My patience is waning

I know medical professionals do not have some magical eye implants that allow them to instantly assess you and determine how you should be treated, but I expect that sort of treatment just the same. I have not run for two weeks while I wait to find out what is causing my cyanosis, despite the fact that I was running just fine (despite the cyanosis) just before my first doctor's appointment. I am doing my best to be a good patient. I'm cheerfully (for the most part) getting their tests completed, filling out the same medical and family history on forms and then patiently repeating the same information when the doctors go in, and giving up tons of my time to see them. But they are starting to try my patience. I don't really understand why it would be such a bad idea for me to run 3-4 miles once or twice a week, and they haven't explained their concerns well enough for me to see this decision as a necessary safety precaution. We know my heart is fine. I've never run so hard that I threw up--how could I possibly run so hard that my faltering lungs would lead to cardio collapse?

It's really frustrating to me that I'm not even getting estimates of when I'll be back on track. I know this is partially my fault--I should think to ask these things--but I feel they should hear how many times I mention running and marathon training and get the idea that it's extremely important to me and to make me feel that they care about my running too. ASICS stands for "anima sana in corpore sano"--"a sound mind in a sound body." Without my running, I don't think my mind is quite so sound. I find myself feeling irritable and moody, and I don't know how to deal with my stress in another healthy way. Basically all hard exercise is out of the question. I can walk, but it's just not the same. I understand that the doctors' primary concern is for me, not my running. But they should also understand that running is part of who I am. I have been a runner for ten years. It's hard to give it up for a month when I am not in physical pain.

At any rate, despite my growing frustration, I really liked Dr. Kaplan, the pulmonologist I saw today. Most of our appointment consisted of us sitting in two chairs, just talking to each other. I felt like he was really paying attention to my family history and to how my running had been going and how my allergy and asthma symptoms have been over the years. After I finished, he repeated to me how he interpreted my recent runs, and he was right. Then he talked about how we was considering several possibilities, one that I have a strange type of hemoglobin that appears more bluish than normal, another that this may be related to my migraines--that another word for migraines is a something-vaso headache, and a similar phenomenon may be happening away from my extremities as I run, causing there to be less blood for my fingernails and lips. He didn't discuss other possibilities, but they seemed to exist. He listened to my breathing and heart, looked down my throat, in my eyes, and up my nose, and then developed a whole slew of new medical tests.

Now I get to have a chest CT scan with contrast, a post-exertion arterial blood gas study and pulmonary function test, and a meth hemoglobin and hemoglobin electrophoresis test. The last two are just blood tests. The blood gas will be unpleasant because they draw blood from an artery, meaning they usually go for the wrist, which tends to hurt. The CT scan should be fine, but the radioactive contrast dye feels strange as it gushes through the system. I'm glad I'm not claustrophobic though.

The best news I received today is that my blood pressure is back to normal (117/70). I guess it was the decongestant and stress after all. Let's hope it's similar when I visit the cardiologist tomorrow.

I'm starting to wonder how much I am costing my insurance companies, but I think I'd rather not know. I'm just glad that this isn't really costing me anything.

Tomorrow after the appointment, I get to go to Martha's Vineyard for the first time. That should be a nice break from all this.