March 4, 2021

Hello You,

These past two weeks flew by, but yet sometimes it felt like time stood still. I have been patiently waiting for my follow up appointment with my Endocrinologist. And today was the day. During my previous appointment Dr. H told me he was going to send me to get more blood work done, a full Endocrine work up. Whatever that meant. When I spoke to the nurse afterwards, I asked her “are you going to send the orders straight to the Lab or to my patient portal?”

She said, “we mail them.”

“Mail them?” “You mean like by USPS?” That surprised me more than when someone asks if they can send you a fax.

“Yes,” she said, “but they’re also in the system. Every facility in this network has them electronically on file now. You can go as soon as tomorrow.”

“Perfect, that’s what I’ll do.” That night I fasted and when I got up the next morning, I went straight to the nearest urgent care to do my bloodwork. My results came back within 24 hours and were posted to my portal for review. I shouldn’t have looked. Looking wasn’t going to make my follow up appointment get here any sooner and now I have to sit and look at test results that I have no idea what they mean. One result out of the 17 tests was obvious, my Vitamin D is extremely low. Even lower that the last time. That whole next week, I couldn’t stop thinking, “should I start taking Vitamin D supplements or do I wait to talk to him first.” Ugh, I really shouldn’t have looked.

Did I mention in my other letter, that Dr. H was attractive, or did I skip over that fun little fact? A picture of him popped up when I was doing my recon prior to my first visit. Luckily, during that appointment I could tell his picture was taken a while ago. I’m not saying that he wasn’t still good looking but, it wasn’t hard for me to talk to him. Until today. I don’t know what it was, the lighting, his more casual attire, or maybe the way he did his hair, but, that picture on the internet that I saw, it didn’t do him any justice. “Great. I’m doomed.” I thought. I get very shy and awkward around attractive men. I can’t help it. I always have. In school, I didn’t speak to any of my crushes. I couldn’t. Either I couldn’t find my voice or if I did muster up words they came out in, Stupid. I am fluent in the language of Stupid. Today all I could think was, “I wish I was there, that way I could be wearing my mask and it would be so much easier to hide this silly smile.”

He reviewed my results with me, and we may have an answer. I say may because his thought is something that is very hard to test for. It is more of an elimination diagnosis, where if you can rule everything else out, then it may be this. PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. In layman’s terms, I have lazy ovaries. Probably the only part of me that is lazy. We went over options and are starting a treatment plan. Could this finally be the answer? It seems so simple. But, our bodies are so complex, if one small part of us is not functioning properly, it affects everything else.

Before we hung up, he asked me if I had any questions for him. I shook my head no, knowing full well as soon as we hang up and I could speak again, I’d have tons. Now, I am sitting here thinking, “if I wasn’t such a girl earlier, I might have been able to ask him what the best time of day to take my Vitamin D supplement was.”

xoxo