I have had a LOT of tests done recently, which let’s say has not bode well for my attendance at my medical lectures. I have recently recieved a letter informing me the need to “discuss” my recent bone densitometry result, which no doubt means it is lower than expected. But this was the test I was least worried about. Sure, if my T-score is low I’m probably gonna be shattering bones all over the place when I’m fifty+, but I’ve got enough to worry about now, let alone things I may well not live long enough to worry about. I do sometimes do the whole “but in twenty year…” worrying, but I have to be brutaly honest with myself. I may well not make it that far, so no use in worrying about it!
I’m already taking Adcal-D3 for my bones, a calcium and vitamin D supplement for those who don’t know, to prevent osteoporosis. Long term, high dose steroid use increases my risk, but apparently what they’ve been giving me so far isn’t enough. It also probably doesn’t help that my drug compliance is absolutely tragic. I’m so forgetful, and when you have to take as many drugs as I do at different times and different doses I just forget. I’ve run out of many of them too, but I’m not a hundred percent sure how to use the repeat presciption thing at the health service and until I run out of any of the “vital” meds, I’m going to continue to avoid it. I also know that most of my meds aren’t even on my repeats with the health service as I recieved them from the hopsital consultant, so I’m kinda hoping either the hospital has told them or they’ll just “believe me”.
I know this sounds pathetic, a medical student who is too scared to go to the health service to find out about repeat prescriptions. But it’s a while away, and I’ve been so busy… and personally I’ve had enough of seeing doctors for a while so I guess it gives me some vague control just to ignore the problem for a while.
It also didn’t help that I recently turned 19, which in the NHS means I no longer recieve free presciptions. It means it’s £7.20 or so a presciption, and as I get at least ten a month, not really a financially smart option to pay as I go. Therefore I had to get the yearly pre-paid certificate for £104, but that only arrived recently. Now I can actually AFFORD to go get my prescriptions.
The other tests I’m waiting on are the ones that keep me up at night. Well, one in particular. I had a nerve conduction study done as I have repeatly experienced paraesthesia, tingingly or “pins and needles”, in my hands. If it gets worse, it could affect my fitness to practise. For those who don’t know, if I am judged no longer fit to practise, I can and will be removed from my medical course, or if it happens after my medical degree, I will loose my medical licence and can no longer work as a doctor. This, needless to say, TERRIFIES me.
It’s unlikely to mean I can no longer continue, I still have feeling in my hands most of the time, and it tends to be worse at night. But my Churg Strauss could permenantly destroy the nerves in my hands, and if that happens I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be fit to practise. How can I diagnose and treat patients if I have no sensation in my hands? And surgery would be a definate no-no, something I would really like to persue. It would be nothing, just a bit of carpal tunnel. If so, i’m fine, many doctors have carpal tunnel and its just something to keep an eye on. But if it is my Churg Strauss, the damage may well be permanent, and could get worse. And if it’s effecting the nerves in my hands, it will effect elsewhere. And if it gets really bad, I’ll have to consider have cyclophohphamide therapy, a chemotherapy drug, which I really do not want.
I’m also waiting on some biopsies from my colonoscopy, which “looked” normally macroscopically, but still has to be looked at histologically. I’m hoping they find something if I’m honest, these GI symptoms are starting to become annoying, and if they don’t find anything then it’s going to be something I’ll jsut have to “live with”. But I’m hoping they don’t find anything serious… something that they can give me a pill that will magically cure it. Sigh, a girl can dream!
Patient Reflections 