I’m starting to seriously contemplate putting my doctors on speed dial. However, I don’t want to encourage any notions that I might be inventing medical problems for attention, because you know what’s more fun than seeing doctors and accumulating medical bills yet again? Almost EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD.

Since I seemed to be finally back to normal last weekend, I’ve been trying to ignore any pain I’ve had in this past week for the most part, because how can it be possible that I’m not healed yet? Can’t I make myself better from sheer force of will?! No?! Argh, fine, I guess I’ll schedule yet another CT scan then, as suggested by the urologist, although the fact that it’ll be my fourth in less than two years freaks me out ever so slightly.

The silver lining is that I now have advice and opinions on various hospitals and doctors in my area. Need to figure out where you should go or who you should see (in Northern California, around the South Bay)? I likely can help!

(Oh, and thanks so much for the supportive messages and comments, by the way. I do appreciate them, especially in light of the fact that I’m finding myself increasingly obnoxious in the midst of my neverending litany of rants/vents/complaints. It’s like verbal diarrhea.)

AKA “Why You Should Be Good to Your Kidneys” (or, “Why I’ve Been Complaining So Much on Twitter“)

The past two weeks or so have been spent in varying degrees of physical discomfort, all because of a stubborn little stone that formed in my kidney. For most people, the ordeal would have quickly been wrapped up in a few days, but as it turns out, I needed to undergo shock wave lithotripsy in order to resolve mine. What’s thrown a wrench in the entire recovery process though is the fact that apparently, I am sensitive or just seriously allergic to ALL PAINKILLERS. The doctors will prescribe one thing, only to have to add on another medication to combat the effects of the first one, and then when it turns out neither of them are working for the better, the whole process has to be repeated again. In the meantime, I am often in violent amounts of pain while combating allergic reactions and frequent spasms.

This morning I woke up at 4am and was in serious distress vomiting and whatnot until about 10, at which point I fell into an exhausted sleep for a few hours. Now that I’ve determined that I can again keep fluids down, I have gone back to drinking copious amounts of liquids and am resting outside to try and regain some energy, or at the least, peace. Although almost every other day has consisted of doctor visits, today I’ve been rather fragile so we’re just monitoring my status closely.

Having visited doctors many a time over the past few years, I’m extremely tired of being sick by now. Since it isn’t clear what my kidney stone was caused by exactly (with one possibility being the medications I had to rotate through last year) , I’m just trying to be more vigilant about all aspects of diet and exercise in general, although the latter hasn’t gotten a lot of attention yet, due to my often being on bed rest. I cannot wait until I’m better again.

Two years ago, I woke up on the first of January amongst some of my favorite people and spent the day filled with warm fuzzy feelings. By the end of 2007, however, it seemed that everything had changed. In 2008, I was largely silent blogging-wise. The truth is that I spent much of it lost and confused, often under the haze of new medication and I didn’t want to write about it anymore; I just wanted someone to hold my hand so I could finally let myself cry and be told that everything would be okay. Somehow, I muddled my way through, even as my best friend and I had a falling out, and decided before my last neurologist visit that I would go off medications permanently. It meant giving up control of my body, but regaining that of my mind. A few months later, I graduated with honors and in the holiday season, I celebrated with genuine emotion.

I have not made any New Year’s resolutions for some time, and 2009 won’t be any different in that regard. Nonetheless, I do have a theme word for the year: live. It means that I want to embrace life as fully as I can, with all its beauty and all its flaws, and this time, I will not disappear unto myself.

Stanford Neurology Clinic
Girl from high school who now works as a receptionist there: You’re all set. Well, it was good to see you again!
Me: …yep…

In my list of Places Where It’s Not So Great To Randomly Run Into People, ‘hospital’ probably ranks only under ‘funeral’.