the 13th who will hopefully refer me to a much more helpful endo than my old one. 

There are two other options we discussed. One is to stay with the same medical group but see if I could get both a new PCP and endo closer to home. Another is to message my current PCP, tell her about the runaround Dr. D gave us, and then ask if she could refer me to a different endo. Certainly, they’ve got more than one. 

I don’t want too many appointments too close to when Andy visits cuz I need to focus on aiming my schedule at that. Appointments can be rescheduled, Andy can’t. 

Meanwhile, since Tom highly suspects his own thyroid may be even worse than mine, we ordered these mineral supplements for him to try. 

Where thyroid meds do what your thyroid is supposed to do, this stuff makes your thyroid do what it's supposed to do, from our research, by giving the body the proper minerals it needs for a healthy thyroid. One reason we think my thyroid may've gone bad is that I don't like salt. Well, iodine is in salt and that's one thing the thyroid is dependent upon to function properly. 

Tammy said she wouldn’t take it and that I absolutely need the right dose of medication. Oh, I still intend to get that taken care of. I just don’t know how long it will take. I’m not sure, though, if I’m going to try this or the selenium while I’m waiting to see an endo. While most reviews were good, a few mentioned side effects similar to what I went through on the levothyroxine - heart palpitations, anxiety, sleeplessness, headaches and nausea… 

Along with ordering this, we got some stuff for the car, flags and poles for the brackets on the front and back of the house, and a knit beanie for when I’m biking in cooler weather. 

The AC didn’t run for a few days, but since the heat is to be rolling back in, it will be on again in the afternoons. 

LOL, found Maryann on Facebook and wrote: Did you know that your drunken brother drove me crazy by letting his damn dogs bark for hours at a time when he'd be out somewhere? If it weren't for us being stuck on unemployment so long we'd NEVER have stayed there 5 years. It was just horrible. I couldn't even mourn the deaths of my parents in peace. He had the nerve to tell us to just "yell" at them. First of all, that only shut them up for 10 minutes at best, secondly, HIS dogs were HIS responsibility, not ours! If it wasn't the mutts it was the damn motorcycle or some project he was working on. I can't believe just ONE person can generate so much noise!