His office is in Salt Lake City. It was a 45 minute drive for us into the city. My husband hates driving the freeway, so I drove up. He drove home because driving (or riding in the car) really just kills me and I wasn't okay to drive after we got there because I took 2 instead of 1 tramadol. I wasn't messing around with that sort of pain and I'm glad I didn't. We hit rush hour traffic on the way home and it took nearly two hours! On the other hand, we did stop at a GF bakery in the city and I got a churro flavored cupcake, a rare treat for me.

It was a good news, bad news sort of visit. He asked why I came to him when the clinic that did my SGB was so much closer to me, so I told him that the clinic that did it was recommending SCS or a pain pump as the next step and I wanted to try something else before I let someone cut me open and go that far, and that I was there specifically for the ketamine since he's the only one even remotely close to me who does it. So far so good... he got a history from me (on top of the medical records he had already from my PM doc) and did a quick exam. This is where it went to hell in a handcart. Despite the car ride, I was having a exceptionally good day which means I wasn't showing some of the more obvious physical symptoms at that exact moment in time. So even though he had a copy of medical records on his desk (that I could see sitting there!) that say in them that I have CRPS he told me that he doesn't know what is wrong with me but it isn't CRPS... then said something about idiopathic blah blah blah. So basically, he has no freaking clue what the crap he's talking about and has no explanation but whatever lets roll with the word "idiopathic" because it's big. Never mind that there is ALWAYS a reason that someone is in this much pain every moment, every day. At any rate, he said he'd do the ketamine anyway, and that if my insurance says no he'll resubmit based on the previous doc's diagnosis. How magnanimous.

All this has me so messed up right now. It took 5 years and one month to get a diagnosis. In that time I was called literally crazy. My medical records state at one point that I have somatization disorder, which is being literally so crazy that you manifest physical symptoms. That doctor put that in my records without ever saying a word to me, although he did quietly refer me to a shrink for "depression" related to my pain. I found out about it when I requested my medical records. Another doctor told me to my face that my pain was caused 100% by all my pent up anxiety. I sort of lost my temper and blew up in his face, screamed at him about how I'm not crazy (cause that's what sane people do right? ) and refused to leave his office until I had my medical records and never went back. No matter how awful CRPS is, it was such a relief to have a diagnosis. So today was so incredibly terrible. My husband said he was surprised I was able to keep myself in check. He knew I wanted to jump across that desk and throttle the guy.

All I keep telling myself now is that I didn't go to him for a medical opinion. I made a choice about treatment, decided on ketamine and he's my only option. I don't need him to agree on my diagnosis, I only need him to stick a needle in my arm and drug me for a week. Now I just need my emotions to get in line with logic and it'll be okay.

FYI, the doc I saw today was not Dr. Pulley but another doc at the clinic. I don't know who, I don't frankly care. I just want my treatment so I can get on with my life. He was a perfectly friendly guy and I don't judge him poorly over what happened. I'm just frustrated and mad because I didn't want his diagnosis, I just wanted his treatment.

At any rate, for now all I can do is wait for my insurance to approve treatment. So, for the next 1-2 weeks my plan is to sit on my cell phone ready to answer it at a moment's notice. I want to schedule the treatment for the first week of November. The farmers market season will be over then and my husband just got promoted so it'll give him a month to settle in before taking FMLA leave a little every day for a week.