I’ve long sense come to the conclusion that I will never again go to an easy doctor’s appointment (unless of course it is for somebody else). I get poked and prodded, lose a liter of blood, and always thank sweet baby Jesus that there are no cameras in the bathroom while I am trying to pee in a cup. For the last four years, this has been my constant. I have a progressive disease, but I also have the best doctor in California, so if he thinks it needs to be done to keep me in my best shape, then I cannot really complain. The problems come when I have to change a medication, or when I have a new complication or pain that needs to be addressed.

I’ve been really lucky living here. Other than the bouts of fatigue, I have not had any serious setbacks or complications with my health. The doctors here are not nearly as good as Dr. Fab (yep, that is his name…well, it is Fabricant, but everyone calls him Fab), but they have been pretty good about getting me the medication I need. That was a fun process because a lot of the brands I was taking at home are not available here. That was sorted easily enough, and after the initial appointment, none of the doctors that I saw ever questioned what I was taking.

Today I got the doctor that asks all the questions. She informed me that one of the medications that I was taking should not be given to people with Lupus. I have a high risk of blood clots on my own, but the risk quadruples  on the drug. Now, I have been taking it since 2009, and have yet to have any problems. Not one. I tried to explain this to the doctor, and I pointed out that for the last 7 months the doctors here have been prescribing it to me without worry. She gave a speech about good medical practice and some other stuff that I didn’t listen to, but at the end, she told me she was not going to authorize the prescription, and then she put a note in my file about it so the other doctors that I could have seen would know that I was now blacklisted.

I will not be able to visit any doctor in the area to get the pills…road trip anyone? (I realize this makes me sound like a drug addict, and I promise I am not, but I don’t really like that I’ve seen 9 doctors since I was here and 8 of them were fine with my risk of blood clots).

I do have to appreciate the concern though. The only way that I found out about the Lupus was taking a pill that reacted with it my senior year of college. That was the year my kidneys stopped working, I lost 30 lbs, and was an all around sick lady. I really don’t need a repeat of that.

The only small victory that I got was being able to sweet talk her into filling three months worth of everything else. That buys me some time to figure out how to get insurance once I am back in California.

In the meantime, if someone wants to build me a new immune system that doesn’t want to eat itself, I would be forever in your debt.