I went to see my doctor today because my xanax prescription fucking expired before I got the last refill.
I guess this is a good thing. I guess it means my anxiety has been thrumming along at mostly normal levels.
This doctor is awesome. He never makes me wait, he’s friendly and has never once condescended to me. He will also give me ambien 6 months at a time. He holds a special place in my heart.
The nurse who took me back to the room was friendly. She didn’t mind when I said I wanted to skip the scale part. I was there for goddamn anti-anxiety medicine, no point in getting the anxiety ramped up.
She signed into her computer and brought my chart up.
Nurse: Okay, what diagnosis are we going to give? You really have to be careful about recording a diagnosis.
Me: I can imagine. I mean, it would suck if you came in with a broken leg and had the diagnosis as emphysema. I would have to think the treatment would be different.
Nurse: Well, no. I mean that once it’s recorded, then that information is available and it can be harmful.
Me: So, you wouldn’t want the ‘serial killer’ diagnosis.
Nurse: That’s not a diagnosis.
Me: Well, if it were, you probably really wouldn’t want to catch serial killer. I mean, you could want to catch a serial killer. If you were a cop. Or had hero fantasies.
Nurse: Why don’t we take your blood pressure now?
Like I said, she was very nice. But she didn’t seem interested in having a meaningful conversation.
It would be kind of funny if ‘serial killer’ were a diagnosis.
Bob: Dude, I had to go to the doctor. You are never going to believe what I came down with.
George: I thought you sounded like shit, what did the doctor say?
Bob: I have serial killer.
George: Serial killer isn’t a diagnosis. You can’t catch serial killer.
Bob: You have no idea how much Cap’n Crunch I ate as a kid.
George: That’s not even funny.
Bob: The treatment is even less funny.
George: Fine, I will ask. How do they treat serial killer?
Bob: Oddly enough, it’s a series of shots right in the ear drum and I have to watch reruns of the Donny and Marie show for 3 straight weeks.
George: Oh, that is horrible. The shots will probably suck, too. What’s your prognosis? How will you know when you don’t have serial killer anymore?
Bob: I don’t know. The doctor says we’ll have to take it day by day. Also, it turns out my middle name is now ‘Wayne’ and I can never change it back.
George: Shit. Bob Wayne? That sounds like a fucking game show host.
Bob: I don’t know what I’m going to tell my mother.
George: Is that a hatchet you’re hiding behind your back?
I’m glad my doctor and his nurses don’t read my blog. I think my diagnosis might be different and it’s possible they’d change my meds.
I absolutely love reading your blog! Never fails, no matter what you’re talking about, you make me smile! Smiles are in short supply this week around these testosterone-filled parts, so thank you!
Thank you so much! As someone who also lives in a testosterone filled house..I feel your pain. 🙂
My Dr. also will write my Ambien in 6 mo. increments…but my insurance (I actually hit this speedbump AGAIN this past Monday) will only approve 60 tablets in 90 days. They are all like, “No sleep for you for 30 days, asshole. But we’ll let you pick which 30 over the next three months.” Unless my Dr. wants to call and argue with them…and she’s usually willing. Our last go-round with this issue was that the “diagnosis” she wrote was just “insomnia.” If you want 90 Ambiens in 90 days, the diagnosisi has to be “persistent insomnia.” Not even trying to make this up. Since I’ve been on this for the last 5 years, and they have been my insurance company for the entire time, they’d already have me pegged as someone with “persistent insomnia.”
Also…a friend of mine who just recently moved to Amsterdam (from Canada) (I know! I live in Alabama but have a Canadian/newly-Amerterdamian friend, it’s a long story) sent me a FB message asking me for some recommendations for blogs for her to read on her lunch hour. I’m sending her your way.
THANK YOU for recommending me.
And insurance companies are dicks. What the fuck? I’m glad I just get mine filled. It’s like a magic pill
Poor Bob. My nurse doesn’t like to have meaningful conversation either. *snorts* We need new nurses. Their bedside manner is atrocious. I’m pretty sure it’s a rule that if the patient makes a joke, you laugh. Duh.
Yes! Especially if it’s goddamn funny! Well, I thought it was funny.
I think she probably needed HER blood pressure taken. 😉
that is entirely possible. I should have offered to take hers when she was done with mine.
I believe my best friend and you go to the same doctor. She basically self-prescribes her meds. Needless to say I’m going to start seeing her doctor.
Yeah, I don’t want to see this guy for other things, because he kind of sucks a little. He misdiagnosed me earlier this year and had me on 5 rounds of antibiotics and steroids..but he’s a king when it comes to keeping me calm and sleeping most of the night.
My middle name is Wayne… And I know where you live. 😉 I also get annoyed when the medical profession don’t come along with my strange and borderline appropriate jokes.
HAHAH..yeah, but you’re so far away you might as well be on another planet…
Why do nurses seem to have so little humor? Do they lobotomize them in nursing school? I’ve met plenty of nurses who were perfectly nice–friendly, cheerful–but they are totally without decent senses of humor. It’s just weird.
So it’s all nurses then…and I thought it was just the one…
Funny!
Thank you!
My doctor seems happy to prescribe me my anti-depressant, but is very leery about prescribing anti-anxiety meds. I get the same push-back when I ask for pain meds. I have to keep reminding her that I rarely ask for controlled substances — and when I do, I actually NEED them. I end up having to ration out my meds like I’m living in the apocalypse and these are the last I’ll ever have. I need a new doctor!
You DO need a new doctor. I HATE anti-depressants..they fuck me up. But the anti-anxiety meds are fine and I only take them sparingly.
A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock n Roll would be one hell of an earwig to be stuck with.
DAMMIT!!!
Sorry!
FUNNY!
Don’t you love how medical staff are so professional? I remember trying to joke with the hospital physical therapist, who had to help me *learn* how to use a walker after I separated my pelvis during labor.
Me: How hard can it be? If you get across the room, you’re doing it right. Right?
Him: *not smiling* Let’s make sure we get the adjustment right for your height.
Me: Do the settings say “one hump” or “two”? Can I add some fringe for decoration? Or those little furry dice things?
Him: *nothing*
They soooo did not think I was funny.
I would have laughed! But I probably would have also made your problem worse.
I also might have tried to mimic your walk. Which is why I’m a computer programmer and I avoid the other humans as much as possible. haha.
LOL. I love that. Yeah, they have to refrain from teasing the invalids and stuff. Still. I thought my one-hump-or-two joke was worth at least a smile…
That was hilarious. Also, I didn’t know I could say “let’s skip the weigh-in” at the doctor’s office. Totally trying that next time.
They might say…oh we really need to do that…just say no. I’m not going to. I’ve done it before. You’re paying them…unless your course of treatment is based on your weight..then you don’t have to.
Geez, it’s busy in there Michele! There’s probably medication you can get for that too…but it’s probably what the nurses take that makes them so humorless, so don’t go taking any of that shiz, ya funny bugga.
Haha…I just found it amusing that she was answering me as if I were serious. Really?
I have nothing but praise for the staff at Highland Hospital where I get all of my health care. In fact, my awesome speech pathologist’s husband Peter Nicks made a film about the place called “The Waiting Room” because of all the stories she told him about it.
It’s a county hospital, and it’s in Oakland, so you can imagine the workload they have, but when I need help, they’ve always given it to me. You have to use your head and be patient, but if you do, they come through. The last time I went there, I needed to re-apply for Medi-Cal (California’s version of Medicaid) and I just walked in with no appointment or anything. It was a half-hour before I sat down with a financial services counselor, and 40 more minutes before my application was finished and submitted. When that was finished, I walked across the hall to the adult medicine clinic and told them I was out of meds and refills. Less than an hour later I had a Doctor’s appointment for October, and refill scripts for my meds to last until then. I dropped the scripts off at the pharmacy downstairs, and had my meds the next day. I have to have cataract surgery pretty soon, and if they did it there, that’s where I would have it.
That is awesome. It’s so nice to get fast and reasonable service at the doctor. My ENT? I wait for HOURS to see him and he’s a dick. I hate going to see him..This doctor office is awesome..even if they don’t get my humor.
Heh heh heh, ‘Is that a hatchet you’re hiding behind your back?’
I can see that being a TV comedy sketch
🙂
yeah, people often give me sideways glances and carry on taking everything way too seriously.
Maybe they think I need meds too, (but the voices in my head say I don’t)
Hahahaah….always listen to the voices
DUDE. That was damn funny. What’s wrong with her?!
But you got your meds, right?
Fuck yes! And this bonus blog post.
Please, please, PLEASE don’t take meds that will make your brain NOT write hilarious shit like that Bob Wayne, too much Cap’n Crunch, Donny and Marie Show treatment you described.
I wonder how many people besides me (& obviously you) even get that… Donny and Marie, that is; not serial killer. I swear I’ve never gotten serial killer in my LIFE!
Nurse might need a dose of sense-of-humor methinks. I would have laughed my ass off if I was with you in that office!
Oh, these meds are nothing new….I used to have to have the anti anxiety meds a lot more than I do now..now, it’s just as needed…so that is nice
And thank you..it’s also nice to know I”m not the only one who remembers Donny and Marie.
(I had both dolls AND the vanity-tray set!) 😀
PS – This post is brilliant enough to re-read. I love it.
Hahah! Awesome.
And thank you so much!
Oh my goodness… this has me in happy tears. Too funny. Sorry Bob. You’ve caught Serial Killer. I would have thought the nurse could have at least smiled to that. Awesome.
Oh…I didn’t say the Bob part to her…our conversation ended with her taking my blood pressure.
And YAY for happy tears!!!!
I literally laughed out loud, scaring the big orange cat on my desk, when I read this, “Oddly enough, it’s a series of shots right in the ear drum and I have to watch reruns of the Donny and Marie show for 3 straight weeks.”
You would think Donny and Marie would DRIVE someone to kill!
Medicine is a strange and wonderful thing, isn’t it?
Michelle – I live in the south… we don’t ask about someone being crazy we just ask which side of the family is worse. We already know crazy runs rampant just need to know the level we are dealing with !
HAHHHA…that’s a good rule to have. In my family…it could go either way
PMSL – I think it’s more probably that they will change your meds than possible !!!!!
Gosh this is the second time in not very long that some mentioned Donny Osmond (unless I forgot and it was you who did !!!!) – that brings back heaps of memories (and not all of them good ones !!! LOL)
Have a great weekend !
Me xox
Hahahah…that might have been me. I tweeted about Donny Osmand recently.
That should be ‘probable’ that they will change your meds not ‘possible’ !!
My brain isn’t quite awake yet – sorry !
It sounds like the nurse was nice but had no sense of humor! I would have been laughing like crazy! I wonder what she meant about being careful about the diagnosis. I mean don’t they just write down the diagnosis that the person HAS? Or do they try to be polite and give you a milder diagnosis? Such as, instead of pneumonia, they could write “cold.”
I think it probably has to do with what the insurance companies get…She settled on ‘general anxiety’
They should have diagnosed you as effing hilarious! cause, you are.
Thank you! But I think they would disagree.
“Okay, what diagnosis are we going to give? You really have to be careful about recording a diagnosis.”
I don’t even know what I think about that? It’s like you got the conspiracy fan nurse? and shouldn’t the doctor be diagnosing you? not the nurse asking you to self diagnose yourself? I mean, if you wanted to do that, you’d hit WebMD.com but last I checked, it won’t write scripts. (shaking head in bafflement)
I was there for anxiety and she was hovering between panic attacks and general anxiety…I believe she settled on general anxiety. And WebMD is not my friend. I have an unhealthy relationship with WebMD