I'm sick. I left work early today because I'm just not feeling well. I must have some sort of infection in my upper respiratory tract because I'm coughing and blowing.

But the worst of my troubles involve the psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. That and I can't seem to communicate effectively with my rheumatologist. I really like the man -- he's very kind and polite. But his nurse drives me batty. She seemed nice at first but now she just seems like a bitch.

The last two appointments have not been very productive. I have had many things going wrong with me and I either don't have enough time to tell the doctor this or what I say gets misinterpreted.

The past couple of months I've been plagued by boils. Big nasty boils. And boy do they hurt. The boils started after I developed the new form of psoriasis and things have just gone down from there.

When I went in before Thanksgiving for my regular appointment and remicade infusion, I was just finishing up an antibiotic my family doctor had given me for the boils. I was told that I could get the infusion because of the boils, but I said that I was doing better and the boils were healed so the doctor decided to let me have the infusion because I really was having a tremendous amount of pain.

But then in the next breath, I asked, "So, how do you think I'm doing?" Well, this brought on a snap decision for the doctor who said, "If you don't know how you are doing perhaps you shouldn't have the infusion."

WTF? He thought I was saying I didn't think the remicade wasn't working and that was not what I was getting at all. What I wanted to know was what his treatment plan was. Was he seeing improvement? Would I ever be able to stop? What happens if I don't get better?

So, the infusion was postponed until after Thanksgiving and once I got it, I was much better -- for about 10 days. Then my palms broke out again. The boils returned and my hair began to come out in great clumps.

Not to mention the fact that I'm also experiencing what I think is muscle weakness in my legs. I've started walking and I'm up to about 2-3 miles a day. I really need to exercise and walking is about all I can do, but I wonder if I can even do that much longer. If the joint aches and pains don't stop, I know I'll have to give it up. But it's the weakness that worries me. My legs just feel heavy and seem to stagger a lot. This can't be a good thing.

So, I called the doctor's office today and of course, the bitch nurse is who I talked with. She always seems like I'm putting her out. She said I needed to see my family doctor about the upper respiratory thing, but I explained that wasn't possible and was hoping they could recommend someone in the area. She explained why that wasn't possible. *sigh*

It always comes down to insurance. She said they wouldn't know which doctor was on my insurance list. My thought was... just tell me some names and I'll check that out. Oh well. It's a bad time to change doctors because we get new insurance on February 1 and what if the one I choose isn't on the new list. Why does everything have to be so darn hard?

She relented and talked with the doctor who said he would call in a prescription for levaquin. Of course when I went to the pharmacy at 5:00 pm the prescription hadn't been called in yet, so this will have to wait one more day.

I'm just not feeling well and I'm tired of not feeling well. It's time to feel better and with all the money my insurance company is spending to make me feel better, there should be more to show for it. I'm really about ready to give up.