{ Wednesday, July 09, 2008 } 4:45 PM

My Health Status

This is… Well, a long post. Haha.

Anyway, since when I do not know, my right leg starting hurting. Spontaneously. I beared with it for around 1 week plus before it became worse, like constantly reminding me that it existed.

So I went to see a Chinese sinseh on Saturday, 28 June. She gave me a “massage” (I don’t know what you call it) and told me to lie on my bed and rest… So no walking, standing or sitting unless necessary. So I decided to take a break from work and life for 2 days, Monday and Tuesday (1st and 2nd of July).

I practically lied down and did nothing… The sinseh diagnosed it as inflammation of the nerve.

On Tuesday, my mum decided to take me to a Western doctor to see if he/she could do anything to alleviate it as I was to start work on Wednesday. The doctor patted my lower back (REAL HARD) and kinda stretched my leg. Of course I felt pain in my right leg and felt perfectly fine for my left leg. She kept giving me puzzled looks and finally decided that it was muscle strain. (Because I told her I did manual labour 2 weeks prior to the onset of the pain… But hello, that was 2 weeks ago! Whose muscle strain would come 2 weeks after exertion?)

I was prescribed some painkillers and she made it clear that she would not give me any MCs (I’m like, I didn’t ask you for it… Even if you gave it to me, my boss may not be that understanding and I would lose a day’s pay!). So I went home and took the painkillers at 2 pm.

Surprisingly, I had an allergic reaction to the painkillers at 3 pm which scared the wits out of my sister and mum because in less than 5 minutes, my eyes became so swollen (from being perfectly fine) that if I opened my eyes, I can only see 20% of what I can usually see and my eyes would look as if they were closed. Except that they were super puffy. I tear-ed a lot and at one point my vision was so blur I couldn’t see my way around and my sister had to guide me down the stairs.

Sounds serious, huh? Yeah… But to me, I was laughing it off… I have no idea why. It kinda amused me. HAHA. You can say that I’m mad, but my family was so worried that my dad kept calling me over the phone to ask me how it was while I was at the doctor’s.

I went back to the clinic and the first thing I did was to shove the painkillers into a nurse’s hands and told her “I took this and my eyes became like this.” On my way to the clinic, I had to keep my head down so I wouldn’t look scary. (HAHA.) I faced the corner of the lift while taking it. As I couldn’t see, I don’t know what looks I was given by the other patients in the clinic. However, my sister said the 4 nurses in the clinic were discussing about my eyes… Giving comments like “Aiyo, what happened to her?”
Of course, that tickled me too when I heard it from my sister.

My dad called (needless to say, my mum must have called him) and asked if I was in the doctor’s room. I said no and he was like, “This is an emergency! You could die from it! How can you not be given priority to enter the room and why do you still have to wait? Go, demand that you be attended to now.” I tried to tell him that it’s okay with me but it didn’t work. So I told him I would do just that and he hung up. I was still hesitating if I should demand immediate treatment when I saw a nurse entering the room I went into at 1 plus pm and felt that I should wait. And I was right – I was told to enter the room.

My sister went in with me and the doctor was like, “I’m sorry this happened. You said you have never had any drug allergy before and so we didn’t expect this.” I’m like, I don’t blame you. I was sorta having “fun” with the incident and was more interested in what she would do next. So she gave me an injection (like real fast, because I felt the needle before I knew it) and I was holding the cotton wool on my left arm the next moment. It wasn’t painful… Haha. So I limped out of the room with my right hand on the left arm… (Remember I had pain in my leg?) What a sight!

I was prescribed an anti-allergy drug and another alternative to the painkillers I was allergic to. The nurse told me that if I felt no improvement, I can come back anytime as they will close at 9.30 pm. But the doctor said things will be fine by evening. So I went home and took the anti-allergy drug. I then watched some TV before feeling tired and took a nap. I was worried that if it didn’t subside by evening, I won’t be able to catch my favourite drama, Pure 19 in comfort.

I woke up at 6 plus and my mum didn’t think that it had subsided enough. True enough, my eyes were still 70% puffy and my eyes were less than 1 cm open. When my dad came home after work, he was shocked to see how puffy they were. I decided to wait till 9 pm before going back to the clinic.

I went back at 9 pm and another doctor attended to me as the previous doctor had already knocked off. This second doctor was a little… weird. Anyway, I know that’s his character anyway. (Nah, I’m not familiar with him. I JUST saw him before.) When I went in, I could see that he had already read through my “profile” and did a check on my lungs and throat. He even said that he could see that I was improving, from what the first doctor had written. I’m like, WOW. How do they describe such conditions qualitatively?

Anyway, he decided to give me another injection. I asked him which arm he wanted and he said, “The other am would be better.” He then walked out of the room to get the vial. He was really slow… I mean, as compared to the first doctor. Like I said, it’s in his character. He filled the syringe with care and asked, “Are you ready?” I’m like, “Yeah.” He replied, “Ok, here we go.” I cringed. Haha. Anyway, I was waiting for the needle when he said “Ok, here we go” and it didn’t come. And just as I was wondering, it came. Oh… The process felt slower. I even had time to wait for it to be over. He was kind enough to put a plaster over the spot (the first doctor didn’t) and I limped out as well.

I went back home and that was all for the day. I even had a MC for Wednesday!

The next morning came fast and my eyes were half puffy. My mum was disappointed. I wondered why the swelling was still there. I waited for it to subside and by 6 pm, my mum ordered my dad to bring me to another GP (i.e. another clinic). This third doctor knew us quite well.

I waited for one hour before it was my turn. I almost fell asleep! The doctor was like, “Oh, you are the one who went to Pharmacy. Wow, you even look different after going there.” I was worried that he would get the wrong idea and started saying “I’ve an allergic reaction…” And that did it. He was like, “No wonder.” Phew.

I told him it was more than a day and that I had 2 injections in one day. It was more than 24 hours and I figured that it shouldn’t take that long (since Hui Min said her mum had experienced it before and it subsided within 24 hours). I took out the anti-allergy medicine I was prescribed and showed it to him. He said that it was too mild and that he would give me something stronger. However, I would have to take antacids because my stomach walls would be damaged (and everything I learnt about the gastro-intestinal track in Physiology came back). I started to awe how everything in lecture made sense. Haha.

He started to ask me why I was on painkillers. I started the story of how my leg was hurting all of a sudden. He started taking the pulse rate of my right foot and seriously I was amazed!!! I never knew pulse rate could be taken at the foot! Isn’t it cool? He concluded that it was normal and started squeezing my lower thigh. It didn’t hurt. He then told me to stand up straight and made me bend. All I did was to only bend my back by around 10 degrees and the pain came back. The doctor then concluded that it was the nerve that was causing the problem and told me to go for an X-ray of the lumbar (spine). Again, I was getting a little excited (an X-ray!).

So this doctor summarised everything and said that he wouldn’t treat my leg yet because the most important thing then were my puffy eyes. In addition, I learnt that the painkillers wouldn’t help for such problems related to the nervous system. No wonder I had to limp out of the first GP clinic. This doctor also suggested that I seek TCM treatment because all Western medicine can do is to manipulate my back, give me heat radiation and make me undergo physiotherapy. Wow.

And so, as of now, I’m waiting for the X-ray scan to come (which is tomorrow!) on the 10th of July. I wonder how it will be like.

And yes, I am right about this post being long. I’m almost using up 3 full pages of Microsoft Word and the font size is only 12! =X