More doctors, more scared

Doctor's appointment today.  Orthopedic surgeon a couple towns over.  On the bright side, the traffic was greatly reduced, thanks to the wingnut teabaggers shutting down the government.  On the not so bright side?

Doctor said just what I feared he would--that my PCP screwed up, that she should have ordered an MRI the instant the ultrasound came back showing nothing.  In other words, I should have had an MRI over a year ago.  Instead, this thing, whatever it is, has had an extra 16 months to slowly gain ground.

Thanks, Dr. White.  In case you've ever wondered why I abruptly stopped seeing you?  It's because you always left me feeling I was getting the least you had to offer.

MRI scheduled for next Monday.  Then I'll be seeing the Ortho guy again.  He was good--better than the online review sites led me to think he would be (no, I don't make decisions based upon those, but it's nice to see how folks feel they were treated).  He even refrained from pulling a "nameless female PAC from Ogden Clinic who has a boy's name" act and rolling his eyes and telling me that he didn't have time to read the paperwork I'd brought in.  In fact, he read what I brought in (labs and a previous radiology report), then asked if it was okay to make copies for my file.  It was nice, not being treated like a dull-wit who doesn't have the vaguest clue.

One small complaint--the Ortho guy's receptionist was a rude hag.  Impatient, imperious, clearly irritated by my existence.  I can understand that at the end of the day, but when the office has just opened for the morning?  Paste a smile on, sweetheart.  I may have cancer, and I put one on for you.

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My boy had an appointment today, too.  With my old urologist.  As feared, rather than addressing the actual problem (which is not even vaguely foreskin related), he began squealing about circumcising my son.  Because slashing off a perfectly normal, functioning, highly innervated part of the penis is, of course, what American doctors do when faced with the fearful foreskin.  Never mind that the rest of the western world is overwhelmingly intact.  Never mind that nearly 65% of American newborn boys are spared genital modification.  We still have a generation of circumcised doctors who still turn a profit from performing unnecessary surgery on boys.  So we're left scrambling, trying to find a less barbaric doctor who knows more about the foreskin and is capable of addressing the actual issue rather than focusing on my son's foreskin.  I swear, is everyone's life like this? Because it really doesn't seem that way.  It doesn't seem MY life used to be this riddled with disasters and stress.  Is it a "getting old" thing, or is it just ME?

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Watching Boehner flip-flop on the debt ceiling, the ACA, and pretty much everything else. Watched an interview with him, and the blustering defensiveness leaves me wondering just how scared he is?  These past few weeks have given me much deeper insight into just how the "Tea Party Patriots" work.  I always knew they were never a "grass roots" organization--they were put together by the Koch brothers to stir up the stupid with jingoistic slogans, whipping them into a frenzy of flag waving and immigrant/poor/women-hating.  But what I didn't get was this--how were they winning these elections when so many Americans don't agree with them?

I've figured it out.

They're active at the primary level.  They get out there EARLY, before any of us sane folks, and they ramrod through whatever extremist freak they're rooting for.  Because the rest of us are fast asleep in our beds on  Primary day, they get to choose who WE get to choose between, come the general election.  So we're left feeling we have a choice when, in fact, our options have been viciously limited through Tea Party manipulation of the primaries.  Yes, there are other issues, like gerrymandering/redistricting and voter fraud and widespread disenfranchisement, but the primaries--that's where it starts.  THAT'S where we can make a difference.  

I remember when I first heard about "Teapublicans" registering as Democrats so they could intentionally ram through the least viable democratic candidate.  Because the average person doesn't vote in primaries, this wasn't hard for them to do.  So, come general election time, folks had a choice to make--the clearly nutty teabagger OR the clearly unqualified democrat.  Republicans who always vote red voted for their nutty teabagger regardless of how they felt about him, democrats didn't vote at all because they weren't enthused by the democratic candidate.  And there you go--bagger wins, even though he doesn't actually have the hearts and minds of most people.  I heard about this, and I was horrified.

How to fix it?

Start voting in the primaries.  Specifically, in the REPUBLICAN primaries.  No, not like the wingnuts do, not trying to ramrod through the least competent republican (they're already doing that--doesn't matter, red votes red regardless in most cases, it seems), but rather trying to bring the sanest republican through the primary so that, even if our guy LOSES, the guy who WINS isn't crazy.

I don't see another way.

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Speaking of misinformation and Tea Party hyperbole, this nastiness came across my wall the other day:

And here's the point-by-point debunking of this willfully misleading, politically charged garbage spray..  Thanks to ILLINOIS HEALTH MATTERS for the well-reasoned rebuttal.  

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And that's about all.  I napped hard this evening and feel more tired for the sleep.  I think that, emotionally, I may be all used up.  So here, have this--makes me happy, and happy is good:

How Much is Too Much?

So I screwed up and read the letters to the editor in my old local rag this morning.  Someone compared the Boy Scouts' discrimination against homosexuals with the old laws that kept blacks from staying in white hotels or eating in white restaurants.  Someone else came in and said (this is verbatim) "Gays are nowhere close to being discriminated against to the same level that blacks were . . . ."

Okay, awkward sentence structure aside, WHAT THE HELL?  Seriously?  That's like saying, "Sure, apartheid sucks, but it's not nearly as bad as what the Ottomans did to the Armenians, so let's not even bother worrying about it" or, at its heart, "cutting off four fingers is a human rights violation, but cutting off one isn't (or surgically altering a girl's genitals is wrong but doing it to a boy is A-okay)."  Can't we just agree that telling someone they can't partake in something because of their sexual orientation (or their religious affiliation, hello again, Boy Scouts) is crap and we shouldn't condone it?  Regardless of how it might compare to some other bit of nastiness?

(click here to view)

John Cole
Scranton Times/TribuneFeb 10, 2013

EditorialCartoonists.com

 
Just ate up the last of the Farmer's Market jam.  Shared it with the boy.  Amazingly tasty, and incredibly not diabetic-friendly.  To my credit, we've had that little 8 oz jar for four months, so it's not like I've gone completely crazy on it.  It was superbly good, and I look forward to another jar lasting us four or more months.

Also in my old local newspaper, I found an advert for a "women's health center."  We used to live right next door to it, drove by it every day.  But I never realized who owned the place until today.

Warning--this is about to get a bit gory and "woman-y."

When I had my boy, almost 15 years ago, it was a mess.  My labor didn't progress, even though I started with water broken (and meconium in the water) and contractions strong and two minutes apart.  I labored unmedicated for over 30 hours, though, at 25 hours, my  labor began to falter.  Then came the pitocin for a few hours.  Still no joy-I never got beyond five centimeters, even though the boy was fully engaged and ready to go.   So I wound up in the OR.  Turned out our boy's head was in the 99th percentile, circumference-wise.  He was over 9 lbs and had a head like a pumpkin, whereas I have a very narrow set of hips. I could have labored 'til the cows came home, but he wouldn't have made it out.  Anyway, when they finally wheeled me down to the OR (with my half-assed epidural in place--NEVER again!), there were TWO doctors there.  My usual OB, a great guy whom I like a lot, and some other guy I'd never seen before.  We were introduced (won't say his name, since it's too late to sue for malpractice), and I was told he was a doctor from the Clinic, and he would be assisting.

"Assisting."  Is that what they call that now?  Guy did a number on me and how.  Four days postpartum, I noticed some bleeding from the incision--only the left side.  I called my doc, but he was out of town.  I was sent to this guy, since he had "assisted" in my c-section.  He looked, he gently tucked a little gauze into it, and he proclaimed it "fine until Dr. S gets back on Monday."

Except he was either stupid or lying.  It was actually NOT fine at ALL.  It was, in fact, ruptured all the way down to the suture line at the uterus, and a GIGANTIC hematoma had formed.  Let's be real--he couldn't possibly have NOT known that, but he sent me home for THREE DAYS with this because he didn't want to hassle with it.  Imagine my HORROR when I hobbled into my doc's office on Monday to have him sink his entire hand into that incision and drag out gobbets of blood like liver.

Sorry, too much information?

A week (?) or so later, when my doctor's nurse was removing the staples, she said, "Oh, my GOD, what a mess--who closed this?  I thought Doctor S. did your section?"  I told her, and she clammed right up.  Her face went still and careful and she said, "Yes.  Well, I could tell Dr. S. hadn't done this--his staples are always neat and pretty."

That's right, the "assisting" doc had done the closing.  And left me with crappy staples and a huge bleeder.  And then let it ride over the weekend because he didn't want to have to clean up his own mess.  I suppose I should be thankful--considering the quality of his care, imagine what he might have done to me, had he really put some effort into it.

I thought a friend was going to this clinic now (I'd heard her mention it before I knew the doc in question was there), but she just let me know she's not anymore.  Nor is her mom.  They don't like the guy.  Good.  No, I don't dare make it my life's work to warn the world, but I'm definitely going to warn my friends off.  I had no idea he was still active and in the area.  If I'd known, I'd have warned my friends sooner.

Since it's a lost food weekend, we're experimenting--I've been wanting Sambusa for weeks.  A friend who posted pictures a few days ago (she calls them "Samosas," which isn't uncommon, but it's odd to my ears because they've always been Sambusa to me) didn't help ease that craving.

Not quite our recipe, but certainly representative

We don't have it often, maybe once or twice a year, but when we do, we usually have it stuffed with hamburger, green onions, parsley, turmeric, cardamom, cumin (I learned it from the Arabic, so it's "kammun" not "kooomin" or "kyoomin"), and garlic.  It's a recipe I learned from an old friend of a friend named Aziz Al Howifi back in the very old days.  My ex, who was Palestinian, made a good Sambusa, too.   Anyway, I've gotten distracted.  My point was that we don't HAVE any regular hamburger, all we have is a batch of taco meat we cooked up and froze a few weeks ago.  So, we're having . . .

MEXICAN SAMBUSA!

Yeah, green onions, taco-spiced hamburger, with Mexican blend cheese and maybe sliced tomatoes (or just salsa).  A search online tells me that this would be called "Indo-Mexican Fusion-style."

Please.  I don't have that much fartsy in me.  It's just Sambusa made with Mexican spices.  Get real.

Going to have it with black beans and Spanish rice.  My mouth is actually watering!

After much debate, we've decided to nurse the back door along until after September--we're afraid the landlord might peg us pains-in-the-behind and decide not to renew the lease if we hit him with that before.  It's not that he doesn't know about it--I've emailed him about it (and he's responded that he would "try to get something done") and spoken to his handyman about it.  But he's already replaced the disposal and the dishwasher.  I'm afraid tossing the door in the mix would make him want less bothersome tenants.  So I want the new lease signed before we get serious about it.

We've got a plan for getting the debt paid down.  If nothing disastrous crops up (like THAT would ever happen), we can have all the credit cards paid off in a year-and-a-half, and ALL the debt, including car and student aid, paid off in two years.  We've already got two cards zeroed, with another (plus a store account) being paid off next month.  As each card gets paid off, we roll its payment into the next card's, increasing how much we're paying.

Of course, if the government puts my husband out of work for weeks because they're busy posturing and trying to poke at my President, all bets are off.  In fact, should that happen, we're sunk.

And that's about it.  I've spent the day cleaning (with help, thank you Hubby!), am feeling better about my world.  Last bathroom tomorrow, and then I can breathe.  Well, except I have to call the dermatologist and the gynecologist and the radiologist to make appointments for various things I don't want done.  Which sucks a lot of the air out of my world.

Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ

Another Doc-saster

So, before we left Utah, I went to see my gynecologist, get a clean bill of health so I wouldn't be looking for a new gyno right off the bat.

Or not.

The Nurse Practitioner, a nice lady named Mary, found a "mass in the anterior vaginal wall." 7 mm, give or take, possibly a urethral diverticulum. She described it as "firm, but not hard." My Gyno came in, rooted around, echoed Mary's opinion. Said it wasn't an emergency, but that, once I got settled and got my new insurance squared away, I'd want to see a urogynecologist. Not to be confused with a Eurogynecologist, who would likely charge less and serve wine and cheese.

Well, it turns out my new insurance plan only has one urogynecology office covered, and they were backlogged for months. So it was four months between Utah gyno and urogyno. I did make one attempt to see a local onco-gyno back in October, but he wouldn't see me because the letter from FEHB declaring me insured wasn't enough. He wanted a big wad of cash. Needless to say, I was utterly panic-stricken by the time December and my uro-gyno appointment rolled around.

Met my urogynocologist and fell in love. Well, not like that. But she was personable, warm, funny, and seemed absolutely competent. She got up there, rooted around, and declared me mass-free. Nothing there. My husband could still feel it?  Well, then, he was feeling something that was supposed to be there, and that's why they're husbands and not gynocoligists, right?  Sure, we could do a cystoscopy to make sure there was no diverticulum, but she felt confident there wasn't--it was obviously a cyst that had drained or reabsorbed. No worries! I made the appointment for the cystoscopy (for a month down the road), and felt a weight off my shoulders.

I got an inkling that weight was just hovering rather than gone when I had a menstrual cycle that lasted only 13 days. Yes, at 46, I am almost certainly perimenopausal, but that mantra has always stuck in my head--late periods aren't a problem, but earlier periods? See a doctor. So I wound up cancelling my cystoscopy appointment in favor of an appointment with my new GP to discuss my early period and possible fibroids. She did a pelvic (yes, that was something new and oogy), and concurred with my urogynecologist's proclamation that there was no mass in the anterior vaginal wall. Again, whew, right? She recommended I get a transvaginal ultrasound to take a look at the possible fibroids, and told me to get myself to a gynecologist.

Which I did. Today. And boy, was I right about the hovering weight. It's come crashing down in a big, big way, and I fear its many, crushing friends aren't far behind.

You see, there is a mass. Not only is there a mass, but my new gyno describes it as larger (1 cm) and very hard. If you've spent any time with gynecologists (or oncologists), you know those are bad things. You know that the moment she said (and she said it repeatedly) "VERY hard," she swept almost all of the more benign possibilities right off the table.

I don't blame my GP--she's not a gyno, and that made no difference, time-wise. But my urogynecologist? It's been a month-and-a-half since she told me there was no mass. I'd already know what's going on and be taking care of it (or coming to terms with it), had she been on the ball. But she wasn't. And maybe she would have done a better job of finding it if my Utah gyno's office had actually included NOTES about it in my FILE. But, according to the urogynocologist, there are NO notes in my file concerning a 7 mm mass in the anterior vaginal wall. Which is now, of course, a 1 centimeter mass, accompanied by uterine bleeding.

We won't even talk about the bastard who refused to see me because I couldn't cough up a bundle of money. That was almost four months ago. Four months this thing has had time to thrive.

Sunday, I have a pelvic CT scan plus an ultrasound scheduled. From there? Possible D and C for endometrial biopsy, visit to a urologist to make sure that any vaginal biopsy isn't going to screw up my urethra. And then who the hell knows, really? The treatments for vaginal cancer tend to be extreme, horrifying, life-altering, and often not particularly effective in the long term. So let's cross our fingers and clench our knees and hope it's not that, huh?

I love it here, you know. I was born here. I don't want to die here.

This Won't Hurt a BIT

I don’t trust doctors. Not even a teensy bit. No, no, not in some hermit-like, never seek medical care, chant in the moonlight, die-of-a-simple-pimple-gone-wrong sort of way. I still seek medical care, usually in a pretty timely fashion, but I don’t trust the men and women in the crisp white coats. I don’t trust them to actually pay attention, I don’t trust them to care about me, and I don’t assume that they’re particularly competent or any more intelligent than I am.

This mistrust has actually saved my life a time or two. We’ll get to that.

Where does this utter lack of faith come from? This discomfort verging on terror?

Well, it probably started in childhood. I was born with a congenital heart disaster which left me on a doctor’s exam table daily, getting injections. No, I don’t remember this at all, but the fear of needles held on for decades. The fear of white coats, too. No kidding, my mother had to change at work (she was a nurse) before coming home because I had come to associate people in white with pain. It wasn’t until my mid-teens that I was able to allow an IV or injection, and that was because the only alternative was allowing my gall bladder to continue wreaking stony havoc until I eventually died from it.

My feelings about doctors began to coalesce young. They were solidified by our move to Utah, which landed me with the meanest, rudest, drunkest old man there ever was for a GP. His name wasn’t Gus Spurland, but it might as well have been.

Doc Spurland was short, fat, thick-fingered, bespectacled, with one of those noses that proclaims a lifelong affair with drunkenness. Think W.C. Fields or Gimli from Fellowship of the Rings (the movie). He had a perpetual sneer and a way of making a child feel awfully stupid. I never liked him, I dreaded visiting him, and my pleas for a new doctor were met with round rebuke. My Mom has a bad case of “Omnipotent Physician Syndrome,” you see. It comes from being a nursing student in the 50s. All doctors are right and good and should always be respected and obeyed. End of lesson.

I stuck with Doc Spurland into young adulthood because—well, because he was the only game in town. No one else took payments, and I didn’t have health insurance. So I suffered through the “Cadillac of birth control pills” (made me gain enough weight I looked like a luxury car), the ridicule about the subsequent weight gain (“have you considered buying new pants if you’re going to be the fat pig again?”), and the perpetual drunken confusion about who I actually WAS (“You have any new social diseases?”). I used the campus doc whenever I could, but sometimes there was no avoiding the drunken old man.

1990 was a bad year for me, medically speaking. No insurance, precious little money. I went to Planned Parenthood for my annual pelvic, and got some slightly wonky results back. They tossed me on some drug or another and told me to come back in six months. Six months later, even wonkier results come back. They handed me another scrip and told me to come back in six WEEKS. Just before coming back, I started suffering sublingual pain. Lo and behold, I had a large LUMP under my tongue! As a long-time smoker, I was rather concerned. As I was prepping to have that looked at (by another rude, self-impressed, ugly, mean-spirited ex-Army doc who fancied himself an oral surgeon and also took payments), I found a lump in my breast.

Two, in fact. Found them on the day that my Mother’s gynecologist shredded ten chunks from my cervix in hopes of figuring out why my paps were coming back bad. No anesthesia because, and this is a direct quote, “Women don’t have any nerve endings there, so they can’t feel anything.” The pain was pretty astounding. Almost as intense as my deep and undying dislike for that man.

What do you do when you find lumps in your breast? Well, you call your doctor, right? That’s what I did. I called Doc Spurland and asked him to schedule a mammogram for me at the local hospital. He was quite reluctant, but I persisted. See, I DON’T suffer from Omnipotent Physician Syndrome. He finally agreed, but then insisted I come into his office immediately afterwards. I agreed.

I got to the hospital and, right off, the rad techs and nurses could feel those lumps. Just as Marquis de Gynecologist had been able to. Just as my then-husband could. After an inconclusive mammogram, the radiologist came in—he could feel the lumps, too. He performed an ultrasound. Still inconclusive. So he did a fine needle biopsy and sent me on my way. To Doc Spurland’s office.

Spurland barked me into an exam room (sans attending nurse—he didn’t do things that way), told me to lay back, hiked up my shirt and did the most cursory of breast exams. He then glared at me with unmistakable disdain and muttered “There's nothing there--pull down your shirt and get in my office.”

Oh. Okay. I went into his office (think big, mahogany desk, red leather furniture, smoldering ashtrays--Great White Hunter-type stuff) and sat down. My mother was already there. And then he started.

I’m worthless. I’m a piece of dung. I’m a manipulative, cruel, hateful pile of garbage. I’m just clever enough to take advantage of everyone around me. I’m incapable of love and deserve no love from others. I’m a whore, I’m nothing better than a Petri dish for venereal diseases. I don’t have any lumps in my breast (I just made them up to scare my mom and torture my family), but he wishes I did have lumps, because the world would be a better place if I died. Look at my poor mother, look what I do to her. I’m tearing her heart out, the poor woman, and I should be ashamed. I’m scum.

I struggled to defend myself, but was so floored that just walking out didn’t even occur to me. My mother was sitting on the big leather loveseat with an insipid grin on her face, squirming like a child needing to pee. No, she made no effort to defend me. It was me versus the Omnipotent Physician--of course she wasn’t going to step up. I finally (to my shame) began to cry. I might have breast cancer, I might cervical cancer, I have a big lump under my tongue, and this guy’s shouting that everyone hates me and wishes I would just get on with the dying? Yeah, I cried.

And then it stopped. Spurland looked at me, looked at my squirming, useless mother, then back at me. And he said, “Oh, Christ, I’ve got the wrong one, don’t I?” My mother nodded stupidly.

That’s right. He thought I was my older sister.

He then cleared his throat, stood up from behind his gigantic rainforest-nuking desk, and walked over to me. He said, “Let’s go take a look at those lumps.”

Oh, yes. Please, take a moment to digest that. When I was my sister, there were no lumps. But now that I was myself again, there were lumps, and they were something to be concerned about. You see it, don’t you? If I were my sister, he was prepared to pretend nothing was wrong in hopes that I might DIE.

I hope you’re as horrified as I was.

He placed a hand on my shoulder and I went from sobbing helplessly to shouting berserkly . I swore. A lot. The gist? “Touch me again and I’ll plow you under in the parking lot like a stray shopping bag.”

I dashed from his office, grabbing my poor-then husband and pulling him along with me. I left my mother there to find her own way home. I didn’t want her in my car.

I’d been home for perhaps twenty minutes when the phone rang. It was Doc Spurland himself, calling to tell me that I’d forgotten my coat in his waiting room. Would I like him to bring it over personally? I told him that my husband would pick it up. He then asked what he could do about what had happened that day.

And I told him.

I told him that I was calling an attorney the next morning, but that I would hold off on taking any action against him for three months. During that three months, I expected to hear news that he was pulling down his shingle and retiring. If he didn’t, I was going to own his sorry ass. Yes, I could have sued. Yes, I probably would have made a little—enough to clear my student aid debts, anyway. But it wasn’t about that. It was about keeping him away from any other potential victim that might stagger into his den of torture.

The letters transferring his patients to new doctors arrived two weeks later.

Doc Spurland died a few years later. I wish I could say I felt awful, or that I deeply regretted blah, blah. Blah. But I didn’t. I felt no sorrow at his passing. I still don’t. One less mean, incompetent ass in the world. Bummer.

Now Doc Spurland wasn’t the only doctor to inspire mistrust or bad feelings, but he certainly takes that blue ribbon. But props must be given to the “hospitalist” who insisted that my ekg read-out indicated “unmistakable evidence of a heart attack” (the CARDIOLOGISTS disagreed rather angrily); the other “hospitalist” who attempted to threaten me (“I’ll tell your insurance company you refused recommended treatment!”) into taking a beta blocker for an irregular heartbeat even though my variety of irregular heartbeat can go bad—fatal, even—with the introduction of a beta blocker (good thing ONE of us knew that, huh?); the oral surgeon who ignored every call I made about the obviously infected wisdom-tooth socket (and then tore me up one side and down the other for not letting him know I “really” meant infected); the clinic doc who steadfastly insisted I didn’t have an eye infection (even though there were long, stringy GLOBS of pus coming out of my eyes); and the on-call OB who told me that my c-section incision had “lost a couple of staples” and would “be fine until next week” when my regular doc got back (in fact, my incision had ruptured all the way down to uterus due to a gigantic hematoma—it took 7 ½ weeks to get that closed) all leap to mind as close runners-up.

I don’t trust doctors. I’m sorry, I am. Obviously, I still GO to doctors when I’m ill, but I don’t walk in full of confidence that I’m going to receive the correct treatment from someone who respects and gives two spits about me. No. I walk in expecting to be dismissed and rushed through if I allow it to happen. I feel fearful, uncomfortable, and embarrassed to be there. I hope someday I find myself a doctor in shining stethoscope on his prancing white exam table to restore my faith in the medical community.

I can hardly wait. I mean that most sincerely.