Yep. You know, the most frustrating six words in the entire English language. Because, when you’re a chronically ill human being, like I am, those are not the words that you need or want to hear. You’d think that they are- any healthy person would LOVE to hear that there’s nothing wrong with them. A healthy person, would think that I am absolutely insane for wanting the doctor to tell me that there’s something wrong with me- but that is some 100% ableist bullshit.
Now, I hate throwing that word around. I really do but, it’s true.
Because, while it’s good to know that my white counts, my kidneys, liver, and whatnot are doing fan-fucking-tastic… that doesn’t help me. My Triglycerides are high, and my vitamin D is lacking but, that doesn’t fix or help me either. I still have migraines, chronic fatigue, chronic idiopathic angioedema, chronic pain, nausea, dizziness, brain fog- and if that’s not enough, there are other concerns that you will not hear too. Even when I bring you a folder that literally has my medical history/concerns in it, compiled in as much order as I can muster up… but you don’t care because you said you don’t have time to go through it.
You… my doctor, the person I trust to take care of me… doesn’t have time. Now, maybe if you’d been with me at 1:30pm when my appointment was scheduled for, you might’ve had more time. Instead, I didn’t see you until 3pm.
By then… you didn’t have time for me.
You, popping into the office to spend all of maybe 10-munutes on me tops, just to fuck around with my medication list again is not helpful. Popping in, not listening to my health concerns, and brushing me off like I’m bothering you for needing to take up “too much” of your time isn’t helpful. If anything, it hurts me more.
I left one doctor because he would not hear me, see me, or take me seriously… for what? To do it all over again, in a different town, with a female doctor, who seems to treat me like I’m nothing more than a paycheck or a problem? But, I know that if I switch again, I’ll look like a drug seeker, a hypochondriac, someone with Munchausen syndrome, someone who is lying, or making things up but I’m not. These are the people that I’m supposed to trust and confide in to keep my body healthy but, how am I supposed to do that?
How can I say any of these things to my doctor, or the nurses, or anyone else in the office because of a sign on the wall that says patients who use “aggressive” language will be removed and not be permitted back in the office or on the premises? I’m not demanding opiates. I don’t want narcotics. I want someone to help me. I want someone to hear me, and listen to my concerns instead of automatically looking for reasons to tell me that I’m crazy, or wrong.
Sure, your 6-years’ worth of medical school might give you an MD after your name… but I have spent my entire life battling these symptoms. That is 26-years’ worth of knowing my triggers. Knowing what hurts, and when. Knowing when there is something seriously wrong with me but, still, I have to battle and fight with ER doctors, and GP’s, and specialists, and everyone else under the sun to hear me when I say that something is wrong.
My foot and leg for example. August 21st, 2020 I fell down the stairs because my grandmother left something on them. BJ and Angel got me up the stairs, stuffed me into the car, and rushed me away to NIMC. After a few hours there, an X-ray, and an aircast paired with a terrible lesson on how to use crutches… I was told that my bones were fine, and to go see my regular doctor to make sure I was healing okay in the next 7-days. If you’ve been following my blog for awhile now, you’ve seen pictures of my foot, and you’ve heard the story about how the doctor did not even look at me. Instead, he told me that I’d had a hard year (my mom died in March of 2020) and prescribed some antidepressants that would “make me feel better” when that wasn’t the reason I was there.
But I wasn’t fine. My bones weren’t fine either.
Do the words “nondisplaced intra-articular fracture of the medial cuboid bone with additional avulsion fracture along the lateral aspect of the cuboid bone at the calcaneocuboid ligament attachment and a partial-thickness tear of the anterior talofibular ligament and the calcaneal fibular ligament” mean something to you? Well, they mean a lot to me because while three doctors told me I was fine, that is what was going on inside of my leg. Which has since progressed to CRPS type 1 of the lower left extremity, resulting in swelling, chronic pain, skin discoloring, and me basically wanting to cut off my leg or kill myself all the time.
But I am supposed to “have faith in my doctors” and believe that they have my best interests at heart. How can I believe any of that when they refuse to sit down, look in my file, and listen to me for five-fucking-minutes without looking at their watch, or the clock on the wall? I hear the words this is what they went to school for almost constantly. But this is what I must LIVE WITH. This is not a game to me, or five minutes of my life. This is 24-hours of my day. This is 365-days of my year.
Chronic pain. Chronic fatigue. Chronic migraines, and headaches- most days I wake up with them. Most days they stick around for 48-hours or longer. Light sensitivity. Sensitivity to sound. Breaking out into hives for reasons that they don’t know… constantly. My anxiety is at a level that would kill most people. But, I don’t get a choice- this is my “normal.” Knowing that every time they insert another needle into my skin- whether it’s for an IV or a shot, or just to do bloodwork, it’s another bruise. Another reminder that will take weeks to go away, only to be told when I bring it up in a doctor’s office that “everyone heals at a different pace” and that I’m “fine.”
Fine… that’s why I still have a massive bruise on my arm from the Covid vaccine that I got on the 3rd of this month. Right? Oh but, that happens sometimes you say. Or why I’ll have the bruise from the B12 shot that I got yesterday in the office, for at least 3-weeks because it takes me for-fucking-ever to heal, whether it’s from a teeny tiny papercut, or something more substantial. But that’s “normal” right?
I’m just tired…
So fucking tired.
-Sky
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