healer or heal-ee?

March 4, 2009

illin’ report
well, hi. thank you all for your lovely well-wishes. i can barely believe you’re still reading, considering what a mess i’ve been! i can now add ear infection to my medical problem list, to join nasty sore throat and completely nonexistent voice (kind of bothersome when your job involves jabbering away at other people all day). i woke up last night with all of these sharp pains in my ear, and one of my colleagues took a look and deemed it ‘the nastiest one’ he had seen all week. given that he’s in the ER with me, that’s saying something.

so now — even though i realize that it would probably go away on its own — i’m on amoxicillin. this is the first time i’ve been on antibiotics since . . . forever, really! someone did prescribe me acyclovir when i had shingles in 2002 (ew!), but i can’t remember the last time i’ve actually taken something like amox or azithro. hopefully it will do the trick and fix my ear.

i thought only 3 year olds had this problem, but apparently not.

ANYWAY. so that was boring, but i had to listen to other people’s medical woes all day, so now you know what it’s like. all throughout my shift, i kept playing the mental game, “who is sicker: me or the patient?”. if the answer was me, i sent ’em home — FAST.

rest report
so i’ve decided to just officially bask in the laziness and slothfulness that is plaguing me and be a complete slug until monday. that will be a full TEN days off from working out, something i did not give my hip last time it started hurting. in fact, i can’t remember the last time it’s been this long — probably several years! i’m not saying that on monday i’m expecting to jump on and then be able to run the marathon just fine, but i think i’m sort of due for a break anyway.

i have also made an appointment with a chiropractor that practices the active release technique (ART) that jess raves about. some people have already raised their eyebrows at me about this, but a) i trust jess, she is a rockstar! and b) i have had zero success getting help for my hip from those in ‘traditional medicine’, so . . . why not? it’s covered by my insurance, and they seem to do a lot of physical-therapy type treatments (exercises, stretching) that may be effective for my kind of injury. plus, i’ll admit it — i’m curious to see what they do differently than we do to treat pain. so hopefully it will not only be helpful, but it will be a learning experience. i will vouch for the fact that in my medical education, my knowledge base about sports injuries and treating musculoskeletal complaints in general is BAD, VERY BAD. this is because

a) i SUCK at anatomy because of visuospatial issues
b) i actually find it incredibly boring
c) it hurts my head
d) you really don’t need to learn much about this stuff to pass all the exams you’ll ever need to pass to be an MD.

anyway, i digress. but the appointment is tuesday, and i’m looking forward to it!

fun report
even in the midst of my misery, i managed to have a great night last night. one of my oldest childhood friends, laura, was passing through on her way from DC to drive across country (lucky!) and we hosted her for the night. we go WAYYYYY back to young elementary school years, when i would feel like a total badass for getting on the train and making the two hour journey from philadelphia to DC. once there, we would do crazy things like go to the MALL by metro (so that we could peruse gap kids and limited too!) and eat ice cream with pretzels. PRETZELS, i tell you — crazy! anyway, she is as awesome as she ever was, and we have always had fun together, whether we were eating craptastic chinese food and going to the hardware store the day after thanksgiving (why, parents, WHY?) or just holing up in a chapel hill apartment and cooking up some MARTHA action.

here she is, holding up our masterpiece! she said i could feature her here, don’t worry.

doin’ time: food close-up — apricot-glazed pork chop, broccoli with orange sauce, and — no, they’re NOT beets — roasted purple sweet potato rounds! NC-grown, exotic, and delicoius!

2 Comments

  • Reply Cindy March 10, 2019 at 7:29 pm

    pretzels and icecream is a brilliant idea. i love salty-sweet. it reminds me of my friend who taught me to dip my fries into my frosty at wendy’s (feel free to throw up now).

  • Reply Jess March 10, 2019 at 7:29 pm

    I can’t wait to hear your opinion on ART. Hope your doc is as great as mine and it works wonders for your hip.

  • Leave a Reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.