The last medical appointment was… medical appointment.
Dr TL had a blight Disney tie with a new tie pin. I commented that I could notice it from miles away. I’m sure his baby/child patients liked it. 
We quickly chat about avatar (or shall I say gravatar for WordPress…). I had suggested him to use his photo for the avatar. It is not necessary. I don’t know why I suggested it. I probably wanted to show him off… Since I don’t use my photo for my avatar, it was also a hypocrite suggestion… I’m feeling it wasn’t a good suggestion now… He joked if he could post a photo with me. I kinda liked the idea. He is not a shy person like I am. But he needs to be more careful what he is going to show on internet as a doctor, I think… I don’t want to be his trouble. The last thing I need is to lose a good doctor and a good friend.
I showed him how to create an avatar. I have a nice photo of him, so I said I would forward it to him to use it as an avatar. I even offered him to try to take a better photo, if he doesn’t like to use the one I have. He laughed and told me I was not his agent. :-p
After the usual checkups, he commented that my colour was good. It was warm in his office. And I probably hadn’t enough rest from the short walk from my car to the clinic as I didn’t wait for him for long.
We chat about using mobility scooter. It would be nice to have a motorised wheelchair or something like that. I could go out and do essential things even when I am very weak, and still have some energy left. But riding the mobility scooter from my place to the Plaza could be dangerous. It will take longer to get to the Plaza as its maximum speed would be 10 km/h. I recently read an article about mobility scooter causing accidents and a government is considering to have mandatory warning signs. I don’t have the means of transport the scooter if I need to go further than the Plaza. Cost of the scooter and the maintenance including registration would be out of my reach.
I prefer to drive my car. My car can be a storage place, if I need to do some shopping as I can only carry a little at a time. In a worst case scenario, I can put the seat down and rest if/when I got very sick or have crash while I’m out.
It seems too much hassle for me to use the scooter considering the little benefit I might get. I feel safe and comfortable with my car. The bottom line is that I like my car and I can rely on it than the little mobility scooter.
He asked about exercises. I reported that I was keeping up with it. He asked which exercises I was doing. I said bending over (3) and crouching (2). At the back of my mind, something was bothering. I had a couple of week break from the exercises because I was struggling with my energy level. I’ve been back on it for about 10 days except for the day I had a bad crash. Dr TL also thought about something, but we moved on.
He checked my PFM record from home. With the better heater and weather starting to get warmer, my performance has slightly improved. The record at his office was even better. Now that we are assuming that room temperature can affect my lung capacity, it is good that spring is around the corner.
Dr TL asked about the exercise again. He checked if I was still doing push out. That was the big realisation moment. My reaction was rather dramatic. (accidental drama queen… 
)He thought he got my exercise record wrong. I stopped him from deleting his note.
I had completely forgot about the push out for whole 10 days. Every night when I did the exercise, I felt something was not right. Every night, I just couldn’t remember that I forgot about push out. My whole memory of working on push out was completely gone. It was embarrassing, scary and weird. He was cheering me up and telling me that I still remembered that I forgot something. He also told me that my brain is okay. Even the medical people who perform CPR forget things to do, despite they do it often, so that they have check list.
I had accepted that I have frequent short memory problem since I got very sick with ME/CFS. But I still maintain good long term memory. Well, not anymore…
Before we ended the consultation, I asked Dr TL if he could point out Amygdala on my MRI image. It wasn’t important, but just out of curiosity. But when he opened the DVD case, I realised that I left the disc in my laptop. It was the second embarrassing moment in one meeting.
But he wasn’t in hurry to say good bye to me. He googled MRI brain images and showed me how Amygdala looks like on MRI. It wasn’t really clear. So, he demonstrated me that it is behind our eyes, and shape and size of almond.
I mentioned that it was fascinating to know that they will grow back. But he cautiously explained that it takes long time and having good nurturing environment is important.
He is aware that I don’t have the nurturing environment. And it is difficult for many adult to have it. Some people goes to monastery and surround themselves with peaceful and safe environment. Life in monastery is safe and simple. Chanting is therapy. Growing vegetable is therapy.
But if that is not the kind of lifestyle I want, I don’t really have a chance to recover from PTSD. Do I?
He also explained that symptoms with shrunk Amygdala or PTSD; hostility, anger, difficult to trust, and hypervigilancy. Somehow I felt like I was hearing about someone else. I don’t have hostility or anger. The anger I had while I was on antidepressant was the injury from the medication. My previous GP prescribed me with antidepressant to create scary depressive episodes which I didn’t have prior to the treatment. My only problem was fatigue, then…
At least I trust some people, so I may be already getting better, I said to him. I didn’t mention about anger and hostility as Dr TL already knows that I don’t have them. I couldn’t get what he thought about it… He may have been thinking something else. But it was time to move on from the subject.
I get to have the moment of nurturing environment with my medical appointments. So, my situation is not too bad.
Posted in Doctors, ME/CFS Tagged: PTSD
The last medical appointment was… medical appointment.
Dr TL had a blight Disney tie with a new tie pin. I commented that I could notice it from miles away. I’m sure his baby/child patients liked it.
We quickly chat about avatar (or shall I say gravatar for WordPress…). I had suggested him to use his photo for the avatar. It is not necessary. I don’t know why I suggested it. I probably wanted to show him off… Since I don’t use my photo for my avatar, it was also a hypocrite suggestion… I’m feeling it wasn’t a good suggestion now… He joked if he could post a photo with me. I kinda liked the idea. He is not a shy person like I am. But he needs to be more careful what he is going to show on internet as a doctor, I think… I don’t want to be his trouble. The last thing I need is to lose a good doctor and a good friend.
I showed him how to create an avatar. I have a nice photo of him, so I said I would forward it to him to use it as an avatar. I even offered him to try to take a better photo, if he doesn’t like to use the one I have. He laughed and told me I was not his agent. :-p
After the usual checkups, he commented that my colour was good. It was warm in his office. And I probably hadn’t enough rest from the short walk from my car to the clinic as I didn’t wait for him for long.
We chat about using mobility scooter. It would be nice to have a motorised wheelchair or something like that. I could go out and do essential things even when I am very weak, and still have some energy left. But riding the mobility scooter from my place to the Plaza could be dangerous. It will take longer to get to the Plaza as its maximum speed would be 10 km/h. I recently read an article about mobility scooter causing accidents and a government is considering to have mandatory warning signs. I don’t have the means of transport the scooter if I need to go further than the Plaza. Cost of the scooter and the maintenance including registration would be out of my reach.
I prefer to drive my car. My car can be a storage place, if I need to do some shopping as I can only carry a little at a time. In a worst case scenario, I can put the seat down and rest if/when I got very sick or have crash while I’m out.
It seems too much hassle for me to use the scooter considering the little benefit I might get. I feel safe and comfortable with my car. The bottom line is that I like my car and I can rely on it than the little mobility scooter.
He asked about exercises. I reported that I was keeping up with it. He asked which exercises I was doing. I said bending over (3) and crouching (2). At the back of my mind, something was bothering. I had a couple of week break from the exercises because I was struggling with my energy level. I’ve been back on it for about 10 days except for the day I had a bad crash. Dr TL also thought about something, but we moved on.
He checked my PFM record from home. With the better heater and weather starting to get warmer, my performance has slightly improved. The record at his office was even better. Now that we are assuming that room temperature can affect my lung capacity, it is good that spring is around the corner.
Dr TL asked about the exercise again. He checked if I was still doing push out. That was the big realisation moment. My reaction was rather dramatic. (accidental drama queen…
)He thought he got my exercise record wrong. I stopped him from deleting his note.
I had completely forgot about the push out for whole 10 days. Every night when I did the exercise, I felt something was not right. Every night, I just couldn’t remember that I forgot about push out. My whole memory of working on push out was completely gone. It was embarrassing, scary and weird. He was cheering me up and telling me that I still remembered that I forgot something. He also told me that my brain is okay. Even the medical people who perform CPR forget things to do, despite they do it often, so that they have check list.
I had accepted that I have frequent short memory problem since I got very sick with ME/CFS. But I still maintain good long term memory. Well, not anymore…
Before we ended the consultation, I asked Dr TL if he could point out Amygdala on my MRI image. It wasn’t important, but just out of curiosity. But when he opened the DVD case, I realised that I left the disc in my laptop. It was the second embarrassing moment in one meeting.
But he wasn’t in hurry to say good bye to me. He googled MRI brain images and showed me how Amygdala looks like on MRI. It wasn’t really clear. So, he demonstrated me that it is behind our eyes, and shape and size of almond.
I mentioned that it was fascinating to know that they will grow back. But he cautiously explained that it takes long time and having good nurturing environment is important.
He is aware that I don’t have the nurturing environment. And it is difficult for many adult to have it. Some people goes to monastery and surround themselves with peaceful and safe environment. Life in monastery is safe and simple. Chanting is therapy. Growing vegetable is therapy.
But if that is not the kind of lifestyle I want, I don’t really have a chance to recover from PTSD. Do I?
He also explained that symptoms with shrunk Amygdala or PTSD; hostility, anger, difficult to trust, and hypervigilancy. Somehow I felt like I was hearing about someone else. I don’t have hostility or anger. The anger I had while I was on antidepressant was the injury from the medication. My previous GP prescribed me with antidepressant to create scary depressive episodes which I didn’t have prior to the treatment. My only problem was fatigue, then…
At least I trust some people, so I may be already getting better, I said to him. I didn’t mention about anger and hostility as Dr TL already knows that I don’t have them. I couldn’t get what he thought about it… He may have been thinking something else. But it was time to move on from the subject.
I get to have the moment of nurturing environment with my medical appointments. So, my situation is not too bad.
Posted in Doctors, ME/CFS Tagged: PTSD