At Arm’s Length
Well, broke down and went to the doctor today. Actually, I went to an urgent care facility since I don’t have a primary doctor, nor do I have insurance. That’s going to change shortly.
The examination went pretty much exactly as I expected. The doc asked some questions, I told her how it came on and all the symptoms. She then said she wanted to get a full work up of x-rays. I mentioned that I’m paying this out of pocket and asked how much that would cost. At that moment she stopped and said, “Maybe we don’t need them.” That REALLY pissed me off. We hear so much about medicine these days and doctors ordering unnecessary tests and it appears I was witness to exactly that. She then did some physical tests, having me push and pull against her hand in various ways. There was no loss of strength and no difference between both arms. She then concluded that she believes it’s pain related to my back pain of a week ago, in other words it’s “referred pain.” She prescribed me Vicodin and said visit a doctor in a week if the pain persists.
Picked up my Vicodin and have taken two so far, one about half an hour after the first as their seemed to be no affect. It’s been about 15 minutes since the second one and while it’s not so painful I can’t type, there’s still pain in the upper arm, more centrally located towards the elbow.
I REALLY hope that the Vicodin helps because I’ve got loads and loads of work to catch up on. I’m going to go make a few calls, then take a nap.
Fucking crap ass arm.
