Heh. My neb machine overheated. That can't be good.

Dear Kristin's lungs,

you'll be way happier if you just stop misbehaving

love , me

ps vw's machine should behave as well

My two bags of Mighty Leaf Organic Earl Grey arrived a few moments ago. My first cup is now brewing. It's the most incredible, delicious smell.

I love you all.

Know what I don't love, though? I've been trying to arrange for an appointment with the pulmonologist, Dr. S., who I liked so much and who admitted me to the hospital and oversaw my case. He wanted to see me ten days after my discharge to take another chest x-ray and confirm that I am getting better. Today is the ten day mark. After playing phone tag with his assistant for a week, I finally got in touch with her today. Apparently, the office he sees patients like me in has completely screwed up/overbooked their rooms, so he can't see patients at all. That's right, I'm out of luck. He instructed his assistant to apologize to his patients and tell them to go to their PCP for any follow-up discussion. My PCP is a decent doctor normally, but she really pissed me off over the past few weeks by not taking my illness as seriously as she needed to. She was the one who told me I "might even be able to go to work tomorrow" on the day I got diagnosed and who kept telling me to give the antibiotics more time as I got sicker and sicker. This is the PCP who saw my chest x-ray the day before I was admitted to the hospital by another doctor in Urgent Care and called me to say, "Yes, it's pneumonia, I'm going to put you on another antibiotic."

The antibiotics worked, and I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that she was trying to treat me at home to avoid an expensive hospital stay. But I'm not convinced she ever thought I was as sick as I was, and I'm really not thrilled about the fact that I now have to entrust myself to her for follow-up. I don't trust her, at least as far as this illness goes, anywhere near as much as I trust Dr. S. I don't have many options, though. If Dr. S. doesn't have an office right now, he obviously can't see me. And I really like this medical group overall and got excellent care through Urgent Care and the hospital, and I'm pretty sure my PCP is the only one in the group who takes HMO insurance.

Stupid fucking bureaucracy.

May I have some "oh don't be silly" reassurance, please? Saturday Dad said something about a daughter spending time with her Dad before he died that seemed kinda random, then last night I dreamt I was making out with Dan Savage while my father writhed on the floor in the kitchen. A few minutes ago I typoed DEad when I was typing about my dad. Silly stupid coincidences, right?

ugh Kristin that sucks. I'm trying to figure out your options but I don't see as you have any. Maybe, I dunno, would it help at all to let your PCP physician know how you feel about the way she handled your illness?

Thanks, Laga. And all the "oh don't be silly" you need. It's just a coincidence.

I do plan to talk to the PCP about how this all went down, but I'm just so upset that I have to deal with this on top of the normal stress of recovery.

That blows, K. S and I have already experienced how much it can suck to have the best doctors caring for you be temporary.

However, my Mighty Leaf organic Earl Grey is incredibly delicious. I think I will also be wired until next week, however. Clearly my previous portions for Twinning's loose leaf Earl Grey are too much.

Job~ma and healthcare~ma!

I have a weird question. When I picked Mal up from daycare, I noticed that someone had put white medical tape over two of the letters on my rear license plate. Not the front plate, and the "white-out" didn't make my plate say anything funny, just a letter and four numbers.

It wasn't like that this morning, but it might have happened at work - I didn't see the back of the car when I left work.

Any ideas?

Underwear gnomes?