I really, really, really need to find a new GP, despite being told by the surgeon's staff that there are not even waiting lists in their health system. Today, the new GP made it patently clear that she does not want to be responsible for anything other than general care, not even being the one to keep track of all the medications I am taking. I was also dismayed about our conversation about the blood work.
First, she told me it was all normal. Then, when I brought up the B-12 test, which I would really like to discuss, she said she did not know anything about the blood tests that the integrative medicine doctor ran. And, more distressing, was that she went on to tell me that the high B12 was just a diet issue. Yes, well, uhm, B12 blood serum is not about what you eat or take in supplements, but rather how your body is cleaning your blood. Most particularly your liver and/or kidneys. I mean, I was not reading fluff pieces about the matter, but medical research journals. SIGH.
She also keeps pushing cisapride for the gastroparesis. Well, let's just look at that medication on Wiki:
In many countries, it has been either withdrawn or had its indications limited because of reports of the side-effect long QT syndrome, which may cause arrhythmias. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter to doctors,[4] and cisapride was voluntarily removed from the U.S. market on July 14, 2000. Its use in Europe has also been limited.[2] It was banned in India and in the Philippines in 2011.[5]
I am NOT interested in doing all the testing with a new gastro doc, since it is NOT a gastro problem, but an autonomic nerve problem. And the one intervention option left, for me, is the gastric stimulator thingy. No, I do not want machines in me. Plus, I need to be a whole lot worse to qualify for that. Isn't that a strange thing ... I need to get much sicker before I could have help? The standard of care for gastroparesis is identifying and treating the underlying condition; that is not possible with dysautonomia. SIGH.
The final point she posed was pushing me to identify a psychiatrist whom I could visit at least annually for the PTSD, especially since I am off the Xanax. I tried to tell her that first I would have to see who took medicare and who was on my plan. She kept holding her pen over her paper, tapping it from time to time, waiting for a name. I don't have a name. And, frankly, I don't want one. Though I would like to start counseling again if there was a place to go where the counselors didn't keep leaving.
I am not sure how to write this, especially since my head is just killing me, but I got to thinking about the PTSD, especially since I was a bit ... dismissive ... of the idea of being still felled by it. And it occurred to me that I had not studied the PTSD book I received in counseling the way that I have The Courage to Heal and now working on anxiety. In reviewing the text, it struck me how PTSD is not a psychiatric illness, per se, but an injury that permanently changes the way your body/mind works. Managing it is possible—have I not gained such ground in that area—but the changes and the effects triggers can have on me will always be with me.
To put it another way: "...you have to think of PTSD uniquely from the trauma that caused it, because that is what it is, a unique entity once formed, one that is never 'over.'"
I have been thinking a lot about the pit bull attack, with the anniversary of it last week. And with separate encounters with two neighbors that took place.
The first was with a neighbor who is doing construction at her house. She and her husband had to get a variance for the kitchen expansion, which many of her neighbors were not particularly wanting it to be given, and construction started about three weeks ago ... I think. The reason she came to talk with me is that her crew is blocking the alley, which they should not be doing. She was apologizing to me. Tim was with me, at the time, and she suddenly brought up the pit bull attack, telling me that she was the one who caught me when I fainted.
Immediately, I felt myself withdraw and shut down inside, not wanting, for a single moment, to talk about the pit bull attack with her or with Tim. I did not want to be back in her arms at all. Quickly, I changed the topic and then fled inside to avoid the entire encounter. SIGH.
A while later, my neighbor announced that she thought she would be needing to plan a kitty funeral. The whole cat that is complicated for me, first because I am most definitely not a cat person. Plus, I have had a few negative encounters with cats. And, with my neighbor, I keep getting a bit ... well ... I don't know how to put it.
The first time she wailed to me about her missing cat, I hobbled up and down the alley, off and on, for three days helping to look for Missy. Missy was in my neighbor's laundry basket in her bedroom closet. She found her two days before telling me. I was looking in vain. The next time Missy was missing, I carefully asked if she had checked the laundry basket. My neighbor jumped all over me in anger, I so I looked once and then left it. Missy was in the closet. The third time, I did not bother to look or even worry. I was right. Missy was in the closet.
Missy has cancer.
Her vet is treating her with antibiotics.
I don't get cats or cat vets.
When my neighbor made her pronouncement, it was as if I was suddenly standing outside my body watching myself disassociate. I do not and will not be my neighbor's shoulder to cry on for the passing of her cat. I hope that I am sorry for her, but I do not know. I do not know because I cannot be the emotional support of another person. In counseling, identifying that for myself was greeted with much enthusiasm and congratulation regarding that growth milestone of recognizing and setting an important boundary fro myself. Only, it doesn't seem very neighborly a boundary ... especially since I am wanting to not be along with my own emotional struggles.
I have been deeply unsettled with realizing that I disassociated with my neighbor and then later realizing the same thing happened with the other woman. I know that it is a protective mechanism and that it is not a bad thing for me, but it is not "normal," nor something I wish to happen. I do not care that it is good for me to be able to recognize it, too. I just ... I just wish to not to be me.
And I wish I were not alone with this ... wound in my body.
I have done a poor job of trying to capture what has been flitting around my brain, but I have already vomited twice since starting this entry and am feeling too wretched to try and better capture my thoughts. But so many days have passed without trying to do so that I didn't want to lose the bits and pieces leading me down this thought path.
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