A reminder of a painful time

I finally found a primary care doctor here. That's the good news, because I have quite a few prescriptions. The bad news is doctors aren't always smart. I don't know if I mentioned it before but I have something called Lymphedemia. It's something breast cancer patients develop a good percentage of the time. It has to do with the removal of lymph nodes making the flow of blood up and down an arm difficult, and it is usually precipitated by too many needles, shots, infusions etc. During the course of my treatment, my "better" arm took a beating and eventually just pooped out. Consequently, unfortunately for me, I have lymphedemia in one arm and the very good possiblility of getting it in the other arm, the one missing the most lymph nodes. I wear a medic alert bracelet that says no needles or blood pressure BOTH arms. You see the swelling that can develop is quite painful, and can be dangerous. So fast forward to this week...the dang doctor said he couldn't get a good reading of blood pressure from my leg so he insisted on using the arm that hadn't developed lympedemia yet. Not only was it painful to have the bp taken in that arm but my arm has been aching terribly since.

I'm so MAD because this isn't the first time I've run into this problem of doctors or nurses being ill prepared to take care of me because of the lymphedemia. Even in the Cancer Center I went to for all my treatments, the lab insisted on taking blood from my so called good arm. Luckily by the time my real good arm went bad the blood work was less frequent. But seriously, how can it be such a problem!!!? Why can't they just adjust and use my leg? I'll tell you why. Because if you've never had Lymphedemia, you can't understand how serious it is or how painful it is. It just looks like a little swelling. And even if you're a doctor, if you aren't a doctor that specifically treats lymphedemia (there is no such thing, doctors refer you to a physical therapy clinic, that's how they treat it, that and compression sleeves and gloves...really attractive btw), you apparently just don't know. Ugh. So aggravating.

All of this just served to remind me of all that has gone on in the past with my treatment of breast cancer. The endless doctor visits...all but the first few I did on my own by myself. Which in turn reminded me of the biggest problem in my marriage.......a problem that has little or nothing to do with polygamy. The fact that I felt so damn alone during that time. So unmarried. So friendless. So adrift. So freaking scared. Eventually, I ceased caring what I even looked like. I really didn't think anyone was ever looking at me. I never was one for a lot of makeup and trust me, cancer patients need make up like fish need water.

I'm sorry this is such a venting post. I'm just feeling very down, very confused and very angry .. mostly at myself.