Spent half the day at MGH today, what fun. Had a ten o'clock appointment with an infectious disease doc, nice lady. Seeing her is one of the hoops I have to jump through to get a new liver. There are lots and lots of hoops of different sizes, angles and heights. Some of them are even doused with kerosene and lit on fire; that would be called the heart stress test. Today's was easy, except for a small moment of anxiety where I thought I might pass out; apparently I haven't had enough fluids today so I was a wee bit dehydrated. Nothing three cans of cranberry juice, some unsalted crackers and a mini Butterfinger and musketeer bar didn't cure. Thanks nurse Brad, the ambigiously gay dude wearing a plaid shirt and wranglers. Odd for hospital garb.
They wanted to put me into a wheel chair to get me over to Doctor A, my Hepatologist; I politely declined and proved that I could make it over on my own accord by demonstrating the Hokey Pokey, Limbo and the Macarena. I have to go back Thursday to start getting vaccinated for Hep B. Lucky me, three move visits.
Dr. A's visit was good, she's 5 months pregnant which is pretty awesome, she lost her parents this year and her husband’s father passed away. Being well into her 40's she called it a miracle. I myself am hoping for a miracle of another kind. I guess. We talked names for a few minutes, I myself told her I was partial to Elvis, she said she like Robert, Robert Chung. Her husband is Korean and a famous liver surgeon. I let her know Robert Chung wouldn’t be bad, just don’t name him Wang, Wang Chung. Everybody Wang Chung Tonight!
We talked about symptoms, fatigue, swelling, ascites and interferon. A lot of my test results are down, which is a good thing, but the fatigue is rearing its ugly head. She's trying to get me something called provigil, the name I'm sure was developed by a focus group to sound, well, professional and vigilant? Let’s take a prefix and a suffix that have two different meanings that sort of sound like what we want this medicine to accomplish, mush them together, come up with an vague marketing campaign and make a million trillion dollars. Oh, and while where at it, let’s hire a firm and consultants to help us figure out how and why we should deny this drug to prospective patients. Provigil was developed for folks with narcolepsy, so that’s cool.
So basically, Dr. A just had a catch up meeting; I have an interferon injection class on the 26th and more hoops to jump though for the liver.
(A new installment of life on the river will be posted shortly)
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