The Porcelain God


This is what I saw most of yesterday. Well, this isn't MY toilet, but you get the picture. It all started Sunday night. I think I overworked myself when I got my "high" by doing some major cleaning. Well, trying to anyway. Moving furniture, boxes, my wife yelling at me to stop. I should have listened. I got light headed and laid down. About 10 min later, I couldn't move. It hurt to breathe. I was nauseous, dizzy, and confused. I figured I had just done too much so I went to sleep.
By 6am yesterday, I was puking my guts up. I had to about three times before I left out the door for work. A little cola and I was fine for a few hours, then visited the porcelain god four more times in 4 hrs. I couldn't concentrate on work so I left and spent the entire day in bed, trying to either sleep or find out if this was a bug, or a sign I have cyclical cushing's.
I read later that evening if I put 1/4 teaspoon of 1% hydrocortisone cream (anti-itch) that if I was having Adrenal Insufficiency symptoms, it might help pull me out. SO after throwing all day, thats exactly what I did. And about 30 min later, I had an appetite (small one, but it was there), and I didn't feel as achey or dizzy. I don't believe in coincidences, but Im still not 100% this morning. I guess either way, its Cushie. Either its cyclical, or just bad immune system. Oh well. Hopefully, Dr. Ludlam's office will get a hold of the insurance company and I can be on my way to a cure.

The Weary Zebra
 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

you can get free treatment at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. Contact any endocrinologist at the NIH via email or phone, submit any labwork you have to them, and ask to be seen there.

The insurance system might be broke, but the fact remains that you are able to get care for free at an extremely good facility.

The Weary Zebra said...

Unfortunatly, the health insurance system is not broken. It works very well, infact, and that is the problem. The main objective in a corporation is to make money. The more money, the better. And the way they do this is to deny access, deny benifits, raise prices, and use resision to cut people off their rolls. We are the ONLY western, industrilized nation in the WORLD that operates this way and we suffer for it. Even China, who murder's people for fighting for rights we take for granted, realises that the cost of health care is killing its citizans and is going to start provding universal, single payer health care. All you have to do is be a citizan. Its preaty lame when all you hear is how bad other countries have it, but among all the developed nations, we trail in life expectancy, quality of life, quality of care, educaton, etc.

As for NIH, I have tried several times to get on with them. I even contacted the lead endocronologist there by email. She said that they wouldnt take me without a diagnosis, despite a UFC that is 3X higher than the high normal. Further more, she referred me back to the doctor here that tells me that I am wasting my time and money, and who will sit there and try and explain away my symptoms only to get to a stump and walk out. And not she didn't just tell me to go back to my doctor, she revered to him by NAME!.

If they were to accept me, I am afraid that it would only be a medicinal treatment, which from what I have been told, wont last more than 6mo or so. And on top of that, the people that answer the phones at NIH when I apply for the studies tell me that they will not pay for my airline fare. I cant afford the plane tickets for how ever many times they would need me, and I cant afford the several times off from work. Its hard enough to try to get paid time off beyond my small vacation time for any surgery or recovery I might have. That is yet another thing several countries, like France, do for their people. If you get too sick to work, you get full wages (60% from the government from an account set up like Social Security, 40% from your employer from an account set up like UI) so now you can fully recover in the time it takes YOU! If you need more time, so be it.

When it comes to worker's rights and especially health care, we are as backwards as a backwoods town. We are the rednecks of the world...

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