One Year Later

In four days my daughter will be one year old.  In some ways it's been the shortest year of my life but in some ways it's been the longest.  Time spent in pain and sickness goes very slowly.  It will also be the unofficial one year anniversary of the intrusion of Fibromyalgia into my life.  I think I was symptomatic during my pregnancy too but my doctor just kept writing my intense fatigue off as "a pregnancy thing".

Speaking about my doctor, she has yet to respond to  my calls and note.  It's been about three weeks now.  I made an appointment with her for my daughters one year check-up on March first so she'll have no choice but to talk to me then.  My doctor is really a very compassionate dedicated person as well as a skilled physician but working in a small island clinic can be overwhelming for even the best doctor.  I think there are only three doctors in the clinic and they are expected to be on-call in the ER on alternating weeks.  I guess I'll give her a pass this time.

In the meantime I'm doing ok.  As I type this, the joints in my hands are throbbing with a dull pain.  I did a really easy Yoga routine this morning. I think it helped a bit.  The stretching felt good if nothing else.  The fatigue seems to be a tiny bit better this week.  Maybe my new healthier diet has something to do with it but it could be a coincidence.

I watched the film Sicko by Michael Moore a few days ago.  Wow. I knew about many of the issues covered (regarding the heath care system in the US) but I was still shocked to see how so many lives had been ruined or even had ended due to the criminal system we have which puts money before the health of the citizens of our country.  Anyway, I'll get off my soap box for now because I could go on and on.  The film got me thinking, it showed actual health care facilities in other countries (France, Canada, Cuba, etc) and spoke with their doctors and patients.  The care the patients were receiving was much better than I've ever gotten.  In some cases the doctor even visited his patients at home after a procedure.  An inhaler canister a US patient in the film paid $120 for (2 per month) was the equivalent of $.05 in Cuba. I was shocked!  Why do we allow this exploitation!??  I don't understand (oops stepped up on the soapbox again for a minute - sorry). 

I have a friend who just returned from Colombia where she had several very complicated oral surgeries that were going to cost over $100,000 in the US.  The final cost for the Colombian procedure, her housing while she was there (two weeks) and airfare together cost only 1/4 the amount it would have cost in the US.  Not to mention she was very happy with the work that was done and kept remarking about the kindness of the people there.  You can actually hire a sort of "travel agent" to set up procedures for you in other countries including arranging flights, transportation while you're there and housing.  The total cost is much less than it would cost in the US and many times the care is better. 

If my doctor keeps giving me the run-around, I'm seriously thinking about going to another country to get treated.  I'm going to research it for sure.