#and I janked up my ankle that I stretched a tendon on a couple years ago

[mostlyihyperfixate]

So I've been sick for a few weeks now. Nothing serious. Nothing contagious either; just some fun chronic thing I was born with that flares up every few years.

But holy cow, it hasn't been this bad since 2016. I was miserable. Obviously, there's people out there suffering much, much worse, but regardless, it's difficult to be in pain consistently, and this issue is such that people notice the non-pain symptoms, so it's super fun sitting around for two hours at work waiting for a conference to be over, and have the county attorney giving you pity looks from her table.

And I didn't want to go to the doctor. My parents give me a real hard time whenever I go to the doctor, saying I'm a hypochondriac and worry too much. So I try really hard to not go to the doctor unless something is going on like I've been running a fever for six straight days and it isn't going down. Not to mention that last time this happened, I wound up going to an urgent care (because I was self-employed at the time, and my insurance wouldn't cover any doctor visits), and they decided to send me to the hospital via ambulance, only to wait for another hour to see a surgeon who immediately decided that I didn't have the problem that the urgent care thought I did (and I agreed), and he sent me home. And then I got to have a non-surgical procedure just to make sure, and nothing was found. So all of that was very embarrassing and very expensive for someone with barely-there insurance, and I just didn't want a repeat of it (even though, huzzah, I do have insurance now).

ANYWAY, after three weeks of this, and recalling that the flare-up in 2016 lasted literally months, I finally decided to message my doctor (due to the whole I-don't-have-real-insurance thing, I have an app) on Sunday and do a virtual office visit.

They got back to me immediately Monday morning. And they were like, "Hey, go buy this really expensive thing that isn't a prescription. It will work immediately." And I wasn't super excited about it because I was already taking a less expensive version of this, and frankly this office is really intensely into treating things with supplements, which so far hasn't done much for me with previous unrelated issues. But I was desperate. So I went and got the expensive thing from the one place in town that sells it.

IT WORKED. IMMEDIATELY.

I'm so mad!!! I mean, not actually mad, because I'm more relieved that I feel better, but like come on! I could have felt better weeks ago! And could I have just taken this stuff the previous two times it's been so bad??? Because as expensive as it is, it's still way cheaper than riding to the hospital in an ambulance! (Especially because at the time, COVID was causing a lot of delays in our local medical scene, so I had to wait four hours for the ambulance, and they literally wouldn't let me just drive myself to the damn hospital which would have taken, like, twenty minutes.)

Anyway. I feel much better now. Hooray.