Remember my exciting new course of action? And how I was going to be able to pretty much do the POTS study without all the red tape? And how I signed off from Vince to move to a whole new situation at the Cleveland Clinic? Well, didn’t go so great.
To make a long and tiresome story short, the Frank guy seemed to have no recollection of our conversation on the phone. Or else we have a communication problem. Or else he has too many clients to keep track of. In any case, I came in expecting (as this is what he said we’d do) that he would a) put me in some sort of heart monitor thing and have me ride the recumbent bike to see what happens; and b) set up a plan to best approximate the POTS study that I so would like to be a part of.
Nope, neither of the above. Instead, he asked me a lot of basic questions I had answered before, but at the same time assured me that he had read my entire dossier of tests, etc. Then he chilled me to the marrow with the following concept: “How sure are you of your diagnosis?” and “I’m not sure you’ve seen the right person YET.”
Which is to say, he questioned the firmament. He has another guy he wants me to see to take yet another stab at what’s ailing me. Also he laid out a plan of exercises which is pretty much what I don’t want: gentle, lying down things that involve no cardio whatsoever.
Honestly it took me several days to even grasp what had just happened. To be fair, I haven’t even tried the exercises he prescribed. I’m just too fed up! I’m going on strike!
So, basically I’m taking some time off from having POTS and migraine. I’m going to now pretend I’m normal and let circumstances prove otherwise. Overall, by in large, most of the time, this is working. On Easter I had an incident that required me to slump/kneel down on the kitchen floor for a while, but other than that it’s been sort of okay. That was the exception. (It was basically a severe head rush from standing up too fast.)
My thought is that normal for me is going to include going over to the wellness center and riding the recumbent bike while watching reruns of Jon Stewart. I’ve sent out several more missives re trying to get into the study and maybe one of them will come up with something. But other than that, I’m just going to wash my hands of all these people!
I just ordered 50 bales of hay to be delivered on Saturday. Operation Pretend I’m Normal includes lots of large scale gardening schemes. Go ahead, sicknesses, I DARE you to stop me!
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