Wednesday, January 7, 2009

It's been a rough week.

My parents came in from the West Coast for Christmas and it was, as always, a blast. Unfortunately, seeing them never fails to remind me how much I miss my family, living here.
I've spent the past few days wanting nothing more than to return to BC and cheer up. I can't leave Ontario for that reason though - not because I think moving across the country (again) will solve my problems.

One day I'll return home. Hopefully before the nephews are too grown and under my own will, because it's the right time to do it, not because I've crashed back into a level of depression I haven't felt since I was 16 (Not that I'm depressed, just that I'm depressed this week).

Part of my trouble, and the reason I've been an emotional wreck today, is a visit to the doctor yesterday. I rarely go to the doctor, as I'm generally in good health, but yesterday I went to ask about stomach problems I've been having for a few weeks. All the symptoms of reflux (minus pain), including nausea after eating. Include, when I lie down, a feeling that I can only describe as being the same as a head-rush, but in my stomach, and I've been losing out on a fair amount of sleep.

I've been feeling better, but went to a doctor to get it checked out, and see if my ongoing anxiety (unreasonable, reason-less anxiety) could be effecting this discomfort.

So again, I rarely go to a doctor, but when I do I expect to be treated patiently, and with as much care as health-interest.
Instead, I had a doctor who told me outright "You cant feel like that, describe it differently," a couple times, insisted I had to have a reason for crying (I always feel like crying at the doctors, no, I don't know why). She gave me pills and told me to come back in two weeks (a good point for her, actually..more than I expected from a clinic) but ignored my concerns about anxiety.

That was the kicker..I was already distraught, talking about feeling anxious always makes me feel horrible, and upon it finally getting bad enough that I talked to a doctor, it was brushed aside.
I left feeling like suppressing symptoms and getting me back out the door was more important that my actual well-being.

I'm trying not to blame the doctor, even if she did lack a degree of bedside manner I'm also well aware of my own tendency to overreact to negative social cues (and completely miss the positive ones. Yey).

As it stands, if I don't feel better either stomach wise (as the visit to the doctor actually made it much worse) or emotionally, I'm going to wander to another clinic and speak with someone else, which I hate to do as it will just tie up resources for other people. I take the new surge in stomach unhappiness to mean this is stress-related, so I plan on doubling up on cod liver oil and getting as much exercise as I can, ie. daily.

It's upsetting. The majority of experiences I've had with doctors have been good..but the few bad ones have been absolutely horrible.