Flattery Will Get You Everywhere!

Today was my appointment with the allergist. Guess what he said to me? "I don't know what could have caused you to itch for ten days straight". No shit Sherlock! That would be why I am here, to find out. I'm pretty sure he was going to send me out of there with nothing but a "allergies are a mysterious affliction" speech until I asked him if it was possible I some how have a new contact allergy and testing for it would mean I could avoid that thing, if possible. He agreed. So, now I have a back full of patches that began to itch before I even left the doctors office. Maybe that's all in my head. I wouldn't be surprised because I have a very active imagination, in case you haven't noticed. I guess there's nothing they can do for seasonal allergies that I am not already doing, no surprise there. Although he did tell me to switch one of my medications. I always find that funny when doctors have 'x' number of reasons why you should take their medication over the one that the previous doctor had given you. All of them seem to think the rest of them are morons. That doesn't give me much hope for the profession as a whole. Anyway, I am willing to try what he says, it can't be any worse than it is now, can it? Don't answer that. Hopefully I will be able to figure out what happened, but I'm not holding my breath because if it was a reaction to an insect or something they won't be able to find out with the testing. Unless you have had three documented cases of getting stung or bit within a year, they can't be sure that was the cause. Some people don't get the luxury of three consecutive cases in a year, they get a reaction sometimes referred to as anaphylactic shock which I hear is no picnic. Yeah, I'm sure that would be better than listening to your patients when they tell you they think they were stung and got a reaction. Oh, but it wasn't documented, so it doesn't count! On the flip side, I really liked the doctor even though he wasn't going to do anything for me until I talked him into it. You wanna know why? After he introduced himself and looked at my chart he said, "You can't be 38. I bet you get that all of the time". I said "No, but thank you"! He was my best friend from then on. I told you I lead a very sheltered life. I will take any compliment thrown at me and be as happy as a lark. He could have told me my allergies were all in my head and I would have smiled and nodded and said, "Okay, you are a doctor, I guess you know best"! Oh, I'm kidding. Even when people are lying to you through their teeth, it is still nice to hear once in a while. It's like when people would compliment me on something I was doing with my kids. One time I was at the mall and I had Gwen, Gus and Max with me. I was at one of the kiddie tables having lunch. I was feeding the two older ones their pizza, eating my Chinese food and discreetly, at least I thought so at the time, nursing Max under a blanket. The next day a teacher from the kids preschool stopped me and said she saw me at the mall and wanted to tell me how impressed she was I was so good with the kids and how calm I was dealing with them. I have since become a little more high strung, but I still relish the fact that someone took the time to let me now they thought I was doing a good job. She didn't have to say anything, I had no idea she was even there. But to this day I am so very glad she did. Little niceties like that are what got me through a lot of stressful times when the kids were young. They aren't as cute now and I don't get compliments any more, but at least I know at one time I was doing a good job and hopefully I still can.