Quack Quack

I had wanted to write a little rant about my quack doctor, but I'm too tired right now. I walked to see the nearest doctor - wasn't easy for me when my chest pains, fast pulse and labored breathing afforded me a pace slightly faster than a sloth. Two old men with canes passed by while I was clutching my chest and poked me to make me walk faster, while laughing derisively. Okay, that last bit didn't happen, but yeah it did take me a while to reach there.

Anyway, I told the doctor I'm worried about my cardiovascular situation and he went "Heart problems? At your age?" in a disbelieving tone. Yes, another one slipped through the cracks of med school. I told him I have hypertension and he did his quacky listen to my heart with the stethoscope thing and asked "Did you just run here?". I would have walked out of Mr. Quack's clinic if the walk here hadn't already used up all of my remaining energy. Fuckwit.

I told him patiently (which isn't hard to do when you have to work hard just to breath) that no, I walked very slowly. I tried to make it simple for him by putting things into words he can understand but unfortunately he believes he knows more about my body than me. He tapped me a couple of times on the stomach and said "I think it's acute gastritis. I'll give you some pills for that."

Oh, for crying out loud...

I told him to measure my BP at rest, which thankfully was a relatively low 170/95. The second measure yielded the same results, so I'm not bothered about it. Call me when it's 220 systolic. ;) I think my pulse rate knocked some quackiness out of him though...he measured me at several points and finally said that I had a very strangely strong and rapid pulse. Well no shit Sherlock, I've been having chest pains, shortness of breath and I don't even need to feel myself to hear the pulse beating.

Now here's the thing. He made a quick decision to wash his hands of me and suddenly said, "Oh, you're still young, perhaps you just had too much coffee or something. I'll give you some pills for the chest pain, but I think it's probably acute gastritis so I'll give you some of that as well, and you can take it easy and sleep tonight, I'll give you two sleeping tablets".

The "chest pain pills" were Buscopan (hyoscine-N-butylbromide), let's give him a big round of appause for prescribing that to a patient with hypertension and tachycardia @ 180 (sustained).

Oh, and those "sleeping pills"? They're just two Stilnox (zolpidem) tablets. With my benzodiazepine tolerance, he'll have better luck reanimating the dead.

Fucking Quack, I'll stick to my lorazepam prescription to control the problems until I see a real cardiologist. This one is the GP you see when you catch a cold, anything more complicated would be way above his league.

My apologies for not being my usual self today, I'm irritable from the high body load all this is giving me. It's a good thing I already wrote the next Melbourne post on Satuday, so I'll just upload the photos and the post will be up in a while. I'll be fine, I'll go to sleep soon and wake up anticipation for the work that's lying in wait for me. Whee!

Hey, I did write a mini rant after all.