After a couple of discussions after the last blog post, I have one more to add to the list. I would add this to the sin column, but depending on what the role of that health care professional is for your life, perhaps upgrading to a dealbreaker (i.e. in my case, it would be okay for some doctors but not for my GI doc, for example).
Complacency
I don't want to work with a doctor that fights me every step of the way, where I don't feel that I'm heard/respected, but I also do not want a member of my care team to be completely complacent. I am pushing for my best health--that needs to be their goal, too. Not prescribing pain killers to make me quiet or giving me an antibiotic for a viral situation without a good explanation of why this is helping my secondary issues or specific nods to the medicine I take that slows down my immune system. Similarly, I would not take my hypothetical child to a pediatrician that allows families to opt out of vaccines for personal reasons--those avoidable diseases will be in that office to infect persons who cannot take the vaccine because of a compromised immune system. And just to throw out there again, yes, vaccines are perfectly safe barring the very rare instance of some specific allergies.
A physician, nurse, etc that gives me what I want isn't necessarily helping me in the long run. Actually, I would say flat-out that they are enablers. I might be out of their hair temporarily, but if they're not going to go along with anything I say, then I'm treating myself. I happen to know a fair bit about my situation, but what about the next person that walks in? I hope that these persons will stop flat-out hazardous requests, but, again, what I want is a productive dialogue. In any other team, a person that just says yes doesn't contribute anything meaningful. It also means that they're not actually interested in my case, which is not anything I need--it may seem like a convenient temporary fix, but that is not the way I want to be in charge of my health.
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Now, as I was thinking through the original blog post and the need for this addendum, I was thinking through some of the situations that my friends and family have related to me about different healthcare scenarios that they have been in and through. I have heard stories about shitty doctors. I have heard stories about places that never responded back. I have heard stories where I was more angry at the patient than the doctor.
In fact, I would say that I have a knee-jerk reaction to a lot of these scenarios that I need to sort through, too. There's a lot of anger there, latent anger from my own experience. When I'm hearing someone's current woe, there is the part in the back of my mind that immediately jumps in: I have a lot of preconceived ideas of the "right" way to handle things. I know at what point I start calling my doctor twice a week and then once a day and then twice a day to get the information I need. I am the politest, squeakiest wheel. Insistent but pleasant, with a lot of "how can I help you help me?" I know logically that there are nuances and reasons for why people approach their medical situations as they do, and that is why I try to put that knee-jerk reaction in check. But, Lordy, it is there. Sometimes, I'm furious at the patient or the patient's family for not advocating enough. Sometimes, I'm furious at the healthcare professional for a sin/dealbreaker against my friend or family member. I think mostly, though, I'm just angry at the situation and remembering my own frustration. I try to keep this off of my face the best I can and at least think I'm mostly successful. This feeling settles into more like a heightened awareness and some compassion by identification as my brain remembers I'm not privy to all the details, but there is that odd case where the anger doesn't go away. And, to be perfectly clear, I am still happy to listen to someone that needs to talk about these things; bear in mind, though, that if you ask if I have an opinion I definitely do.
I know on a visceral level how exhausting it is to fight for your health. I have worked very hard to achieve the quality of life that I have. It is a discouraging, frustrating, and seemingly Sisyphean process. But I say truly that it is worse for you to be complacent than it is your doctor. Now, sometimes there are those symptoms that are just going to be what they are--I have a couple of things that aren't going to get better and I accept them with a certain level of annoyed peace, if that makes sense. Now, that doesn't mean that in another few years I'm not going to ask questions again. If there was "nothing that can be done," sometimes that means it's time to get a second opinion or forwarded on the University of Chicago or Mayos, especially if that "nothing can be done" was ten years ago--medical science has certainly changed and it is probably overdue for another look.
Keep fighting the good fight, my friends. You are worth it.
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