The good and the bad

I'll start with the good:  M.E. energy and fluiness wise I'm doing very well.  Not that I don't still feel ill all the time, but significantly less so than usual.  In fact, I'm feeling better than I have in a long time.  This is good, this is really good.  I'll take it! I mean it's only been a week, if even, but it's something.

Am I resting and storing up my energy....letting it go towards healing and all that - or what my specialist called "putting money in the bank"?  Absolutely not!  I am the worst at resting when I'm doing well.  Actually, I am laying around doing nothing a lot, but I've been more active as well.  Short little walks (3/4 blocks), a few errands, I even went to market with a friend last weekend on a very short outing!

So that's the good.  And I hope I don't wake up feeling terrible tomorrow because I wrote this (I seem to be jinxed that way).

And the bad:  I had an appointment with my NP (Nurse Practitioner) and took my blood pressure heart rate monitor with me and showed her some of the lower ones and the high standing heart rates.  I think I had a 76/44 on there and a heart rate of over 150 just from standing.  I thought maybe we could try something treatment wise.  She was quite keen on the idea (almost more than me, I'm hesitant to try anything drug-wise).

But unfortunately she consulted the GP she works with later that day and phoned to say they would not treat the POTS (which is fine by me, I've managed it for 11 years) but instead send me to a cardiologist!  Oh how exciting, another arrogant specialist who knows nothing about M.E., lucky me.

I really have a phobia of Drs., especially new ones at this point in my illness career.  Although isn't a phobia an irrational fear?  My fear is based on copious negative experiences with Drs., so what is a rational fear called?

I do not want to see a cardiologist for a number of reasons: First, I don't want to do any more testing for something I already know I have.  I have OI and POTS or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia (which is a type of OI).  I don't want to be signed up for a bunch of tests and exams and go through a whole rigmarole just so he can figure it out.  I've also been 'treated' with medications by various Dr.s who will not acknowledge or accommodate that for some strange reason I am VERY sensitive to them.

I've calmed down a little since the phone call.  I can always play it by ear.  If I get a bad feeling from the start and he is about to send me for 10 different procedures, I will activate my rights.  I don't have to do anything I don't want to I guess.  Sometimes this is hard to remember when I am always in the vulnerable role of sick patient.

Trying to be positive, if I imagine a 'best case' scenario, he's heard of both M.E. and POTS, looks through my BPs and HRs (Heart Rates) and tries something to which I don't have major side effects and said trial treatment lowers my heart rate so I can be upright more, improving my quality of life....can you imagine??  I am laughing writing this it seems so absurd.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm going to share my recent print. It actually looks pretty cool from a distance, although it looks too much like a simple painting than a carved print for my liking.  Up close, I don't like it as much. This print was inspired by my time in Minnesota.  I spent a lot of hours laying in the hammock at my friends' in the sunny autumn weather looking up at the ravens flying and playing above.  During that time, the leaves were changing and the aspens were a brilliant gold.  So I combined the two and went for a view 'looking up'.