sovay | In a file marked secret, in a drawer kept closed

Current Music: Chumbawamba, "Jacob's Ladder"

In a file marked secret, in a drawer kept closed

I'm alive because of modern medicine, but modern healthcare might still kill me.

I slept about an hour. I got to the specialist's office right on time and the secretary told me the doctor I had come to see no longer practices out of that office and it was impossible for me to have been told on Monday that I could see her on Wednesday because she hasn't been there for months. I insisted that I was told just that. The secretary wanted my information. I gave the secretary my information. She told me I had no history at that office. I told her I had seen four doctors there over the last three years and that several of them had given me referrals, for example to PT as recently as last fall. She repeated that there was no trace of me in their system outside of a completely different practitioner. Eventually she agreed to let me be seen by the emergency clinic. The emergency doctor thought I was overwrought and wanted to rate my pain on a one-to-ten scale of three when I was explaining that it was so bad I couldn't sleep. I finally got recognized by an RN and the emergency doctor was able to find my file in the computer, which does not explain to me why the secretary couldn't. She connected me with the successor of the doctor I used to see, who seemed friendly and whom I cannot see again until October because the office is so booked. She reactivated my referral to PT, although I can't see the physical therapist until the end of the month because they are also booked. In the meantime I am supposed to use hot compresses and Tylenol. And see a dentist about the wear and tear on my teeth according to the emergency doctor, which is the last thing I want ever to do again in my life: my jaw is in this state because of dental malpractice and the previous doctors knew that. I barely trust anyone with medical initials after their name anymore. I trust the specialist's office a lot less now than when I called on Monday. Over and over I said that I was not just recounting a weird painful thing that had happened over the weekend, it was an ongoing pain that was interfering with my life. At least I got the PT referral out of it,

I am eliding the emotional content of this experience because it was like plunging straight past Kafka into Hitchcock, with multiple people telling me to my face that I wasn't feeling what I was feeling or had been told what I'd been told or have the history that I have; it was violently anger-making and disorienting and I had to keep calm in order not to be dismissed out of hand and increasingly I feel that all calm does is provide cover for the other end of the dismissal spectrum, the one marked then it can't be that bad. I had to say thank you when the verb I wanted to use was more explosive. I barely understand why I was told a doctor was still with the practice when she wasn't and I don't understand my disappearing act from the database at all. I had previously thought of this system as sympathetic, reliable, and competent. Now I'm trying to figure out if they were just replaced by pet rocks when I wasn't looking.

As a bonus, when I tried to get a raspberry lime rickey to drink while waiting for the next bus out of Davis, I discovered that the Diesel Café has just gone strawless; leaving aside the entire argument of whether this tactic actually decreases plastic waste on a level comparable to regulating the trash of corporations or whether it just further complicates the lives of disabled people, right now it is easier for me to drink through a straw than through the disposable plastic style of strawless lid because I don't have to open my mouth so much and when I explained that in so many words to the person behind the register they miraculously found a formerly nonexistent jar of straws and offered me one, but my jaw is going to heal and other people are still going to need straws and it is exhausting to have to defend your right not to be in further pain and I guess I haven't left that entire argument aside after all. I could have drunk my soda without a straw. It wouldn't have been impossible. It would just have hurt more and I felt like I was pleading for favors and it was just an unnecessary little filip of further work.

$20 for this taxi, Charlie.

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I think it's worth starting to send e-invoices to Baker's office. If everyone starts doing it, maybe someone will bring it to his notice in small words that might penetrate the density of his denial for about five minutes until his massive Repugnican ego overwhelms the tiny residual ghost of a conscience left over from his GOP-funded surgery to remove it.

If everyone starts doing it, maybe someone will bring it to his notice in small words that might penetrate the density of his denial for about five minutes until his massive Repugnican ego overwhelms the tiny residual ghost of a conscience left over from his GOP-funded surgery to remove it.

I was envisioning sort of the righteous version of that scene at the climax of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) where Jimmy Stewart gets almost buried alive under baskets of antagonistic mail. But I would also settle for that scene at the climax of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington where conscience-stricken Claude Rains tries to shoot himself.

[icon is directed at the medical receptionists and doctors who were so unhelpful]

*massive empathy*

*massive solidarity*

I read this post and I was thinking "Wow, this experience sounds terrible"

and also "wow, this post sounds exactly like experiences that I have had with the medical system and also with Disability access"

[icon is directed at the medical receptionists and doctors who were so unhelpful]

*hugs*

and also "wow, this post sounds exactly like experiences that I have had with the medical system and also with Disability access"

I've had bad medical experiences! I've had bad medical experiences for years now! But this one went above and beyond. And I appear to be really angry about it.

Thank you.

Ugh.

This is what comes of being expected to perform "in pain" correctly, i.e. according to some narrow standard of How Humans Act, in order to be believed.

Ugh.

Thanks.

This is what comes of being expected to perform "in pain" correctly, i.e. according to some narrow standard of How Humans Act, in order to be believed.

I never even know if my emotions are what other people denote by the same words. I know I don't handle pain like a lot of other people. I don't think I could fake Normal Human Pain even if I thought it existed.

*hugs*

*hugs*

*hugs*

with multiple people telling me to my face that I wasn't feeling what I was feeling or had been told what I'd been told or have the history that I have

I've had this happen many times - in a medical context; in a Disability context; in a family context -

and there are no words for how upsetting it is.

"Infuriating" or "crazy-making" doesn't even come close.

It is the tactic of abusers;
it is the tactic of ableists;
it is the tactic of people who don't see someone as fully human, or deserving of respect/bodily autonomy.

Edited 2019-07-17 15:41 (UTC)

it is the tactic of people who don't see someone as fully human, or deserving of respect/bodily autonomy.

That.

*hugs*

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Thank you. It's nuts.

*support support*

*support support*

*hugs*

'multiple people telling me to my face that I wasn't feeling what I was feeling'

I know this all too well.

'I barely trust anyone with medical initials after their name anymore. '

I do so understand.

I haven't since I was fifteen years old. :o(

Haven't they heard of paper straws?

Hugs

Haven't they heard of paper straws?

Which don't work for everyone, of course, but would have worked for me and my soda! I have no idea.

Thank you.

*hugs*

What the fuuuuuuck. <3

What the fuuuuuuck.

Please, if you need any faces eaten today, direct them to me. It will be bad for my jaw, but enormously soothing to my soul.

*hugs*

Ugh. *offers hugs*

Ugh. *offers hugs*

Thank you. *accepts hugs*

Yep, this is pretty much why I don't trust anyone in a medical field. *sigh* Fuckers.

Yep, this is pretty much why I don't trust anyone in a medical field.

I had not previously had terrible experiences at this practice. I am feeling angry about getting burned.

Wow, that is enraging. Where is a demon-possessed Linda Blair when you need her? I hope your jaw feels better soon.

Wow, that is enraging. Where is a demon-possessed Linda Blair when you need her? I hope your jaw feels better soon.

Thank you.

Do you have any poems about Linda Blair vs. mansplaining? If not, can I request one?

Edited (icon) 2019-07-17 17:49 (UTC)

(no subject)

gwynnega - 2019-07-17 18:04 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

sovay - 2019-07-17 18:35 (UTC) - Expand

I am so fucking sorry/bloody angry.

*hugs*

Nine

I am so fucking sorry/bloody angry.

Thank you.

*hugs*

it was violently anger-making and disorienting and I had to keep calm in order not to be dismissed out of hand and increasingly I feel that all calm does is provide cover for the other end of the dismissal spectrum, the one marked then it can't be that bad.

This is exactly it, and I hate it so much. If you show your anger then you're hysterical; if you don't show your anger than everything's fine. The zone in which you are appropriately upset and therefore eligible to be listened to is about as thick as a sheet of paper.

The zone in which you are appropriately upset and therefore eligible to be listened to is about as thick as a sheet of paper.

That's well said and it sucks.

(Your icon is well-chosen, too.)

(no subject)

kore - 2019-07-18 07:42 (UTC) - Expand

Absolutely everything about this is a fucking nightmare, and I'm so sorry and furious that any of it happened. *hugs* *rages*

Absolutely everything about this is a fucking nightmare, and I'm so sorry and furious that any of it happened.

Thank you!

*hugs*

I am so sorry, aching and shaking in anger right along with you. I know it won't make you feel any better, but last month I was recently told something similar--though luckily for me, it was resolved more swiftly, and I was not in pain. At a CT GI practice that should have had records of me and my colon going back 10 years, I was also told firmly by a receptionist when I arrived for a scheduled appointment that I was not in the system and had never been there. Has there been a changeover in med. record keeping, or is there an epidemic of random chaos going on?

At a CT GI practice that should have had records of me and my colon going back 10 years, I was also told firmly by a receptionist when I arrived for a scheduled appointment that I was not in the system and had never been there.

That's eerie! And I am also sorry.

Has there been a changeover in med. record keeping, or is there an epidemic of random chaos going on?

Everything seems to be disintegrating. It could be both.

Thank you.

(no subject)

negothick - 2019-07-17 20:38 (UTC) - Expand

That all sounds ABSOLUTELY HORRID. I am glad you got the PT referral, and I hope you can get some sleep tonight.

WTF is their problem?!

I am glad you got the PT referral, and I hope you can get some sleep tonight.

Thank you. My options for pain management really are limited, but I'm going to try.

WTF is their problem?!

I don't know! It was like I got classed as an outsider and all of a sudden nothing I said was believable, which bodes terribly for people who really do walk into the emergency clinic cold.

I grr in their general direction. (Also, hug.)

I grr in their general direction. (Also, hug.)

Thank you.

*hugs*

oh my god, what a misery! your fury is righteous and a thousand percent justified D:

oh my god, what a misery! your fury is righteous and a thousand percent justified

Thank you! I really just wanted to see someone who knew my history and come home feeling better and I got neither of these things!

What? Uugh. grrr!

That is horrible and unacceptable.

What? Uugh. grrr!

Thank you!

That is horrible and unacceptable.

I am not thrilled.

The bizarreness of being lost from the system at the specialist's office is a special flavor of awful, especially in tandem with being told your doctor hasn't been there in months.

I have a vaguely similar story I could tell about an eye doctor--it was very maddening--but it's only vaguely similar and doesn't involve ongoing pain, and only a whiff of desperation instead of a full-course meal of it.... so I'll skip it. But I think these experiences--disappearing from databases, having things randomly change--are becoming disturbingly common.

And what you say about having to remain calm--having to be complicit in your own screwing over, because if you *won't* be complicit, they'll mark you as a problem, which could lead to all sorts of bad things... it's the problem of being profoundly powerless, and it STINKS.

And I'd like to live in a world that's at LEAST nuanced enough to keep some straws around for those who need them. When did everything become one-size mandatory?

The bizarreness of being lost from the system at the specialist's office is a special flavor of awful, especially in tandem with being told your doctor hasn't been there in months.

I never thought it was a dream; even flat exhausted, I knew I was awake. But I was standing there repeating facts from my medical history that the secretary was confidently telling me couldn't be true and thinking: this is a textbook nightmare. This is how film noirs start. This is how you disappear from the system. Down the memory hole. It was not pleasant.

But I think these experiences--disappearing from databases, having things randomly change--are becoming disturbingly common.

I think so, too. Systems get shoddier; medicine more corporate; it is easier to care less about people. (It is being made constantly easier to care less about people.) The one really useful thing the emergency doctor said was that nowadays doctors are expected to be like Uber drivers. I had a longstanding relationship with one doctor, but should I have been notified when she left the practice? Who cares! You'll see a doctor when you come in! Isn't that the important thing?

it's the problem of being profoundly powerless, and it STINKS.

I felt like I spent the whole time having to repeat myself patiently and I still don't think I was heard. My jaw still really hurts. It's stiff and it's bruised. I have no idea how I'm going to sleep tonight. It's not like this injury is over. But I feel like I was expected to agree that it was and clear out of their hair and I already carry enough permanent injuries from bad doctoring: I don't want this to be another.

When did everything become one-size mandatory?

I feel like that's worsening, too. The definition of human narrows.