%)(*#$@_!

I am VERY upset.

I ventured downtown yesterday to see what is up with my foot. It has been a month since it started hurting and usually it's resolved by now. Truthfully, the day and a half before (late Sunday and Monday), it felt a lot better. I considered cancelling the appointment but didn't get around to it and there's the ridiculous 24 hour cancellation policy blah blah blah. So I went. I don't like doctors. This clown was arrogant and didn't let me tell him about my foot at all. He only wanted to most brittle skeleton of what the problem was. He was more interested in the fact that I have narcolepsy. HELLO YOU'RE AN ORTHOPAEDIC DOCTOR, FIGURE IT OUT. After the x-ray he said stress fracture (which I am still INCREDIBLY SKEPTICAL ABOUT) and said we have two options: we can boot you or cast you. I wanted to say 'screw you' and leave, but instead I sat there with my eyes bugging out and my jaw on the floor. Any voice I once had booked it out the door and I just sat there silently, thinking many things: THIS IS A MUSCULAR ISSUE I AM SURE OF IT. All I need is some PT to get it ultrasounded away and slowly re-strengthened back to normal. Honestly-- the history does not support the diagnosis: comparatively to what I have run in years past, my mileage as of late has been FAR LESS. Shamefully less. RIDICULOUSLY less. There has been essentially no 'stress' on my 5th metatarsal. If I were going to get a stress fracture I would have gotten it when I was running 50 miles a week. The thought crossed my mind at one point but I quickly came to my senses and dismissed it like any half-way intelligent individual would and SHOULD. HELLO. At some point during my catatonic state he decided boot over cast (lucky for him, I woulda REALLY snapped if he tried plastering my leg, my WORD). I remember shaking his hand (and the hand of chipper med student that was there without my permission-- whatever, I would have said yes if he asked, but it's the principle) and then they left. A nurse-- a very kind nurse, came in a few minute later as I slowly thought about returning to the land of speaking and showed me the HIDEOUS thing called a boot. Patiently she explained it. I am grateful that she gave me a small insert for my opposite shoe, as this ungodly large hunk of plastic raises me significantly higher than my shoes, so the insert will even it out a little and hopefully save my back. I remember thinking 'I hate being the patient.' The teaching she was doing was incredibly similar to what I do at work: go teach parents how to put a tube down their baby's nose so it can be fed, teach parents how to give antibiotics to their child via a central line, teach parents how to give injections to their kids... The patient (or parents) have just been dealt a life-altering diagnosis (big or small) and are trying to deal with it, get around it, change it, deny it in any way possible. It's so hard to absorb anything that is being said to you. Even if it is 'how to use the velcro on your boot.' I couldn't absorb it at all. Fortunately for me it is a rather simple contraption. Anyways. For three weeks I'm stuck with this absolutely unnecessary thing. It was supposed to be four but I lied to the rescheduling lady and said three (only when I was walking out did I regain some of my fight). I don't know what this means. Can I take it off to ride my bike? Can I still swim? Can I spin? How am I supposed to do the leg press with this thing? 6 Pack attack with a sumo-leg? Can I take it off then? I went to work for four awful hours yesterday-- that was a treat. Try being quiet around a sleeping baby with what essentially is a club foot. I was so grumpy at work and then I got the CRAPPIEST assignment ever and of course was up for first admission which happened two minutes and thirty seconds after getting report on my other kids. Then of course the new admission needs an IV started right away and labs sent. Another nurse was kindly in there to try to help speed things along and filled the tubes with the blood and lo and be hold not long after they were sent the lab calls and says "there was not enough sample to run the test, please redraw." YOU go in there and STICK THE BABY, clown! UGH IT WAS THE WORST NIGHT EVER. AND when I got there the manager says 'hey can you stay until 11?' I said 'sure' because the only plans I had were to go home and mope. So mentally I was there for 8 hours instead of 4, then at 6 she comes up to me and says 'Nevermind you can go home at 7.' WTF. Fine, I won't beg to stay at work, but when you have 8 hours you plan your evening very differently than if you have 4. So I was running around like a crazy lady trying to get everything done, meds given, charting completed, bags hung, rooms clean and organized then all of the sudden two of the night shift nurses were waiting for me. I HATE THAT. Usually I get everything ready, check the chart to make sure everything was signed and accomplished, update the kardex, get everything super organized and ready because it is the worst to start your shift amidst chaos. And chaos is what I handed two of my friendly co-workers. Ugh. I could go on, but I will refrain as I am sure this has gone on for far too long.

I am so angry and there is nothing anyone can say or do to make it better.