All Hell Broke Loose in Feb., 2003

I had 5 blissful weeks of being my old self again. My energy and strength were back and the pain in my hands and feet was barely perceptible. Work was great because I could do all of my ususal tassks effortlessly. Things changed in very late Jan. The pain was back and worse than before. I was tired and having lots of what I thought to be episodes of PSVT. I had had a few in Dec. 2002 but they were brief. These actually made me dizzy and I would have to sit for 20 secs. or so before things cleared. In early Feb I noticed that I was having fasciculations in the same areas of mmy hands and feet where I had my pain. My annual exam was coming up soon so I just carried on until that visit. My family doc promptly referred me to a local neurologist who felt I was weak. He did an EMG which he thought showed some subtle changes so he referred me to the U of M. The specialist did a cursory exam, gave me a verbal pat on the head and told me I was fine. Funny, I felt crappy and was so cold I kept myself wrapped in an electric blanket. Through this stage I continued to walk but only 1 mile and at times it was sheer willpower that propelled me out the door. My husband once asked why I didn't take a break since it was such a struggle but I knew that one day off could turn into many and eventually this would make me even weaker.
I missed 8 days of work, more than I missed giving birth to my first child. When I returned I worked 2 hours, slept on my office floor for 1 hour (still using the electric blanket), worked another hour and then went home to sleep. I came back in the evening to dictate. Two weeks into this routine I received a copy of the note from my visit at the U. The doc must of been having a bad day because he missed the fact that I was having muscle pain at rest,fasciculations and fatigue. Pretty big items to miss in the history but it did explain why he was so casual about my concerns. This visit not only wasted my time but also saddled me with whhat I call "the curse of the super-specialist". Going forward many neurologists referred to the fact that I saw Dr. X and he thought I was ok. Explaining that he did a poor job in taking my history, did very little examing and no testing fell on deaf ears. Who was I (besides a patient and fellow MD married to an MD) to challenge his assessment? For the first time I began to fully understand what patients are trying to express when they state that "they hate docs". They hate our inability or unwillingness to truly hear them, they hate our reluctance to question the exams/diagnoses of other MDs, they hate our tendency to be arrogant when challenged by patients. "Doc, I really hate doctors, not you, sometimes". "Yeah, I hear you on that one."

I've decided to not correct the words where letters are duplicated due to my inability to release the key quickly, perhaps thee patterns of my errors will mean something to someone reading this.