Start earlier next time! I'm glad you're well cared for though! Makes me smile!

I can't start earlier because I have to wait for business to slow down or I lose too much money by having to take the time off to accommodate this F'n doctor. Nice to see you smile. ; )

I wish. My whole family is struggling with that right now. Cheap insurance,cheap service. :(

I meant this as an answer.

I can't eat salt. It makes me swell up. This is the VA hospital. Don't you have one? You can't just ask for any test. I'd ask for a full panel on my thyroid. I think TSH is as far as they were trained. I do have another one that wants to run tests. This time it was a bone scan. He wants to know why my red blood count has been steadily declining.

There's a reason salt makes a person "swell up". There are two "oceans" of water in the body - the first is made up of fresh water and it's located on the inside of the cells. The second contains salt water and is located in the extracellular region outside the cells. Proper health requires that these two oceans remain in balance. ¶ When you experience chronic dehydration, 66% of the water loss comes from inside the cells, 26% of the water loss comes from outside the cells, and 8% of the water loss comes from the blood (this is where high blood pressure comes from). In order to try and correct the loss of balance between the two oceans of water, the process of reverse osmosis is used to filter the salt water outside the cells and inject it into the cells as fresh water. If there isn't enough water in the body, the body starts retaining salt in order to attract water from outside sources (food) since drinking water is the only way the body gets it. The only place it can store this water is in the "outside ocean" since that's where salt water is maintained anyway. This is why people develop "water swelling" or edema. ¶ The proper way to treat it is to fix whatever caused it - ie: drinking more water.