Holidays have come and passed. Happy belated Holidays!
I was experiencing a flare-up before the holidays, but wanted to wait it out till they had ended. However, my symptoms were getting worse every week. Good news is, no new symptoms and the ones I was experiencing first are dissipating.
Though, the past week I’ve had Dysphagia. My primary doctor, Dr. P, made an emergency appointment with my neurologist for this morning. My neurologist seemed off, impatient and took my case like I got a scratch on my knee. He didn’t even perform any examination of my mouth/swallowing! Only hearing the usual “well, your right side is weaker than your left” and other bullshit, he wrote me out a prescription for steroids. Now, last time I had a flare-up, I was losing my vision and he wanted me to immediately check into a hospital, until I talked him into home care. Here I am, a shipwreck of health problems, and I’m dismissed quicker than a toilet flush.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I called Dr. P for some advice. Dr. P made some phone calls for me to get treatment at UPENN and basically told me to not go back to my original neurologist. I like Dr. P; he’s a Harvard grad, a heart surgeon and actually speaks to me like a human being, not a Petri dish.
A Doctor problem aside, the most difficult thing today was my father’s ignorance. My parents are strong believers in the “if we pretend it is not happening, it isn’t there” mantra. I turned to my father in the doctor’s office and asked, “Do you know why we’re here?”
“Yeah, you have a problem eating or something.”
“Dad… I have Dysphagia. I could get fluid in my lungs and develop an infection,” I explained, concerned.
“Don’t be all doom and gloom,” he replies, going back to reading a month old tabloid magazine.
I am not even sure if my father knows what Multiple Sclerosis is.
On a brighter side, my holidays were the best I’ve had in awhile. My parents were in a great mood, I spent a lot of time with friends and had a lot of fun, too. I celebrated my birthday three times! I got super drunk last week, something that doesn’t happen very often in my life, but I did learn what it felt like to be Lindsay Lohan the morning after. And on New Years, I couldn’t have spent it with better people. I also received a pretty sweet kissing session, too.
You could say that I concluded my year with a happy ending. And I couldn’t be more excited for 2011.
