This Just In: I have issues

My doctor is frighteningly thorough. In the 3 years since I moved into Manhattan proper and was forced to find someone to annually check my cholesterol and weigh me, I've had an echocardiogram, an ultrasound, and multiple blood tests for diseases I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be exposed to even if I were licking the seats on the A train.

The first time I had a consultation with Dr. Thorough, she sat down at her desk, looked at me and said, "Has anyone ever mentioned to you that your thyroid is enlarged?"

Now I could see where that's a catchy opener at a bar: "Whoa! That's a pretty impressive thyroid you've got there!" But no - up until that point in my experience of being medically assessed, no one had ever seen fit to make me self-conscious about the size of my thyroid. But thanks for that, Dr. T. Nice to meet you, too.

As a matter of fact, I had always been secure in the fact that I was relatively healthy. I take my vitamins, I'm reasonably fit, and I'm still in possession of my tonsils and appendix. After that unpleasant little episode with the boils 10 years ago, I was just trucking along, biding my time until I got whatever brand of cancer the genetic lottery was going to throw my way sometime in my 60s.

Not so, it seems. Sufficiently troubled by my massive killer thyroid (stop! don't look at it!), Dr. T referred me to an endocrinologist up the street. He had been in New York magazine's Best Doctors in New York issue, so I felt like I was in reasonably good hands. It turns out that I have what's elegantly referred in the medical culture to as Hashimoto's thyroiditis (I know, it sounds like it should come with fried rice). Oh, and a goiter. Who knew? Thanks to Dr. T's keen eye, I now have to visit New York's finest gland shaman every three months so he can draw blood, poke me in the throat and tell me that "Let's just keep an eye on that." Yeah, let's, because paying $25 for privilege of hanging out with your creepy man-nurse Gary rocks my world.

On a different occasion, Dr. T mentioned in passing that my posture was not the greatest. Yeah, well, I'm carrying a lot of extra weight up front, thanks. Like an idiot, I said that, as a matter of fact, my upper back does bother me when I try and sit up straight for long periods of time. The next day I'm sitting in the office of a holistic physical therapist who's telling me that I need to undergo 6 weeks of weird bending and possibly be medicated with anti-inflammatory drugs.

So mostly for that reason, I avoid going to see Dr. T unless it becomes absolutely necessary. I might end up having a prostate exam or losing my gallbladder, and who needs that?

For the last week, I've been having headaches. Not your standard issue headaches that one would expect from regularly being subjected to bad unsigned bands at high volumes or drinking large amounts of brown liquor. Every morning, there would be a dull ache behind my left eye. It was annoying, but I didn't think much of it. It felt more like bad eye strain than anything else, but I'd just had the prescription checked on my glasses a few months ago. I still can't see for shit, but not any differently than last year. So I'd just been self-medicating with a daily dose of Tylenol and going about my business of general bad assery.

Then on Tuesday, someone unseen started stabbing me in the eye with an icepick. I couldn't concentrate and was reduced to sitting at my desk with my head in my hands for about a half hour. I took some Advil, which sort of took the edge off. But I was officially concerned. Maybe I had a tumor. Maybe some residual nastiness from the sinus infection had leaked into my brain. Unable to think of a better option, I called Dr. T.

She shined a light in my eyes and up my nose. She looked at my chart. "This is what I think," she said. I was fully prepared to be sent off for a CAT scan or possibly an exploratory lobotomy.
"I think it's one of two things: the weather or stress."

This was kind of a relief since it wasn't going to cost me money in co-pays or hours of my life in a specialist's office wearing a paper dress. Or so I thought.

"But it sounds from what you're telling me that it's probably caused by stress," she said, giving me a look that I'd seen many times before. "Is something going on recently that's particularly stressful for you? Maybe at work?"

"I work in the music industry," I reminded her.

"Oh. Well. That sounds like it's fun."

"It's not."

She wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. "This is the name of someone that you might want to see. I think it might help."

"Is it an eye doctor?"

"No, he's a psychiatrist."

Holy shit, did I just get referred for therapy?

"I told you last week you needed therapy," Mark said last night when he called me. "You just thought I was being mean. Why don't you ever listen to me?"