Made Up Medical Specialities

So I took the only action available to bring some calmness and balance into my life vis-a-vis my odd heart rhythms and skipped beats and I went to the doctor.  I don't really mind going to the doctor because they rarely find anything alarming or concerning.  My old self would imagine that I had some alarming or concerning disease or condition that was going to kill me dead in a cruel and imaginative way while not going to the doctor, apparently preferring to Imagine the Worst from the privacy of my own home.  Take action or fret myself into a tizzy?  In this current situation I did the next indicated thing.  I realized that it's going to be hard to stay calm when I can hear the Grim Reaper rustling around in the bushes outside my bedroom window, sharpening his scythe, and my years in Alcoholics Anonymous have given me great regard for calmness.  Or does The Reaper carry a sickle?  I can't remember.  Maybe he's a modern Reaper, adapting to the times, packing a Glock and wearing a bullet proof vest.  Wouldn't put it past the Angel of Death.  After all it's not like the old days when he could unleash an army of rats carrying fleas into the general populace and let the Bubonic Plague wipe out half the population of Europe.  THAT was the Grim Reaper that had some clout.

Nothing significant presented itself which wasn't surprising given the fact that my symptoms are intermittent and sporadic.  That's the good news.  But nothing definitive presented itself, either.  My doctor didn't say: "What?  Get the fuck out of here" and send me on my way with a friendly pat on the ass.  He asked me to make an appointment with a cardiologist for some further tests.  A cardiologist!  I don't think I ever had an appointment with a medical specialist before this year when I've seen an endodontist, have an upcoming appointment with an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor to remove a growth on my tongue, and been advised to visit a Cardiologist.  Frankly, I had always assumed that those were just made up words that doctors used when they were stumped by something.  They'd send you off to the periodontist hoping that you'd be too confused and intimidated to do anything.  Then, when you came back later with the same symptoms they'd ask, with a smug look on their face: "Well, what did the proctologist have to say about that?"  When you admitted you hadn't actually seen the rheumatologist they could wash their hands of the whole affair.

Taking good action beats worrying about The Unknown.  This I know to be true.  It's comforting to know that I have health insurance and good health care practitioners.  No one is shouting: "What the fuck!  What the fuck is that thing on your tongue!?  Get away from me with that thing!"  Today I feel a great sense of calm: it isn't a critical problem but it isn't completely resolved.  Taking the action was the thing.  When I need to do something and I don't do it or when I need to wait patiently and then rush headlong into the maelstrom . . . that's when the problems arise.  So, I have a cardiologist appointment in a month.  Best I can do.

"I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect."

Gibbon