"Will you tell me something? Have you come because you need my help to save a certain distressing damsel? Er...rather damsel in distress? Either one." --Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End
I'm both damsel in distress and distressing damsel these days. I have good days and I have bad ones. Some days I relapse and my jaw is in screaming, yammering pain, some days not. Sometimes I feel like I have had a blazing hot poker shoved into my right eye socket, because the right eye still won't make tears, and all the fake tears in the world (artificial tears, gels, lubricating night gels, and now antibacterial solution) can't make the eye any less dry for more than five minutes at a time.
And when you're dealing with doctors, I think it's safe to say, most people know they're not gods. Most people exepct that doctors make mistakes, even whilst having the greatest of intentions. And some doctors have good personalities, some have great ones...and some are trolls. Beware the trolls, because if you don't mind them, you'll think every doctor is like the ones at the bottom of the barrel, rotten apples that they are.
Take my neurologist. Please. (Enter Henny Youngman, fiddling) I waited an hour and a half for him to see me, after I bothered to show up at least five minutes early. When his obese self finally came rolling through the door, he bitched, moaned and complained about the computer system in the office and the fact that he was sneezing every two minutes and didn't know why. I think I did that before he said hello to me. He came at my body with tuning forks, safety pins (I'm presuming sterilized) and other metallic toys. He didn't explain what he was doing, and since I've never been to a neurologist before, it just seemed like witch doctor stuff to me. Maybe an explanation would have helped, no?
"Well, you definitely have Bell's Palsy," he concluded stiffly. "I can't see you for another three months."
"Why not?"
"You'll either get better or you won't. Ninety-five percent of people who suffer from this malady get ninety-five percent better. You can't expect recovery, or a full recovery at that. And it would take at least three months' time for you to do the majority of any healing that you may do...getting me involved again before then is a waste. By then you either won't need me, or if you do it's for surgery."
Have a Coke and a smile, doc. Thank God you're not at my deathbed; Doctor Kevorkian seems like a freakin' cheerleader next to you. I'd be asking for euthanasia...why be such a burden to society, anyhow?
Dr. Troll tapered me off my medications, but for my eye meds. In fact, he pronounced that I had an eye infection. I had no idea. He wrote four medications' names down on a prescription pad page and tore it off. "Here, they're all over the counter. Hit the pharmacy on your way home and use all of these on your eye. The top one is an antibacterial."
Now, I'm no doctor, but wouldn't an antibacterial medicine be prescription only? Lo and behold, that's what the pharmacist said, too! Go figure! No wonder I spent ten minutes of my life that I can't get back trying to find the top item on the shelves while the other three I found right away. You mean, I'm NOT a dingbat? It's not my fault that I can't find Ketorolac out on the shelves along with the Chapstick?
"Well, no worries," said the pharmacist. "It's written on a script pad, so I'm treating it as a prescription." He produces the bottle for me, and I walk out of the store (after paying, of course) thinking, "Was that appropriate?" Not to always be an attorney, but wasn't Dr. Troll supposed to have signed the paper or stamped his signature on it in order for the script to be valid?
Why is it that my health care team seems to be playing air ball right now?
But you can't let the Trolls make you think that there aren't Fair Princes and Princesses who are practicing the art of medicine out there. The exceptions shouldn't be treated like rules. (Or is my wonderful internist a rarity who ought to be cannonized as a saint?) If you run across a health care provider who isn't any good, or even if the are and it's just not a great personality match for you, don't avoid health care. Don't use that as an excuse to opt out of the system. Just try again, with another health care provider, and you may very well find yourself a lifesaver worth the title of hero or heroine.
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