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 |  Welcome to Whatsit's Wild World. |
| My family has gone to Walmart. I am sitting here at the computer while tea is brewing on my stove. I'm shocked to see that it has been a little over a month since I blogged. My sense of time is going out the window, just one of those symptoms of getting older. I am listening to a show on PBS on TV about the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler and enjoying it. I am mightily glad to be finished with this day. A good while ago, I'm ashamed to say how long ago, my left leg swelled up. I put off going to the doctor because it didn't bother me that bad. I finally went to the local In-and-out type clinic, the MEA, to get it seen about, where I saw Dr. Brooks. The MEAs are owned by the local Catholic hospital, St. Dominic, so that's where Dr. Brooks sent me to get an ultrasound to make sure I didn't have any blood clots. One of my happiest moments was getting through having the ultrasound because I hate being touched by people I don't know, but that's neither here nor there. They sent the results to Dr. Brooks at the MEA and since there were no blood clots the next step was a CT scan. This is where I found out that I have a ventral hernia and gallstones. The MEA made me an appointment with Dr. Jonathan Adkins, a surgeon. Dr. Adkins barely glanced at me before he was sending me to Dr. Adrian Smith, a plastic surgeon. Evidently this diet I was on not only helped precipitate the gallstones but also stretched my skin funny so Dr. Adkins wanted it to be fixed at the same time as the hernia and gallstones. I went to Dr. Adkins on Friday April 7. The soonest appointment they could get for me with Dr. Smith was for 8:45 this morning. Well, I had invited my mother to go with me to see Dr. Adkins, which was a mistake. I kind of thought she could find out the answers to all the 8 million questions I knew she would have from him. Dr. Adkins turned out not to be that communicative, to the point that he intimidated all three of us, my mother, my husband and me, from having questions. That invitation made her assume that she was invited along today to see Dr. Smith. My husband had also taken off work to go. The first thing that happened was that I got upset because he started fussing at my son and couldn't understand why today was not the day for that. I just kept asking him to stop fussing, and that just made him worse. There is no possible way to make him understand that griping and complaining every single day of your existence might not be the best pattern for your life, especially one that you share with somebody who has gotten to the point that a bunch of negativity is extremely bothersome. This made me start to cry and it took me a long time to stop. I had to be at the doctor at 8:45 you understand. Then we pick up my mother and get to the doctor's office. Guess what she had to say? The shoes I had on were not acceptable, we were going to have to go by the department store after the doctor and purchase the proper ones, my mother being the ones to decide which ones I was to have of course (which we didn't do, I might add). I had some dry skin on my leg which she happened to see, which of course was unacceptable. My feet needed a manicure. There were several other things which I don't remember at this point, probably because I had started to cry at this point. When the doctor came in I was still crying. I really could have done without my husband and my mother today. Now the doctor is concerned about doing surgery on me because, in addition to all the risks there evidently are, such as that I'll probably need transfusions, the incision will be an exceptionally long one, and overweight people don't tend to do as well under anesthesia, among others, he is concerned about my "fragile emotional state." It had not occurred to me that I had a fragile emotional state. I guess you could call it that. I'm thinking that once my mother opened her mouth and started talking and asking him questions and going on the way she always does, he may have seen one of the things that I may have been upset about. She will ask the same thing three or four times, especially if she doesn't like the answer you give her the first time. This afternoon I had to go over to her house for a few minutes. She wanted to talk me out of having the surgery. She has needed knee surgery for about five years but she refuses to have it because she is scared. Of what? Going under the anesthesia, for one thing. She would rather barely be able to hobble around than have surgery, plus she complains ALL THE TIME about how much she hurts. I knew she would try to talk me out of it. Luckily my husband took it upon himself to have that discussion with her, because I don't want to prolong the inevitable and I am going to go ahead and have the surgery. Dr. Smith is going to call Dr. Adkins - evidently they know each other - and they are going to have their discussion. Dr. Smith said that if I wasn't called by one of their nurses by Thursday, to call his office and Chelsea, his nurse, would fill me in. Dern. It has got to go up from here. |
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