MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Physician Heal Thyself

Two blogs in one day. It's that kind of day.
It started out nutty, it's ending up cranky.
My friend Ilkka is graduating from Pepperdine
Saturday. He stayed home from work today
and took us (his wife and I) out to lunch. Then
we had some ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery.
Mmmm. Then we went to the book store. That's
a really good day to me; eating ice cream and looking
at books.

Then I come home and get the mail. In the mail
I get a bill from the rheumatologist I've seen 3
times in the last 5 months. The bill is for $409.62
and is - get this - 90 days overdue. Naturally I am
LIVID. It was after 7pm though, so all I could do
was leave a nasty, cold message on the answering
machine. I have not been billed by this office since
my first visit in February. I kept thinking that was
odd. But what was I supposed to do? Call up the doctor
and beg for my bill? I was billed for almost $400 worth
of blood tests by the hospital near his office; I figured
I was paying for all my tests. The bill they sent out today
DOES NOT explain ONE bit what the $409.62 is for.
It doesn't say anything. It just says I owe them money.
I had to go into my medical file (yes, I file everything,
I am anal) and look at my insurance papers to figure it
out. I love playing fucking Columbo with jackasses in
doctor's offices who don't know how to bill people correctly.

I figured it out. They are billing me for every office visit
and even MORE blood tests - everything since February,
which was my first visit. They have waited 5 fucking months
to bill me and drop it all on me at once, AND tell me I'm
late with the payment, when I have NEVER EVER EVER EVER
received ONE BILL from them. I do NOT let my bills lie
around for 90 days. I always pay my bills on time. ALWAYS.

I hate doctors. I hate them, I hate their nurses, I hate
their staff. I hate their smug, self-righteous demeanors.
I hate their bullshit, their inability to say the words "I
don't know." I have sadly been seeing doctors since January
of 1994, one month after I got fibromyalgia. I have seen
more doctors than I can count over the last 12 1/2 years.
Most of them in the beginning were either arrogant,
supercilious jackasses who either told me this was all in
my head and I was just 'depressed' or they told me I was
screwed for life.

In the beginning I was in so much pain I could barely
move. I was nauseous I was in so much agony. I would
go home and sit in the bathroom on the floor, trying not
to throw up. Or I would throw up because I hurt so much.
Not one doctor ever tried to alleviate my pain. I didn't
know what to do back then; I'd seen my father in chronic
pain and he was addicted to Vicodin. I didn't want to go
down that path so I didn't ask for narcotics. Not once. But
not one doctor seemed to care about trying anything else
on me to relieve my suffering. Because you see, if you're
not dying, if you don't have objective blood tests coming
back with objective results, they don't care, and they don't
believe you. Oh, your blood work is fine. There must be
nothing wrong with you. I don't care if you tell me you're
in agony. I don't care if you tell me you're practically
bed ridden and have had to drop out of school. Oh your
neck hurts? Have a little physical therapy. We're not
going to treat you, because you're not dying - hell,
the tests say you're not even sick! Anecdotal 'evidence'
means shit to doctors. Doctors do NOT listen to patients.
They do not HEAR what the patient is saying. And if they
do, they DO NOT CARE. The patient obviously knows
NOTHING about what's going on in his or her own body.

If I did have a doctor listen to me, they gave me
all sorts of crazy-ass remedies to try. And I was desperate
enough to do some of them. Weird drinks, vitamins,
all sorts of tests on my hair, skin, everything. You're
two quarts low on iron and yes, you could use a pint
of blue-green algae as well. You say your hands and feet
are tingling and your spine hurts? Hmmm. Well, that's
all. I'll see you again in 6 weeks.

Western medicine is good in a crisis. It's great if you
break a bone, need a heart transplant. But GOD FORBID
you get something that they can't quite figure out.
Now fibromyalgia is well known, and pretty much
accepted as a real illness by most sane people. For the
doctors who think it's imaginary, I only hope they
would get it for just one year and then tell me what they
think. I went to this last rheumatologist because four
years ago, after my sinus surgery, I started having other
immune-system symptoms. Sore throats, more fatigue.
My ANA tests were coming back positive - meaning my
immune system was attacking something - something
that isn't there. It's essentially attacking me. But they
can't figure out why. I've been tested for every disease
you can think of - and I don't have any of them, thank
God. But it sucks to feel shitty. And THEN to TOP it
ALL off, I get a BILL from these idiots for $400.
I don't have that now. Great timing! I book a trip
to Chicago, all hell breaks loose with my finances.

I cannot WAIT to talk to the idiot who did this
billing tomorrow. They are going to be really sorry
they billed me this way. They will get their money -
one month at a time. I will pay them a certain amount
every month. They take 5 months to bill me, I will take
5 months to pay them.

I have hit the wall. I know someday I will need a doctor.
I know I will be thankful I was able to go the doctor. But
I have never, never, never really met a doctor I liked.
One doctor at UCLA told me she had lupus, and to suck it up.
One doctor said I wasn't sick, I was having issues with my
mother. How many doctors just thought I was a depressed,
hysterical woman?

I will say it. Doctors are necessary. But by and large, I
hate them with a passion. Western doctors can kiss my
ass. This last doctor hands out pills like they're candy.
Ironic, since in the last 12 years I couldn't get ONE doctor
to give me ANYTHING to ease the pain, the muscle spasms,
nothing. No, strike that. One doctor wanted to give me
speed. Yes, speed. He gave me a prescription in triplicate.
One copy went to him, one went to the pharmacy and one
went to the DEA so they would know I was taking speed,
legally. Fuck that I said. The DEA is NOT going to monitor
any part of my life (this was pre 9/11 when I actually thought
we still had a modicum of privacy left) and I am NOT taking
speed, no matter how tired I am. Idiot!

My current doctor seemed nice at first; a lot of them
do. Then they turn out to be pill-pushers or just slackers
who want you out of their office if they can't fix you.
Luckily I monitor my own pill intake. Perhaps it's a good
thing I had my father as an example, because I don't want
to be some prescription drug casualty. He gave me sleeping
pills. He gave me tons of stuff I don't even take. I don't want
my body full of pills. But it's easy to write a prescription out
and say "goodbye" isn't it.

I have started seeing a pain therapist for the first time in
12 years. It is the only way I can deal with my pain in a
more positive way. I am finished with Western medicine,
as far as the fibromyalgia is concerned. Done. Finis.
Finito Benito. Oh I'm sure I'll need a doctor at some point
in my life for something else. But I probably won't like him
or her or it. I used to joke I'd been through the medical mill.
But it is a mill. Between the doctors and insurance companies
it's a sick, greedy, twisted mill of avarice, insensitivity and
cruelty. Pray to God you never get caught up in this mill.

I think of all the times I was so scared, so sick, sitting in
a doctor's examining room, basically wearing a large
napkin while the doctor 'examined' me and then proceeded
to either insult me, dismiss me or send me home with
false hope based on their own twisted medicinal
remedies. Bedside manners like pitbulls or socially
fucked-up morons. No more. No more, no more, no more.
Physician, go fuck thyself.

Photo: The Greek physician Hippocrates; he actually held the belief that the body must be treated as a whole and not just a series of parts. Too bad doctors have chosen to ignore this.