I'm mad as hell. I'm frustrated. I'm scared. I'm in pain. I'm crippled. I'm sick at least 40% of the time from long-term antibiotic use. I'm strong....but I'm tired. I'm not looking for sympathy. I am venting.
I've not had a good week. Not since my fiasco of a doctor appointment Tuesday morning. When a medical professional you used to respect butchers you and then just sits back and gives you answers like "I don't know" and "I'm not sure" and "Just keep doing what you are doing because I don't know what else to tell you", you get frustrated. Especially when said medical professional apparently has too much pride to refer you anywhere else "because no one else is going to do anything different". And when you know you still more than likely have an infection in your body that somehow survived almost 18 weeks of antibiotics, six weeks of which were intravenous, you feel helpless. Because antibiotics for a sinus infection? Totally doable. Devil antibiotics that you take for four months? I can't even tell you how horrific. I'm pretty sure they are eating holes through my esophagus and stomach as I type this.
I literally could have went down to a Habitat For Humanity office and had some of those carpenters and volunteers give me a new knee in a totally non-sterile environment and I would have fared better. Truth. I am being turned over to an infectious disease doctor. Which I am sure I need. But I am terrified of needles. And doctors too for that matter. I know I have survived a million needle sticks this summer. And I will survive the next ones. But it terrifies me to think of seeing an infectious disease doctor and knowing that I will more than likely be seeing her for the rest of my life. And that I will likely be taking antibiotics for years.
Insurance responded to my appeal yesterday, telling me physical therapy is absolutely not medically necessary for me anymore. So there goes that. My insurance has already paid close to a half million dollars on my knee nightmare this year. I can't believe physical therapy is going to break them. Heck, I see PT as protecting their investment. Maybe they'd like to pay for a Hoverround. Morons. Or maybe they'd rather pay for more surgeries. And if I have to have surgery again, the next one is a doozy. It's a super duper fun two-part surgery in which my knee is removed completely and replaced with antibiotic-loaded bone cement. Yep, leaving me with no knee. Lovely, huh. Then a few months later, once the antibiotics have had time to wage war on the deep tissues of the knee, you have the second surgery to give you a new knee. Again. Ohhhh and let's not forget that I'm out of FMLA for the year and have been told I will be fired if I have to have surgery again any time before spring of next year. Then I'd have no job and no insurance. No stress there.
And it turns out that I can't just get in to see another Orthopaedic doctor. No one in the ortho field wants to mess with another doctors work. I feel like a building that has been built faulty and some contractor doesn't want to come in and fix what another contractor screwed up. The fact that I am a 39 year old human being who can't do much of anything matters to no one. So....now I apply to have other doctors see me. Yep, like an application process. I have to send letters and medical records and all that great stuff. The doctors review all of my records and then decide whether they will take me on as a patient. Is this seriously what health care has come to in this country? As a person who works and earns a decent living and pays insurance premiums, this shouldn't be happening! It truly is criminal.
I use an extension board many times a day that is killing me. On a scale of 1-10, the pain is a solid 12. I really feel like I can't do this for the rest of my life. I dread every single day. Every morning the first thing I think when my eyes pop open is "oh no, I have to use the torture device". And I no joke think I have blacked out a couple of times while using it because the pain was so intense.
Yes, I am thankful that I do not have cancer. I am thankful that I don't have the countless other horrible diseases that people get. I don't take my blessings for granted. BUT I AM SO TIRED OF THIS. I want a break. I need a break. I need for things to turn around before I literally lose my mind. I have cried for four days straight and I really don't see an end to that in site.
And I am sick to death of comments people make. Pimp cane...not funny to me anymore. Just makes me angry. Having a total jackass at my workplace make the comment twice that "Amy can't take care of me. Look at her. She can't even walk. She can't care of herself". And other lovely people that I've ran across who say brilliant things like "Maybe you aren't doing enough exercises". And my favorite, "if you were doing what you were supposed to be doing, you'd be better by now". What in the bloody hell does that even mean?! I guess everyone thinks I sit around like a fat loser eating cookies and not ever bothering with trying to get better. Newsflash...All I do is try to get better. I push myself to the breaking point every single day. Technically if I'd sat around after surgery and not done a thing, I should be way better than I am right now. And it never fails that when I'm having a truly ugly day, that's when someone makes one of these lovely comments and I have to play it off like everything is fine and on the inside I am totally crumbling.
Maybe I am not strong. Maybe I'm not. Because I don't feel strong. I feel like I am about to lose my mind. I feel like I am truly at the end of my rope. Right now as I type this I dread getting out of bed in the morning and starting all over again. Because every single day hurts. Every single day is a challenge. Everyday I am frustrated by all the normal life things that I can no longer do. But I will get up. And I will try again. And I will cry when no one is watching. And sometimes I will cry when people are watching because I can't always hide it. And I will pray. Because I don't know what else there is for me to do. But mostly, I wish I could wake-up tomorrow and just be the old Amy. The one who could walk in a grocery store or a mall or pump her own gas. The Amy who could hear a random song and bust out dancing. I wish I could be the Amy who didn't feel left out because life is going on all around her and she can't be a participant. I wish I could wake up tomorrow and have my old broken down bones and knee joint back. I wish I could wake up and my knee wouldn't look like this...
But I will wear these scars like a Medal of Honor to show I'm stronger than what tried to take me down. And I will wear some killer lipstick...because lipstick makes everything better.
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