So tonight I had my first doctor's appointment in nearly 3 years. I went to a brand spank'in new Primary Care Physician to talk about a recent string of headaches I've been having.
I'm about 99.98% sure the headaches are caused by stress. (Stress? What stress?!) But what if they aren't? What if my body is trying to tell me something?
So off to the Doctor I went. I ended up in a small 2 doctor office/hole in the wall near where I work. The staff was nice, and the waiting room magazines were up to date.
The doctor did the usual exam'ish type stuff. Thankfully, he found nothing obvious wrong - though he wants me to do some follow up.
There were two memorable parts of the exam:
First, he had this sort of good-cop thing going on. He more or less interrogated me about the cause of my headaches, and questioned if I knew the best way to get rid of them. I really felt like he wanted me to confess to something, but I know not what.
Second, he was surprised and pleased that I provided him with a spreadsheet of the last 20 headaches I had, organized by date and intensity. How else are we going to debug this problem if we don't have data? There's gotta be a pattern here somewhere and we aren't going to find it with my hazy recollections.
Overall, the visit was good - it didn't even give me a headache.
--Ben
Someone at work mentioned to me today "Have you noticed how stressed Ben's looking lately?". Good to see that you're taking care of it.
ReplyDeleteOf course this may just be your body telling you that you need more than 3 hours sleep a night...
Ben,
ReplyDeleteIf your going to air your health problems on your blog and worry your family, then you have no choice but give followups to them.
I hope your feeling better.
A little advice...start drinking. Seriously, a beer (or a nice glass of wine, of which I think you could ask your readers for suggestions) at 5:00 (or whenever you working people get off) with a few coworkers or your wife can help you unwind after a tough day. It forces you to stop what your doing, have a little alcohol, and enevitably the conversation will turn into a contest of who can spout more seinfeld or simpson lines. Now what's more relaxing than that.
As for suggestions (I know this is a long comment, deal with it) for beer, I like to relax with a nice wheat beer, like a Paulaner or UFO. As for wine, get a light Pinot grigio.
I'm not the doctor of the family, but that's my medical remedy.
Simon, Dave - thanks for the great suggestions!
ReplyDeleteSimon - perhaps that stressed look is just a subliminal way of saying I need more resources on my team? Nahh, don't need to be sublimanal about that ;-).
David - drinking, what a great suggestion! I'm sure grandpa would recommend a good Scotch over beer. But still, it's a good idea. I'll have to pick up a 6 pack and give it a try...