The counter-productiveness of self-preservation

July 27, 2011

I need a job.  Well, I need an income, but I don’t have a trust fund or a wealthy spouse, so I guess I need a job. The more I work, the worse I feel, so I’m looking for ways to cut back my hours.  In the meantime, I have a basic 9-5.

I also need doctors.  Like it or not, I need them.  This week, I need them to help me find a new long-term treatment.  This is not a pleasant prospect.

So on top of having a lousy appointment to discuss long-term treatments which will no doubt have horrible side affects, I also have to wake up an hour early for the appointment, which will make me feel horrible all day, and then I have to work an hour late to make up for coming in late due to the appointment.  It’s going to be one long-ass day.

And that’s what happens when I try to take care of myself by balancing a job and my health.  Yikes.

Leave a Comment » | Job, Medication, Rants | Permalink
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Medications vs. Symptoms: Can there be a winner?

July 26, 2011

I’ve noticed that so-called “healthy” people often think of medications as cure-alls.  Have an ear infection?  Take some antibiotics and viola!  All better!  Gee, that was so easy.  But venture beyond your basic, easily-diagnosed, known-cure issues, and it gets more complicated.  Constantly queasy?  Take this and you’ll just be constipated instead.  Trouble breathing?  Just use an inhaler.  Oh, but watch out for the jitters.  Auto-immune issues?  Would you prefer the drug that will make you permanently infertile, or should we just skip that and go right to chemo?  Oh yeah, these are real fun decisions to make.

The thing is, in the big battle between the side effects of meds and the symptoms of illness, there’s no winner.  When the symptoms are worse than the side effects, it’s time to take the meds, but that doesn’t make it fun and it certainly doesn’t make it easy.  Every day (or week or whatever) you choose to take a pill or get a shot or otherwise receive something that you know will make you feel horrible.  But hey, it’s not as bad as what it’s preventing, so that makes it ok, right?  Well, maybe not.  At the moment, we work with the options we’ve got.    Still, that doesn’t mean I like the options.

1 Comment | Decisions, Medication, Rants | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

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