Moldy no more

[susandennis]

Until today, this week has been trying to get up to meh. I went to sleep last night thinking of all the ways today's new doctor visit could go wrong and what I was going to do about getting prescriptions filled in the future and etc. etc.

This morning I was still counting the issues and trying to come up with a viable Plan B.

I got there early because I knew there were going to be problems. It took a while because it was my first visit with the doctor but... no problems! No insurance problems, no detail problems, no timing problems. No problems! And the intake woman was so nice and efficient.

Then I had to wait and started listing the other problems. I wouldn't like her, I wouldn't like her staff, they would reject me. I was just reviewing the list for the second time when I was called back. Ellie, the medical assistant, was just perfect. She collected a lot of information, none of it redundant. She also told me I was going to really like Dr. Malashanka.

She made me get on the scale and the number said something like 102. I weight about 225 pounds so 102 was a shock! Kilograms, she said. OK. Already I like this place. How much do you weight? Oh, about 102. From now on!!! My blood pressure and pulse were all pleasing nums. And, she set me up for my Medicare physical - January 3 weather permitting - "I always assume ice in January but we can deal." And then she said the magic words... "I'm going to designate Dr. Malashanka as your primary physician, ok?" You mean fix the fix I've been trying to do for 2 months? Yeah, OK!

Then Dr. Malashanka came in and she was just perfectly delightful. She asked all the right questions. And said all the right things. AND she had read stuff about me from my former doctor! I told her I was not big on tests - if it ain't broke and she said okdokey. Both she and Ellie asked if I needed any prescriptions refilled and told me to contact them if I did. The doctor listened to my lungs and heart. And spent a ton of time with me. We kind of ran out of things to say.

See you in January! And I'm done. No more stressing about all this shit. All is cool even between now and January when my new insurance kicks in. Holy macaroni.

I stopped at McDonalds and got a sausage biscuit and coffee and came home. I was in my living room at 9 am.

Wow. Amazing. And Yeah!!!

Oh one more Very Cool Thing. My ears itch all the time and drive me nuts. She looked at them and could not see any issue. I told her my not being able to take a q-tip to the problem made them itch even more. She lowered her voice and said... if you are gentle and don't tell anyone - even me, feel free to scratch with q-tips. OMG. I love her.

*My former doctor told me to never, ever, under any circumstances for any reason put a q-tip near my ear. Ever.

I canceled the appointment that I had on the books with my former doctor. I'm Team Malashanka and Virginia Mason now!

Comments

[arlie]

Congratulations! It's a wonderful thing to find a doctor you like. (Mine retired; her replacement is decent enough, but I don't have twenty-plus years of history with her.)

[bill_schubert]

So you are like the anti-manifester. You tried to manifest a miserable experience and it boomeranged.

Very interesting strategy.

[susandennis]

i recommend! it's exhausting but the results are excellent.

[yesthatjill]

My ears itch too. I’ve started moisturizing the rim and just outside the canal and it helps a lot.

[kitmarlowescot2]

My mother wears hearing aids and was told to put a light coating of Vaseline on a q tip to help her ears when itching.

[legalmoose]

Glad you had a good experience. My PCP is about a decade older than I am (61ish to my 51), and has clearly started planning for retirement and passing the torch for his practice, and I'm so not ready for that. Started seeing him right out of graduate school, so I've had him as my PCP for (literally!) half my life now and I just dread the prospect of switching.

[yshaloo]

My ears are often itchy. I got a tiny bluetooth scope I could use to look inside them. It's about the size of a pen. Bluetooths to your phone. It was very interesting to see what was in there and to scrape out most of it. My ears aren't as itchy anymore. I got it on, shocker, Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Removal-Cleaner-Wireless-Otoscope-Remover/dp/B0C1ZK6KTT/ref=sr_1_13?crid=1ZYG1KQ3RDOXT&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.TQq7oR817bbqqHrKQWXiEc1cZAqdmv7osze0d7ctrQZD-kW-8tuVDv0AlIBHVQcRINoSSRL9JPhrnaQgOxM9-fBUIa6Ka9gDzqcIkW7gw1YdsklKU0cdb-OCd61tTma5OVU7l2JzW_gSWR1uECH-H6xTtJ4Z3JNOUQEAMQh6ndnAJQTNdCaTWqx_qDirPjpwWXyeqc2tEhpNLMPxzq1ahdQ8lZjBKumBncCR-xh4BNQ.vqVdaTf521ynz3I3GLPzxyOEvVuCwvmkGsEu1sZMwLc&dib_tag=se&keywords=otoscope+with+light&qid=1723901886&sprefix=oto%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-13

This one is just like the one I bought.

[mtbc]

That's interesting. R.'s Filipino and seems entirely used to people having a tiny tool set of little metal stick things that they use to fish about in and retrieve things from their ears. Mine never having been done before, R. fished quite a thing out of each of mine first time.

[rsc]

It's always nice to find a PCP that you really like. I like mine fine, but his schedule tends to be very full so I don't get to see him much.

Official Medical Wisdom has said for years that you're not supposed to put q-tips in your ears. As far as I know, nobody pays this the slightest attention.