Disclaimer warning: This post has probably way more information than you wanted to know about someone. Including talk of bodily functions and bacteria/medical jargon things. #Sorrynotsorry?
As the last week of August comes to a close, I spend this Saturday thinking of all that has happened since the last time I posted. Mostly good things, some very not so good things have taken place in the last few weeks. All-in-all it’s been a busy 2 weeks or so.
Good thing #1: The last time I posted, I had a meltdown and a revelation of “everything will be alright”. I went into woke up and went into work on Monday with the mindset of moving on. Then my phone rings at 10 am with a call for a job interview with Planning and Development. My dream job. I listen to the message and become hopeful for the future. The phone rings again at 10:10 am with a job offer from the office I interviewed for. I told my husband, my boss and co-workers and accepted the offer the next day. I was finally moving on after 5 years.
Not so good thing #1: Turning down that dream job was one of the hardest things I had to do. But it took me 5 years to even get another job offer-and for the government I might add. I waited hours to call back trying to justify it all in my mind. But in the end, I didn’t want one of the two jobs to figure out I was playing the field. Was that the right thing to do? Should I have just gone? I think these questions will nag me for a while.
Good thing #2: My job actually took the news fairly decently. They wished me the best, and told me if I absolutely hated it I could come back. But they also decided to yank my insurance away from me two days after I resign, still have not mailed out COBRA information for me even though said insurance will be gone on Sunday, and told me 2 minutes before I left that the 11 hours of vacation time I used on my last two days would not be paid to me. Why was I concerned about this? Will we get to that later on.
Not so good thing #2: So this one actually started as a good thing. My office had an event with my soon to be new office last week. A meet-and-greet for our town hearing process. My new boss was there, I have met him before but it had been awhile. So I took it upon myself to go and re-introduce myself to him. He was excited to meet me and offered to take me upstairs and introduce me to the team. It was a great time to do so. I told my boss I would be back shortly and went upstairs. I met the office-everyone seemed nice, if not a little socially awkward (I would fit RIGHT in). It was about 15 minutes of chit-chat and I decided to make my way back downstairs. This was until I was called back into my new boss’s office. I was not expecting to be grilled about my loyalty, my attendance, and my habits of office gossip for the next 30 minutes. I won’t go into detail about it. All I can say is WOW. I felt deflated when I left the building. I could barely even muster a goodbye. I turned a dream job interview down for this??? I realized that going from a job where I have little management looking over my shoulder that I was entering micromanagement world. It will be an adjustment. Can you tell I’ve been giving myself pep talks? Stay tuned next week after my first day of work.
Good thing #3: The husband and I took a day trip to Cincinnati last weekend. We visited the zoo, had some drinks, ate a great dinner, almost got mugged in a parking lot, and saw the Reds vs. Braves play. Of course there was also lots of rain, so we only got to see 5 innings of the game, but it was still a nice getaway.
Enjoy this lovely photo of a Giraffe
Over The Rhine-near the scene where we almost got mugged
Not so good thing #3: My vacation high from Sunday abruptly ended with the arrival of a red light camera traffic ticket. On a rolling right turn. Enough said.
Good thing #4: My last week of work was this past week. It was a bittersweet time. I thought I would be more excited to leave but after you spend 5 years of your life with the same people it is hard not to become attached. Even if it did take them 3 years to learn my name. It was also the first week of our town hall style hearings which didn’t start until 10. So I got to enjoy a week without an alarm clock waking me up. And two longer mornings with my husband. Tuesday morning we both woke up and I insisted that he make me my favorite breakfast. My husband is an excellent breakfast chef. He makes this great meal of eggs, bacon, sautéed onions and peppers, salsa and cheese all wrapped up in a warmed tortilla. It’s amazing. I went to work that day feeling over stuffed and felt a deep pain in my stomach with what I thought was indigestion for the rest of the work day. Every time I moved it was there. But I did eat my weight in breakfast that morning so that all seemed to make sense at the time. Which moves into not so good thing #4.
Not so good thing #4: The pain in my stomach continued into Wednesday evening. I called both my Mom and my sister to ask how to get rid of a stomach ache. I ate some soup, I went to bed early. I was coming down with a cold. I woke up at 4 am on Thursday, aching all over. My stomach, my head, oh my. I tried to get comfortable in bed but the pain in my stomach could not eased and I was starting to get nauseous from the flipping and flopping. I snuck downstairs (something I never do, I love my bed), I turned on the AC unit, I tried to fall back asleep on the couch. Around 5 on my second trip to the bathroom because I was so nauseous I took my temperature, 101.3. “Hmm”, I thought to myself. Seems odd for a cold which seems to be all in my nose. I immediately called my doctors office which I knew had an doctor on call for emergency like questions. To my amazement, someone answered. I described my symptoms. I once again got a “hmm” on the other end of the line. My thoughts exactly. He told me to meet me in the office in 20 minutes and he would exam me. At 6 am? What service.
I spend the next 15 minutes getting my husband out of bed. We take a barf bag. We make it out to the doctor by 6:40. He exams me and gives me a way too long answer for the early hour and the fact that everything hurts. Short answer was: Yes go to the hospital. I can’t pinpoint what’s wrong with you. Could be appendicitis or a cyst that has burst was his best guess. I’m still extremely grateful for someone who took the time 2-3 hours before an office even opens to exam a patient. I should send him a thank you card. We drive over to the hospital closest to our house. I’m hopeful when I walk in. There are only 2 other people in the waiting room. We check in, I see a nurse fairly soon. We get sent back out to the lobby, where I curl up on Seth and groan in pain. 30 minutes later we get called back again. SUCCESS. I get blood drawn and they leave the needle in my arm; we get send back out to the waiting room. 2 hours later, when I start to cry from the pain we are still in the waiting room. Everyone before and after us have gone into rooms. My husband starts getting angry. Another hour later and we are finally in a room.
A P.A. comes in and tells me I have UTI. I look questioningly at her. She says we probably don’t even need to take a CT scan. That’s probably what it is. You really don’t look like you’re in that much discomfort she says. Mentally I am punching her in the face, puking on her shoes. In reality, all I can mutter is an “ok”. A nurse comes back about 10 minutes later and wheels me to get a CT scan to check for kidney stones. All I say again is “ok”. When we get back, I fall into a feverish sleep. I am awakened by a doctor. He says that there are no kidney stones. His diagnosis is a UTI. I hold up my hand “where is the pain coming from then?”. He responds that the infection is moving up into my kidneys. “ok” is all I can muster again. The final diagnosis they gave almost 6 hours after first arriving was that I have a kidney infection. But they also mentioned they found enlarged lymph nodes in my intestinal tract on the CT scan. “But”, they continued, “we aren’t worried about that today. Talk to your family doctor about that”. Thanks for a wasted, very expensive trip ER. I fall into a feverish sleep for basically the rest of the day. I missed 8 hours of work that I won’t be paid for. I was forced to go in, despite my husband’s pleas, the next day for a half a day. Another 3 hours that I won’t be paid for. That was why I got my panties in a twist when they decided to tell me that before I left on the last day.
After I left work, I went back to my regular doctor’s office to see what someone there had to say about the diagnosis. I can never actually get in to see my regular family doctor. Dr. B, as we will call him, always seems unreachable. I was able to see him in February for a brief consultation about my migraines but before that it had been 4 years. So in lieu of seeing Dr. B, I am placed with one of the rotation of doctors in the practice. All of the doctors there are nice, it is just sort of aggravating that you can’t just have one regular doctor. I asked once if I could switch about 5 years ago when I was seeing a woman doctor regularly for a particular ailment. The office told me I could not. It all seems ridiculous to me. ANYWAYS, back to the story.
I once again was unable to obtain an appointment on Friday with Dr. B to discuss my situation. But the office placed me with another doctor who I have seen over the past few years. After reading the paperwork from the hospital and listening intently to my symptoms, he starts by saying “Well this is an interesting case, which is fun for me but you really don’t want to be interesting in the medical world”. Great. He went on to say that he disagreed with the kidney infection/UTI diagnosis from the hospital. He said he did find in the urine culture evidence of staph bacteria growing, which is why the hospital staff decided to pinpoint my symptoms to what they did. He said the more concerning thing was the enlarged lymph nodes in my intestines. The third and final diagnosis of the week was that I have a bacterial virus in my GI tract. The cause of the pain in my stomach was the enlarged lymph node pressing against other organs, etc. I had to keep taking the antibiotics that the hospital prescribed to treat the staph. The bacterial virus happening would take time to heal. More testing may be necessary but we would deal with that when/if the time comes. For someone losing their insurance tomorrow-this isn’t the best news.
Good news #5: I am on the mend it seems. I just ate a grilled cheese for dinner-the most ambitious I have been since Wednesday afternoon. I’m still not able to really walk around much so I’ve been watching a lot of Sex and the City on HBO. And I actually felt better enough today to write so there is that. My husband also let me nerd out today and buy office stuff for Tuesday. I bought a nice stapler and a ninja man post it dispenser. Yes, this week it is the little things that are keeping me going.
A Weird Sort of Story 