Oh yes, I do no

So, not a whole lotta news here.

After hemming and hawing about going back to my original doctor or finding a new one or getting a referral, I finally just went and saw my original, favorite doctor. See, everyone likes her so much that she's hard to schedule an appointment with, and I had been seeing a NP at the same practice the last few times. Trouble is, even though the NP is really nice, it seemed like every time I saw her something got screwed up (wrong prescription called in, not returning my lab results, etc.) and then I worried about the whole not being able to actually diagnose a condition thing. And the whole talking to a colleague about me in the hallway and I could totally overhear it thing. So, I asked to see my old doctor for my yearly exam. The practice said they could only schedule my exam as part of a shared medical appointment (she won't look at me naked unless it's along with a bunch of other naked people?) which just seemed kind of silly. I mean, the point of the shared medical appointment - I think - is to put a group of similar chumps patients in a classroom type setting where they can ask the doctor questions and gain possible insight from others who may have similar conditions. My mom has done this before and said that rest assured, you don't get examined in front of other people, but still. When I read the paperwork for this appointment, I got to the part where it said "Each patient will be given a name tag to identify each other more easily in group discussion" (maybe they had a problem with patients referring to each other as "the one over there with the rash" or "that chick who asked about discharge") or something like that, and I started to rethink how much I wanted to "share".

So, long story long - I called back and asked to just see my doc one on one - even if she won't look at my girl parts - to discuss meds and moods and thyroid worries. I'm waiting for the lab results, which I imagine could range from "My God, you're a 30 year old woman with the stats of a 53 year old man" to "well, nothing clinically wrong here, you're just a lazy fatass" - alright, that's a bit harsh. We'll see. In the meantime, my doctor suggested lots of calcium and vitamin D and to get out and walk during the daytime. She also switched my birth control pill to Seasonique, which I'm a bit skeptical about since it seems like one of those "trendy" birth control pills. Of course I looked around online and read all kinds of reviews saying that this is the worst pill ever and accounts of nonstop spotting and all kinds of bad side effects. But the quote below was by far the best one I read, that's still making me giggle:

"the only problem i had with this BC is that a week b4 my period, i would start to spell bad( if you no what i mean)"

Wellll put. (starts slow clap)

But you have to take birth control experiences and opinions with a grain of salt. I've had several people tell me that BC pills are all horrible and no one should take them, when the individual might have only tried one and most likely has way different hormonal things going on than I do. I'd like to not have to take them either. Side effects certainly do suck, but besides the whole preventing pregnancy thing, there's also the reminder of how my cycle would be without the pills. 7 to 11 days of heavy bleeding and nearly debilitating cramps plus wicked PMS is something I'm willing to tweak with hormones if it means improvement! TMI there, sorry.

Speaking of TMI, you can't really be TMI with me. I mean, when somebody writes a warning about TMI, I'm only more interested. Maybe I'm just not a very classy lady - but I don't shy away from discussing woman stuff with other women. When I was around 12, I wanted to talk about everyone's period experience. When I was around 15, I wanted to hear about everyone's sexual experiences (ok, probably still do) and in recent years, I've wanted to know all about the individual pregnancy/birth/parenthood experiences. So maybe I'm weird in that way, or I just like to be prepared. Or maybe I should've taken that shared medical appointment after all - there's gotta be some TMI going on there.