How long would you wait...

inkjunkie said
We don't make first thing in the morning appointments. Neither one of us is all that quick to get moving in the morning. Takes a good 90 minutes or so for us not to be so stiff. Feed us, the dogs, the birds, shower is a good 2 hours. For us to make a 9a.m. appointment we would have to get up at 4:30 or so. That just ain't gonna happen. We have made 11a.m. appointments with this guy...he is still at least 40 minutes late. Customary practice for this place is to see at least 2 different docs. So the patients that this guy sees will also be seen by the other doc. Dale is never more than a 10 minute wait. My first appointment was with a different doc. When I saw him I got there about 15 minutes early...he was in the exam room on time. One of the ladies that Ernie sews with goes to this place as well. Ernie was talking to her last night about this..Grace said that whenever she sees this particular doc he is always at least 30 minutes late.
I get that crap happens and sometimes a doc will be running late. But everytime? And for the staff to not say anything? Thing here is with what we both have, pseudo gout, RA, Psoriatic Arthritis, Fibromyalga....there is no "cure"....there is only management and slowing its advancement....so I can't even really say that visiting this place is doing much for either one of us. They have pretty much run out of options for Ernie. All the meds she has been on start out helping. Blood tests back that up, her inflammatory markers that they watch all drop. Within 6 months the markers are right back to where they were. Some meds don't even see that. She is highly allergic to NSAIDS. Last infusion she had damn near put her in the ER. Just from how I feel I seriously doubt that what they are doing for me has helped much. Last blood test my pain markers were elevated alot...I hurt worse now so...I asked about having another bone scan done just to see how the pseudo gout looks...was told that they want to waot for me to be thru my shoulder and leg issue before doung anything...Sounds like I am whining so....
Perhaps I am just very frustrated with things?

I can tell you what you are frustrated with. It's the fact that you look perfectly healthy, yet you feel like garbage. On the outside, you are normal, on the inside, you are like a knotted rope. You are so freaking tired and fatigued you can't see straight. Like you said, it takes better than an hour to get going in the morning, and those are the good days.

No, I get it, because my wife and I deal with it every day. Most people never get it.

I used to be a morning guy. 6:30 was sleeping in. I got up and got **** done. Not any more. Looking at me, I look normal. But my joints are like tinker toys.

I also know that during the 1980's, Reagan sucked up to the AIDS crowd, and cut funding for many medical issues to fund AIDS research. And breast cancer research eats up a huge percentage of medical research dollars. RA was one of the diseases that took a hit to the AIDS crowd. Today, we pay the for price because doctors generally follow the money. And the doctors didn't study rheumatology. I think the average Doctor age of an RA doctor is 55. We are short of doctors. There used to be 2 of them here, then there were none, now there is 1. They are few and far between.

It's the Rock and a hard place deal. A good RA doc is hard to find.