I've got a new doctor . . .

I don't know about you, but most of the time when I see a doctor I know that when I leave the office I'm going to be out of sight and out of mind. I'm hoping that will be a thing of the past with my new doc.

When I had that heart scare in early December the folks at the ER wanted to know who my doctor was. I gave them the name of my OB/GYN. They said he wouldn't know what to do with the results from the Holter monitor, so I gave them the name of the family physician that the rest of my family sees. He's been a friend of our family for years. In fact, he and my brother married sisters. So he's my brother's brother-in-law. Which makes him my what? Yeah. Doctor.

Yes, it will be a bit weird for yearly physicals. (Don't want to even think about that now.) But I can already tell things are going to be different. He called this morning with the results from the labs they took at my office visit on Wednesday. His nurse didn't call. He called.

When I went in to see him, I'd made yearly charts from four years of records from the medical files I have from my OB/GYN's office. I graphed my weight over time and circled each office visit in a pen color that coordinated with the key of symptoms I usually complain of. Below the graph I listed the office visit date and any medications, weight, blood pressure, lab results and/or changes in treatment. (Note: If you're a computer programmer and want to make a program to do this, my doctor said you'd become rich.) I found it interesting to note that I never seem to go to the doctor during the spring and summer. Only during the fall and winter. I'm hoping that the light therapy I've started this year makes my fall/winter visits less frequent. (Either that, or I've been telling my husband that maybe we ought to think about moving South. Somewhere nice and warm and sunny.)

Anyway, when my doctor called this morning he said that my thyroid has flip-flopped from being over-active to under-active. Way underactive. (TSH of 12 -- I've never seen my TSH results that high.) He thinks that's part of the reason why my weight hasn't dropped despite dieting and exercise.

I appreciate how my new doctor takes the time to listen to me. After Wednesday's visit I'm optimistic that he'll find the right approach to helping me feel better. Weight loss would be nice, but right now I'd just like to feel healthy, feel strong.