Friday
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7. Substandard Medical Care. (I knew I was forgetting something!)
So... I’m high risk for CV19, for a few different reasons. Including currently having pneumonia. Which means I’m supposed to avoid doctors offices, urgent care, & hospitals.
Death by dinky little easily treated UTI? :wtf: Talk about vexatious. Let’s not do that, shall we?
There’s no actual “crisis” here, by my own definitions... but other people are responding like there is one, so I seem to be reacting to them. The more other people’s anxiety ramps up? The calmer I get. :cool:
One of the ways I play wih my anxiety / getting it under control when it’s running hot is to go plunge myself into crowds of people. If I’m NOT keeping my anxiety under wraps? People start freaking out. It’s a subtle thing, at first, as I’m only “infecting” a few people around me. But as their anxiety rises in response to mine? So does the people around them. Which makes the people around me ratchet up higher. Which makes the people around them ratchet up higher. Until people actually start looking first irritated, then looking around, getting more and more agitated, trying to figure out WTF is going on. IDFK if it’s body language, or lizard brain, or pheromones, or what. But people react to other people. If my anxiety is running hot enough to trigger other people’s anxiety? Their getting het up won’t be enough to calm me down, but they work very very well as a barometer of sorts. If they’re getting anxious, then I need to pull back, calm me’self, try again.
Crowds are great for this... because people rarely group together for very long. People are constantly peeling off and adding in. So I can f*ck around with my control, to my heart’s content. UNLIKE somewhere the same group is around each other for hours, like work/school/home/etc. If I’m around a fairly static group? I need to get myself in hand, pronto... or remove myself from the situation. Or someone’s gonna get their feelings hurt, when someone else pops off, all cranky for no good reason. (Except they’re on edge, because I’m on edge.)
So... I’m high risk for CV19, for a few different reasons. Including currently having pneumonia. Which means I’m supposed to avoid doctors offices, urgent care, & hospitals.
I got a UTI on Friday. Ordinarily? I’d just ring my doctors office and they’d zap an Rx to the pharmacy and no big deal. (So far? Covid makes no difference to that. It’s been a long time since I had to pee in a cup to prove UTI. My docs know me well enough that some things are just a phone call away.) Since it was after business hours? I’d wait until Saturday to do that. They have half day hours on Saturday. All should be well. Even if tonight is going to be annoying, in and out of the bathroom umpteen gazillion times.
But? It turned into a bladder infection reeeeeally fast. As in within a few hours. My last pee was hot and cloudy, and then I was in would-double-over-if-I-could pain (but you can’t double over because that causes blackout level pain), massively distended/but unable to pee even a drop, and spiking a 103 degree fever. Oopsies. Bad time for this nonsense.
Can’t go to Urgent Care. They wouldn’t let me in, with a cough (pneumonia) and fever (bladder infection). The ER? Would immediately quarantine me in their Covid wing. Which would mean I WOULD get CV19. On top of having pneumonia & asthma & temporarily compromised immune system, my chances would be very very bad.
((I ended up scrabbling together a mixed handful of antibiotics, or would have had to suck it up and go to the hospital).
Saturday? I call my doctors office, so they can zap the RIGHT Rx to the pharmacy. Of course, their lines are down. Because of the inundation of calls. As are everyone else’s lines. (I don’t mind peeing in a cup, or being cath’d, to prove the infection to get the meds I need. It’s just nicer not to. So I got on the line to docs who don’t know me.) I keep 3 phones on constant call back. For 6 hours. Trying to get a spot in their call queue. Until the offices close.
Luckily? (Touch wood it stays that way) My mixed handful of antibiotics is doing the trick. My fever is down, and I can pee, again, and the infection has at least been sloooowed (meaning I’m not pissing blood or in severe back pain from it hitting my kidneys). I don’t know enough about antibiotics to avoid boxing my kidneys, aside from the fact that mixing and matching can do that, so I may be seriously f*ckig myself over in the long term... but a person can live for quite some time on dialysis. And doesn’t live at all if they wake up dead from a fast moving infection. I’ve got enough to last the weekend. So, hopefully on Monday? I can get this minor if treated, likely lethal if not, little infection under wraps.
Sigh. When I KNOW I’m going to be absent medical care (300miles to the nearest anyone or anything) I usually have a med kit with me. With a taste the rainbow ? of antibiotics. Including ones for anthrax & UTIs. (Hello cipro, my old friend). These days, all I’ve got are meds for what I commonly muck around with. And a few lone troops -bless them- for things I don’t.
But? It turned into a bladder infection reeeeeally fast. As in within a few hours. My last pee was hot and cloudy, and then I was in would-double-over-if-I-could pain (but you can’t double over because that causes blackout level pain), massively distended/but unable to pee even a drop, and spiking a 103 degree fever. Oopsies. Bad time for this nonsense.
Can’t go to Urgent Care. They wouldn’t let me in, with a cough (pneumonia) and fever (bladder infection). The ER? Would immediately quarantine me in their Covid wing. Which would mean I WOULD get CV19. On top of having pneumonia & asthma & temporarily compromised immune system, my chances would be very very bad.
((I ended up scrabbling together a mixed handful of antibiotics, or would have had to suck it up and go to the hospital).
Saturday? I call my doctors office, so they can zap the RIGHT Rx to the pharmacy. Of course, their lines are down. Because of the inundation of calls. As are everyone else’s lines. (I don’t mind peeing in a cup, or being cath’d, to prove the infection to get the meds I need. It’s just nicer not to. So I got on the line to docs who don’t know me.) I keep 3 phones on constant call back. For 6 hours. Trying to get a spot in their call queue. Until the offices close.
Luckily? (Touch wood it stays that way) My mixed handful of antibiotics is doing the trick. My fever is down, and I can pee, again, and the infection has at least been sloooowed (meaning I’m not pissing blood or in severe back pain from it hitting my kidneys). I don’t know enough about antibiotics to avoid boxing my kidneys, aside from the fact that mixing and matching can do that, so I may be seriously f*ckig myself over in the long term... but a person can live for quite some time on dialysis. And doesn’t live at all if they wake up dead from a fast moving infection. I’ve got enough to last the weekend. So, hopefully on Monday? I can get this minor if treated, likely lethal if not, little infection under wraps.
Sigh. When I KNOW I’m going to be absent medical care (300miles to the nearest anyone or anything) I usually have a med kit with me. With a taste the rainbow ? of antibiotics. Including ones for anthrax & UTIs. (Hello cipro, my old friend). These days, all I’ve got are meds for what I commonly muck around with. And a few lone troops -bless them- for things I don’t.
Yeah... I’ve always done the ‘calm in a crisis’ thing, PTSD -or at least, living in trauma- just sort of put a polish on it. Too bright of a polish, send me out into the field? I’m good. I’m better than good, I’m outstanding. Bring me back home? I’m a hot f*cking disaster. :banghead:
There’s no actual “crisis” here, by my own definitions... but other people are responding like there is one, so I seem to be reacting to them. The more other people’s anxiety ramps up? The calmer I get. :cool:
One of the ways I play wih my anxiety / getting it under control when it’s running hot is to go plunge myself into crowds of people. If I’m NOT keeping my anxiety under wraps? People start freaking out. It’s a subtle thing, at first, as I’m only “infecting” a few people around me. But as their anxiety rises in response to mine? So does the people around them. Which makes the people around me ratchet up higher. Which makes the people around them ratchet up higher. Until people actually start looking first irritated, then looking around, getting more and more agitated, trying to figure out WTF is going on. IDFK if it’s body language, or lizard brain, or pheromones, or what. But people react to other people. If my anxiety is running hot enough to trigger other people’s anxiety? Their getting het up won’t be enough to calm me down, but they work very very well as a barometer of sorts. If they’re getting anxious, then I need to pull back, calm me’self, try again.
Crowds are great for this... because people rarely group together for very long. People are constantly peeling off and adding in. So I can f*ck around with my control, to my heart’s content. UNLIKE somewhere the same group is around each other for hours, like work/school/home/etc. If I’m around a fairly static group? I need to get myself in hand, pronto... or remove myself from the situation. Or someone’s gonna get their feelings hurt, when someone else pops off, all cranky for no good reason. (Except they’re on edge, because I’m on edge.)
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