So Wednesday was D-Day…

I’ve been putting off going to see my doctor for months now.  I got injured in July of 2011, and I was so embarrassed about having re-gained all of the weight I’d lost with my doctors help, that I kept pushing it back and pushing it back.

I’d drawn a line in the sand and promised a friend that this year was more about putting myself first.  January 2012 is a new year, a new health insurance cycle and we had a new flex card issued.  January 2012 was my deadline for getting my ass back in gear and going to see Dr Tiffany.

Tuesday night, I made my ‘ailment list’ complete with notes,  I tend to get in to the Doctor’s office and come out having forgotten something I was supposed to tell her.  That wasn’t happening this time.  I called Wednesday morning and was offered an appointment for Wednesday afternoon.

I guess fate really wanted me to get an appointment, eh?

I don’t think I’ve ever been nervous about a doctors appointment before, but, when the nurse asked me to step on the scales and I saw every single lb of the 30lbs I’d lost in 2010 had come back during 2011, I flushed with shame, self-deprecation and I pretty much kicked myself for not coming in to see her sooner.  I could hear my heart beating, nay, thumping, in my ears, I was so embarrassed.

She came in and asked what I’d done to myself (I’d told the receptionist I’d injured my calf), I went back to the beginning.  I told her that the surgeon, anesthesiologist and nurse all told me I was crazy for being on my weight loss medication in December 2010 after my surgery, in front of Col, so I stopped.

I told her I’d agreed to give myself 1 year without weight loss meds to try and get pregnant (cause you can’t do both weight loss meds AND get pregnant) and, a year later, I wasn’t pregnant AND my weight was all back.  I told her I don’t like to use the term ‘depressed’, but I was.  This weight thing has brought me so, so down.

I admitted to her that I was embarrassed to go back and see her, because all of the hard work we put in together, all 30lbs had come back.  She told me more people are like that than I realise, but, what set me aside from most of the patients that gain their weight back, is, that I’m trying.  I haven’t just stopped caring and given up.  That set me at ease a little.

I told her pretty much everything I’ve gone through in the last year, whether I thought it was a symptom or not.

She said that with regards to my left calf, she thought it was a muscle tear and gave me two choices, one, an orthopaedic surgeon (with MRI) or two a physical therapist (with MRI).  I chose the later, I don’t willingly walk in to a surgeons office.  Physical therapy it was.

She also commented that she thought my right heel trouble, is a compensatory injury, due to my left leg being injured.  She said it was plantar fasciitis and gave me some exercises to do to fix that a little.

Her treatment plan included stopping all impact exercise.  Which, left me, yes, gutted.  I swear, I never thought I’d be upset to be told I couldn’t go and do an hour of high impact, cardio burn, but when she told me, I tried to bargain with her.  I tried to say, ‘but what if?’, I pretty much faught to keep doing Attack, but she wasn’t hearing any of it.

Off your feet.  Rest.  Can’t even do water aerobics unless I have a float between my knees to stop me kicking.  Upper body only.

Bollocks.

As for my weight loss, she refused to give me weight loss meds again, saying she wants to investigate the problem and get to the cause of it, rather than throwing me back on, essentially, speed.  Instead, she’s giving me a drug that diabetics use to help the body process sugar more effectively and something to mess with my hormone balance.  She asked me to give her two months of trying this and if it doesn’t work, we’ll go a different angle.

I told her I’m so desperate, that if she asked me to go down the Hwy naked, I’d do it…her reply was, ‘Aaaaaah you’re at that stage then huh?’ She’d heard it before!

I left with a tri-fecta of medication prescriptions and a business card for her guy, Dr Scott Kelly.

The following day (Thursday), (with some gentle Twitter-coaxing from my friend Frances) I picked up the phone and made a quick call to Dr Scott’s office, they said he had an appointment that afternoon.

I went in (after a nice lunch with Julie and the kids) and was nervous.  I’ve not been to the doctor in almost a year, nor a hospital (aside from when Eve was born) and I was afraid he was going to hurt me.

He sat me down, asked me about my injury, told me about himself and he said that he wasn’t fixing enough people as a chiropractor, he felt that he had more to give, so he branched out.  He said he went in to something called, Airrosti, something that a lot of doctors rule out as mumbo jumbo.

He told me that since 2005, he’s treated 3,000 patients and has a 91% success rate.

That got my attention.

He also told me that the average number of treatments a person needs is 3.1.

This gave me hope.

He also told me, he was almost sure he could help me.

This made me smile, and momentarily forget that he was about to pummel my leg into submission! LOL!

He then informed me that his nickname was Dr Satan and the only thing stopping me from getting better was my pain threshold, to which I replied ”I have none”.  This was going to be fun!

Next, he pulled out a textbook, he told me that there are 8 muscles in the calf, spanning down through 3 layers in your leg.  He talked me through the muscles, step by step, showing me pictures, stopping to make sure I followed or to take questions.  He explained what he thought I’d done to my leg (and, since there was no bruising at the time of the injury, he was sure it wasn’t a muscle tear) and how he planned on treating it.

The treatment part, pretty much lasted 20 minutes or so.  Well the manipulation part at least.  It hurt.  A lot.  It brought me to tears.

We DID have a ‘safe word’, he told me that if I said stop, he’d stop, but if I cursed him out and screamed, he’d not stop.  Stop was the buzzword, and true to his word, he stopped the second I hissed stop through gritted teeth.

It hurt like hell.

From there it was across the hall to Leslie.  She’s my physical therapist.

She and I worked for a while, on the floor with some huge cylinder things to do stretches with, a tennis ball, she showed me stretches to do against the wall, she told me to have Col roll a rolling pin up and down my leg every day and she taped up my leg with a long strip of bright blue tape.

They also give me a very cool bracelet, a reminder bracelet.

Each symbol serves as a reminder about my treatment, ice my leg (don’t use heat) drink lots of water (cause Dr Satan releases toxins with his treatment), stretch and exercise, and ‘don’t stop’.  Inside the bracelet is his email address and phone number in case I have any questions or issues as I move forward.  It’s a very practical handy bracelet.

Fingers crossed that these few days of medical treatment and consultation will help me get better all round.  In spite of doing this all for me, I kind of feel a bit of a sadist at the moment, cause I hurt all over…and it’s going to get worse before it gets better…

…but I know it’s good for me, right?!