Invisible
Hi. I’m your patient. I’m paying for your time. I came to you with a problem, I came to you because you have knowledge and experience I’m hoping can help me. Can you at least pretend to be interested in me? Did I mention I’m paying you for your help?
It has been a rough few weeks for me. For whatever reasons, I’ve had a headache for more than 5 weeks now. Same place, left temple. There’s something weird with my left hand/arm too. I’ve also been kind of depressed. Maybe these things are related, maybe not, but I was concerned so I went to my family doctor. Let me say right now that I do like her and have no issue with her care. She always has time to listen to my concerns, and even my thoughts on why things are falling apart. She makes me a participant in my care and I like that.
She did some tests and though she was pretty sure things were stress related she wanted me to see a neurologist just to make sure. I should see one for my migraines anyhow, I just never got around to it. So I made the appointment and then did some blood work to rule out a thyroid issue, pregnancy and menopause. Good on all that.
My neurologist appointment was scheduled for Nov 8 and in the meantime I thought seeing a therapist might be a good idea as well. If it’s stress then we should figure out what’s going on, right? I got a recommendation from a friend and made that appointment for Oct. 30th.
The therapist was late. His office was unmarked. I felt like I was waiting for back alley head shrinking. Awesome. He arrives, opens the office and hands me paperwork to fill out while he does whatever needs to be done. We finally go into an office and start to talk. Well, he talks. He asks random questions about my background, eventually why I’m there. His phone rings. He answers it. It’s an insurance company (he tells me). He leaves, comes back, I can’t remember what we were talking about. He asks about drug use. The way he was asking I sort of wondered if he was looking for a connection. I mean, do I look like I use cocaine? Does anything about me suggest “speed”? Sigh.
He assumes I am there to find myself. Why would you assume anything? Why not ask me? I’m right there. I say no, I know who I am. He is relieved because then apparently I’d have to go to California. Crappy joke. I look at him oddly and tell him I was born in California. He then says “Oh! So your parents are hippies!” I then tell him if my father was alive he’d plant his food very far up his ass. I was sort of over this guy.
The phone rang twice more. He answered each time. Obviously I’m not important. I left with the thought that I can’t even pay someone to be interested in me. If I was in a more delicate mental state I probably would have gone off and driven into a brick wall. I will not be going back to see him.
Friday I got a call from the neurologist’s office. He won’t be in the day I have my appointment scheduled, but they have a cancelation so can I come over NOW? Um…okay. So I leave my work and rush over to their office. They take my money and he comes around the corner beckoning me to follow. By the time I round the bend he is at the end of the hall and disappearing into a room. I run to catch up. He fires questions at me and I try to answer. No time to think (maybe that’s the point?) and at one point I lost my words. This didn’t slow him down a bit. He asked about medications, I don’t know off the top of my head my dosages but they are on the piece of paper in front of him so I had him refer to that.
He gets up and goes across the hall, I follow. He tells me to take off my shoes and my jacket, then leaves me there for 10 minutes. He returns, tests my reflexes, looks into my eyes, tests my arm strength and goes back across the hall. I follow.
He tells me he doesn’t think it’s Parkinson’s. I say that’s good because that never entered my mind. He thinks it’s stress. He wants the same blood work I just had, an MRI and an MRA. He wants me to call in a week and then he’ll see me in a few months. He wants me to double my migraine meds for a week, then triple the original dose after that. He says this fast, and leaves the room. I follow him to reception and hope he wrote this down on my chart so I can copy it. I get scripts for the blood work and imaging and am told to make the appointments, he can see me in January and I am released into the wild.
I don’t know what tripling my medication will do, but I know there are a ton of side effects to it. I know I’ll need a new prescription, because my current won’t last long with the new consumption.
Once again I am in my car, feeling like I am somehow an inconvenience to people I paid for help. I will call my primary and she will help me make sense of all this, because she is awesome. Luckily I have a friend on the same med I am on and he’s given me some idea of the side effects I can expect. This will not be fun while my levels stabilize I fear, but at least I know it’s coming and I’m not having a stroke. I just filled out a survey about the care I received from the neurologist. He did not score well.
On the positive I know I’m fine. I know this is stress. I just don’t know how to fix it yet, and in the meantime I will be poked and prodded to make sure there isn’t an alien living in my head. But really, I’m over feeling invisible.
To those providers who have let me down: Like so many other friends have sadly said, I came to you for help and you made me feel worse. I hope you never experience the level of care I just did.
It has been a rough few weeks for me. For whatever reasons, I’ve had a headache for more than 5 weeks now. Same place, left temple. There’s something weird with my left hand/arm too. I’ve also been kind of depressed. Maybe these things are related, maybe not, but I was concerned so I went to my family doctor. Let me say right now that I do like her and have no issue with her care. She always has time to listen to my concerns, and even my thoughts on why things are falling apart. She makes me a participant in my care and I like that.
She did some tests and though she was pretty sure things were stress related she wanted me to see a neurologist just to make sure. I should see one for my migraines anyhow, I just never got around to it. So I made the appointment and then did some blood work to rule out a thyroid issue, pregnancy and menopause. Good on all that.
My neurologist appointment was scheduled for Nov 8 and in the meantime I thought seeing a therapist might be a good idea as well. If it’s stress then we should figure out what’s going on, right? I got a recommendation from a friend and made that appointment for Oct. 30th.
The therapist was late. His office was unmarked. I felt like I was waiting for back alley head shrinking. Awesome. He arrives, opens the office and hands me paperwork to fill out while he does whatever needs to be done. We finally go into an office and start to talk. Well, he talks. He asks random questions about my background, eventually why I’m there. His phone rings. He answers it. It’s an insurance company (he tells me). He leaves, comes back, I can’t remember what we were talking about. He asks about drug use. The way he was asking I sort of wondered if he was looking for a connection. I mean, do I look like I use cocaine? Does anything about me suggest “speed”? Sigh.
He assumes I am there to find myself. Why would you assume anything? Why not ask me? I’m right there. I say no, I know who I am. He is relieved because then apparently I’d have to go to California. Crappy joke. I look at him oddly and tell him I was born in California. He then says “Oh! So your parents are hippies!” I then tell him if my father was alive he’d plant his food very far up his ass. I was sort of over this guy.
The phone rang twice more. He answered each time. Obviously I’m not important. I left with the thought that I can’t even pay someone to be interested in me. If I was in a more delicate mental state I probably would have gone off and driven into a brick wall. I will not be going back to see him.
Friday I got a call from the neurologist’s office. He won’t be in the day I have my appointment scheduled, but they have a cancelation so can I come over NOW? Um…okay. So I leave my work and rush over to their office. They take my money and he comes around the corner beckoning me to follow. By the time I round the bend he is at the end of the hall and disappearing into a room. I run to catch up. He fires questions at me and I try to answer. No time to think (maybe that’s the point?) and at one point I lost my words. This didn’t slow him down a bit. He asked about medications, I don’t know off the top of my head my dosages but they are on the piece of paper in front of him so I had him refer to that.
He gets up and goes across the hall, I follow. He tells me to take off my shoes and my jacket, then leaves me there for 10 minutes. He returns, tests my reflexes, looks into my eyes, tests my arm strength and goes back across the hall. I follow.
He tells me he doesn’t think it’s Parkinson’s. I say that’s good because that never entered my mind. He thinks it’s stress. He wants the same blood work I just had, an MRI and an MRA. He wants me to call in a week and then he’ll see me in a few months. He wants me to double my migraine meds for a week, then triple the original dose after that. He says this fast, and leaves the room. I follow him to reception and hope he wrote this down on my chart so I can copy it. I get scripts for the blood work and imaging and am told to make the appointments, he can see me in January and I am released into the wild.
I don’t know what tripling my medication will do, but I know there are a ton of side effects to it. I know I’ll need a new prescription, because my current won’t last long with the new consumption.
Once again I am in my car, feeling like I am somehow an inconvenience to people I paid for help. I will call my primary and she will help me make sense of all this, because she is awesome. Luckily I have a friend on the same med I am on and he’s given me some idea of the side effects I can expect. This will not be fun while my levels stabilize I fear, but at least I know it’s coming and I’m not having a stroke. I just filled out a survey about the care I received from the neurologist. He did not score well.
On the positive I know I’m fine. I know this is stress. I just don’t know how to fix it yet, and in the meantime I will be poked and prodded to make sure there isn’t an alien living in my head. But really, I’m over feeling invisible.
To those providers who have let me down: Like so many other friends have sadly said, I came to you for help and you made me feel worse. I hope you never experience the level of care I just did.
posted by Liz @ 2:52 PM
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