Oh man that was funny.
Obviously I’ve been working with Doc
@bbchien throughout this thing but we had a conversation long ago — and folks here of course too — about long term going BasicMed.
Waaaaaay back when I started booking my week of Medical Disney “fun” I talked to Mayo about their Aeromed dept and learned they do BasicMed.
It’s actually an interesting setup. The AMEs don’t touch BasicMed with a ten foot pole for essentially “conflict of interest” reasons. But the Aeromed dept employs Occupational medicine Docs who do it, and of course also can consult with AMEs and colleagues if they see anything they don’t like.
So anyway. I called and messaged a while back saying I wanted a consult ONLY with the BasicMed side, not bringing a form, just a chat with their Doc about FUTURE options. And of course, guess what note got lost before the appointment today? Haha.
I go in and two nurses are looking at me funny and I see there’s an eye tester and all the usual implements of pilot torture and realize... they think I’m here applying for BasicMed! LOL.
I quickly mention I’m just looking for a consult and these two ultra polite Mayo nurses immediately and visibly relax and start laughing. We joke about the crazy guy who is sitting here with a broken back going, “Hey can you sign me off to go fly airplanes???” ROFLMAO.
Anyway quick meeting with the occupational doc who also was instantly relieved. She had consulted with an AME and was like, you gotta be kidding me. Haha. Especially after this week’s fun! Ha.
Anyway. Lovely lady. She said their advice is identical to Bruce’s (and every sane Doc on the planet for that matter), happy to work with me after symptoms are stable!
As an aside she said it’s fairly common to work with a real AME who doesn’t want to put someone thru special issuance but who can answer any specific questions the occupational doc has in mind to their satisfaction. An interesting model.
So there’s today’s funny. Three poor occupational medicine people thought some crazy ass pilot wanted to go flying with a broken back. Hahaha. They were sooooo nervous at first! Haha.
In other news the Neuro likes what she saw on the mri. Current working theory is sarcoid is out of the spinal cord. Some damage and scar tissue but looks clear. 6 more months will tell for sure.
Neuro was grumpy at the prednisone taper. She said that actually was not the correct protocol for Neuro but we both suspect the doctor change, Covid, and the massive side effects led to an early taper. However... the early taper actually worked out. Sarc is gone from spine and we got steroids stopped before I really started cracking bones.
She added an endocrinologist appt and bone density test because of the cracked vertebrae and no treatment needed for it, just let it heal up.
Out of all the Mayo Docs I’ve met she’s the pit bull. “Why isn’t this already ordered, I’m ordering this right now... I’m sending a note about that steroid taper...” etc. She’s aggressively after it.
She says numbers are still good because I’m a Neurosarcoidosis patient that hitting it hard with methotrexate can finish completely slapping it into submission. The pulmonary Docs think in terms of it being lifelong but for some reason patients who present in neurology respond better to treatment. So get after it. She’s grumpy about the three month pause from end of prednisone to now also.
The one question that gave her pause and she said pulmonary may not even have a good answer and even an infectious disease consult might not have a good answer for...
Delay methotrexate to beginning of May because I have a second Covid vaccine shot scheduled Apr 22? Let the immune system react or suppress it for the sarcoidosis?
Might be a coin flip on that one.
She definitely saw why I thought the pain symptoms were sarcoid returning instead of cracking a vertebrae. She shook her head and said we were lucky to be doing imagery this week or we’d never have known.
Some of the timing of this stuff even without “wrong protocol” sure seems to have worked out well, considering Covid and world inanity. Ha.
That’s all for now. More tests tomorrow and maybe endocrine or that might have to be on Monday. I was prepared to change travel plans like always. Ha. At this point she just wants to make sure my bones don’t get any more brittle! I like that plan.
Oh yeah. Knew this already but she emphasized now that Covid world craziness is slowing to start getting referrals and a local Doc team going at home. Mayo is happy to manage from afar but she said we’re into the heavy monitoring stage and quarterly would be great. Get the scheduling beast rolling to see all three specialties locally and tell them they can contact the Mayo team with any questions at any time.
That’s the news today... more fun tomorrow. Ha. But the best was scaring the poor occupational folks! Haha. I tried not to I swear.
Buddy of mine already wise cracked that I should have loudly said, “BadicMed?! Hell no, I’m here for a 1st Class! There must be some mixup!” LOL LOL LOL
