Follow-up rheumatologist appointment

This morning I returned for a follow-up rheumatologist appointment. It was a big disappointment in most ways.

The appt started off pretty well. I was 15 minutes early for my appt and they got me right in. But it was all downhill from there. The nurse was incredibly snippy and clearly didn't want to be there today. I was up a few pounds on the scale and immediately I got discouraged... I'm not sure how that happened. Then we went into the room and the nurse took my blood pressure. I always get anxious at this point. I can't really explain it, but there's something about being in the office and getting nervous about what the doctor will say that puts me on edge. Then there's just the BP taking itself. A couple times it was up a bit, and from there I have just always been nervous about it. So it was 166/110. That IS RIDICULOUS! I asked if she was sure she used the right size armband and indeed she did. I didn't feel that nervous but once she told me that, I got freaked out and even more nervous! What a vicious cycle.

Then I proceeded to wait for 30 minutes before the doctor came in. I spent a lot of that time crying and feeling nervous about my BP. It's all so silly and I don't always understand it. I spent the time praying and putting my trust in the Lord, but I still felt nervous.

As soon as the doctor came in and we started discussing my blood test results and such, I calmed down and felt fine. He only spent about 10 minutes with me and it wasn't nearly as helpful as I was hoping, but it wasn't terrible either. We did discuss my BP but since I'm on medication for it (only because of getting nervous at times like this), since my primary doctor knows about it, and since I monitor it at home and otherwise it's fine, he wasn't worried about it. I took it later at home and it was back to fairly normal for me 128/81. So, whew.

The rheumatologist did prescribe Lyrica for me and I'm starting on a low dosage of 50 mg once a day. From what I've read about Lyrica, that's unlikely to do the trick but we'll give it a try and see. He wants me to monitor how I feel and come back again in a month. He went through my labs with me and everything looked fine except my thyroid readings. Those were slightly elevated and something he read didn't look right to him - a comment on the lab but he didn't share w/ me what that was. Whatever it was made him wonder about the results and he had me do them again. So as soon as I was done and had my precription in hand, I went downstairs for another 30 minutes of waiting, registering, waiting, registering, and finally getting poked with a needle for 5 seconds before I could finally leave.

Despite that nothing bad really happened, I was feeling emotional so I called Tim (his office is only a minute down the road) and he met me outside the building to give me a big hug and kiss. That was so great and absolutely made my day. I have the best hubby in the world. :)

Tim & I within an hour or so after he proposed on stage at our college's "Davis Holl Follies" (basically a weird talent show of sorts) over Homecoming weekend in Oct 99.

HE IS THE BEST!!

p.s. thank you Joel Foudy for the great picture!