I am going to finish “Too Cool For The Spa” today. I apologize for not finishing it yesterday, but I just could not stay awake any longer and I had been working on that one post all day long. Some days are harder than others, in staying awake. My depression medications make me sleepy, some days worse than others.
After leaving my brother’s place of work, we were finally headed to our last stop, mine and my mother’s appointments with Dr. Szumstein. Again we arrived early. We got to his office and proceeded to try and find a parking spot in the parking deck. It was very busy, and the only spot we could find was on the very top deck.
This is a picture I took of the Atlanta Skyline from the top deck of the parking deck. If you look carefully, you can see the city of Atlanta off in the distance.
The waiting room at this practice had even more baseball memorabilia than the other office had.
After signing in at Georgia Lung Associates we did not have to wait very long for Dr. Szumstein to call us back. One of the things I like about this practice, is that the doctors actually come and get you from the waiting room. It makes everything so much more pleasant that way, not too mention it gives you the impression that the patients are really cared for there. That is not something you find very often anymore.
When we have appointments together, Dr. Szumstein will put us in the same room. My mother and I had a discussion over who would get the big chair. Neither one of us really wanted it. My mother prevailed in that discussion, after all she is older than me.
When Dr. Szumstein came back into our room, I asked him about taking his picture for my blog. I think he thought I lost my mind, but he did say I could take his picture. He sent mom off to have her breathing tested. While she was out of the room, he asked how I was doing. He knew about my depression and suicide attempt. I had to tell him because many of the depression drugs out there make Restless Leg Syndrome worse, and he has to know so he can make informed decisions about increasing my doses of Restless Leg Syndrome medication. He seemed very pleased to find out that I was doing much better.
Dr. Szumstein is probably my favorite doctor I have ever had. He is a very nice man as well as being a very good doctor. If only one of us is there for an appointment, he always takes the time to ask about the other members of the family.
Dr. Szumstein then sent me off for my breathing test. The technician who did my test for me that day was kind of enough to take a picture of me while I was in the testing booth. This is the test I have to do every time I go to the pulmonologist. It tests to see how well I am breathing and compares the results to previous tests.
Dr. Szumstein came back into our room and gave us our tests results. While he was looking over our information, I told him how mom and I had been comparing our wheezes as we were walking down the hall. She had a whistle wheeze and I had more of a rumbling wheeze. Dr. Szumstein thought this was pretty funny and replied with “Awesome!”
Dr. Szumstein did not seem worried by anything he saw in our breathing tests results, however, my tests results were worse than they had been right after I had gotten out of the hospital for an asthma attack. He also said that in all the time I had been seeing him, I only had one breathing test that was worse than this one. No wonder I have been feeling like crap lately.
The other thing that I really like about Dr. Szumstein, is that he is really good about giving out samples of medications. He knows that even with prescription insurance, it is still expensive to get everything filled. So he gave me and my mother plenty of samples to last us a while.
We were finally finished with all our appointments for the day and we could start back to the house. I believe my daughter was rather happy to be done with all that waiting around for people.
I think my family is rather cool. Instead of the women getting together for a day at the spa, we got together for a day at the doctors’. We are just that cool, too cool for the spa!
As a side note: I think maybe I should put my mother in charge of my schedule since she seems to get every where either early or on time.
