Killing a Monkey with my Bare Hands

Ok, finally on to me and the actual doctor appointment – the least interesting and most tiresome part of the reporting.

I’m not gong to make this one cute – just the facts. I’m so soul-crushing tired of this topic you have no idea. Why couldn’t I be relating my experiences of having won the Lotto Max…. or the trials and tribulations of my impending marriage to Scarlett Johanson… Yea, ain’t gonna happen anytime soon I’m afraid.

So, here we go –  I didn’t get seen until almost 2 hours after my actual appointment due to the whole old dude in the bathroom thing. Sitting in that little airless exam room, it’s very frustrating and despite how much time I’ve spent in doctors offices, I still dislike being in there.

Eventually the doctor came in, sat down and said well, what are we going to do with you? Then he said something that surprised me – he asked me what I would charge him to kill a monkey with my bare hands.

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Ok he didn’t – but I assure you, that would have surprised me. He did say that he had been thinking about my case, this surprised me because as I mentioned previously, you sometimes feel a bit like you’re on a conveyor belt – admittedly I have been a very difficult patient, but I never felt he lay awake, tossing and turning, about my well-being. This time he really struck me as being genuine, after all the failed medications and the failed operations, he and I, were clearly running out of options and he had actually been spending some time on what to do next.

He came up with was this… another drug to take, Digoxin – this is a grandfather drug that has been around for a long time – it is quite literally the only heart drug I have yet to try. So yet again, another drug for my body to try and deal with, the loading dose, the side effects, the interaction with existing drugs – which we’ll discuss in a minute.

The plan is that this drug will either work or not relatively quickly, weeks instead of months – we’ll know if it’s doing anything or not. If it works and I get some rhythm and begin to feel a bit better, I’ll keep taking it and see what happens, how long the stability decides to hang around. If it doesn’t, I’ll stop it and they will fast-track the pacemaker implant. I’m still on the list, they’ve just moved me off to the side, so I can be slotted in relatively quickly.

He reasons that if this last-ditch effort drug doesn’t work – we can move forward with the knowledge that we literally tried everything in the arsenal – we tried all the drugs, we tried all the surgeries and I was not responsive to any of them, we can move forward with that safely tucked in my folder and know we made the best decision we had available.

Now when I went to pick up the meds, the interaction alarm went off – the new meds with interact with the Cyclosporine and has been shown in some cases to aggravate the Mysathenia – Oh HELL NO! Ever since the last drug, the atenolol, re-awakened the Mysathenia, it’s been here ever since, towards the end of the day my eye gets progressively lower and if I’ve had to speak a lot with little rest, I get a hint of a slur again…. Bloody Hell.

So that is what’s up – try the new drug, see what happens, then act based on that result.. he promises he can have me in and out of both the surgeries I will need and fully recovered by Christmas.

We’ll see.

Have a Great Weekend.