"Paging Doctor D" by Troy H. Cheek on Oct 27, 2008
Please forgive any typographical errors or spelling missed steaks. It's hard to type while holding a warm compress over your eyes.
According to the other wiki, a stye is an infection of the sebaceous glands at the base of the eyelashes. While they produce no lasting damage, styes can be quite painful. Other symptoms include watery eyes, itching, burning, eyelashes falling out, people telling you that you look like crap, and the urge to repeatedly stab yourself in the eye with a sharp knife just so you can get a full night of sleep.
Of course, any doctor will tell you that the worst thing a patient can do is attempt to lance or express the gland, given the proximity to the sensitive tissues of the eye. In other words, stabbing or squeezing the thing to get rid of the pus might relieve the pain, but it also might relieve you of being able to see out of that eye. However, after the third or fourth sleepless night, it was either stab myself or seek professional help.
I sought professional help.
As I've mentioned in the past, I've outlived and outfought many personal physicians. Since I'm numbering my dentists, I figured I'd start lettering my doctors. I think I'm up to "D" this year. This is my regular medical doctor. Since it's an eye problem, I should be going to my eye doctor, but my eye doctor isn't paid for by my insurance unless I get a referral from my regular doctor first. I called and made an appointment.
It turned out that Doctor D's staff had been trying to contact me anyway. Apparently, I was due for a checkup and some lab work. They were mad that I hadn't rescheduled when I'd cancelled my last checkup.
"I didn't cancel my last checkup," I informed them. "You did. I scheduled a checkup months ago. You called me a week later to tell me that Doctor D wouldn't be in the office that day and scheduled me for a month later. You called me a week after that to tell me that Doctor D wouldn't be in the office on the new day and scheduled me for a month later. You called me a week after that to tell me the same thing. According to my little card here, I'm still scheduled to come in next month for that checkup I should have had at the start of the year. I just want to come in now instead of waiting because my eye is hurting."
"Okay, Mister Cheek," came the cheerful reply. "We've got you scheduled for a checkup and lab work tomorrow..."
Tomorrow came. Doctor D gave me the usual quick once over, apparently disappointed that I hadn't developed a heart murmur or swollen ankles since my last visit. On his way out the door, Doctor D casually asked if I had any other problems he needed to know about, and then he had to turn around and come back in when I mentioned my eye. After poking and prodding a bit, he advised me to try warm compresses and return in a week if I did not see improvement. He also suggested that I move on to the lab area to get some blood drawn. I was prepared for this and had drunk several glasses of water that day in preparation, in addition to having eaten a hefty meal with lots of iron rich food for lunch. I didn't want to have to get stuck multiple times due to low blood volume.
"You've been fasting since yesterday, right?" Doctor D asked. "You've had nothing to eat or drink today?"
"I specifically asked when I made the appointment, and I was told that this wasn't the lab work where I have to be fasting," I told him. "I was very clear on this, because if I was supposed to be fasting, I wanted the appointment for as early in the day as I could get it."
"Well, we can't check blah blah blah or yada yada yada without you fasting," he said. Actually, I'm not entirely sure what he said, as my head was swimming at that point. What I am sure of is that at least one of the tests he mentioned as requiring a fast was one that I had been specifically told in the past did not require a fast.
Not that I'm entirely sure what constitutes a fast, mind you. In the past, I've been told any of the following:
They managed to squeeze me into the lab schedule the next day. A few days hence, they called to tell me that the labs had come back, everything was perfectly normal, there was nothing to worry about, and, by the way, when I got home, I needed to take three of a certain pill that I normally took once a day, and start taking it twice a day thereafter. They couldn't go into details about what this meant, mind you.
I was told to discuss it with my doctor during my next regularly scheduled checkup.
P.S. Since writing this, the eye is doing better. Thanks for asking.
