Doctors

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Does anyone actually have a good experience with their normal healthcare? I feel like I have not had a decent relationship with a doctor since I was a kid. Becoming an adult felt like instantly going from being precious and cared for, to being a burden.

I had a pretty rough childhood health wise. I was born blue, and proceeded to stay blue for the next dozen years out of spite, I guess. As a severely asthmatic kid I ended up needed pretty constant care to keep me breathing, which in turn made me end up needing constant care for the side effects of the medication. At age 6 I ended up having a bone defect in my foot, likely a side effect of the steroids I was on. It ended me up in a children’s hospital to get the specialized care in getting my foot back on track. At age 9 or so during an especially bad asthma attack my parents rushed me off to an urgent care doctor for a steroid injection. That doctor oops oops gave me an *adult* dose of steroids and just about stopped my heart and I had to be rushed off to the hospital. Honestly this was about the first case was more like a burden not a patient, I think it was my first time not either in the ER with pediatric care, or a pediatrician. I was too young to really understand that at the time, but it was certainly a sign of things to come.

Despite that experience, I always felt comfortable with healthcare. It always felt like I was important, like my life mattered and my needs were being attended to. Adulthood, just isn’t the same, for many reasons obviously, but in the theme of the day, health care just isn’t the same. Thankfully into adulthood my health issues calmed down a bit. Which is a good thing because throughout my 20s having health insurance was pretty rare. Still, working in retail and going to college meant I managed to snag myself more than a few cases of strep and colds and the like.

Going to the doctor as an adult is such a sad experience. Not just because the cool toys in the lobby are gone, but because the experience feels so different. I would describe it somewhere between being a prospect at a job interview, and being a suspect in a misdemeanor case. From the onset it feels like you are there to prove your case, not explain your issue. I understand healthcare is a frustrating industry, nurses and doctors are not only commonly overworked, but they have to deal with patients that do everything from self diagnose issues that don’t exist, to flat out lie about conditions to try and gain access to drugs they don’t really need. The problem for me is that seems to leave us in a situation where everyone is that case until proven sick. I’m already unwell, the last thing I need is to have to try to present a case to a doctor with evidence of my condition being real. The effect of this is, I get nervous, anxious and frankly, jaded. It makes me not want to be seen by a doctor, I don’t want to go through the process of proving myself worthy of being cared for. In my 30s things have not been quite so smooth health wise, I started with a case of what the doctors at a clinic thought was a lymphatic infection, was given some antibiotics and sent along my way. A few years later when it seemed to return, it came back with symptoms that were a bit more serious to me than just some swelling. My heart racing out of nowhere, lightheadedness, and rushes of anxiety. To me this was a pretty big deal, but to doctors, apparently this is a sign of a patient they don’t want to deal with. I just quietly dealt with the issue for a few years because I couldn’t handle the non-diagnosis shrugging off of appointments and the anxiety of dealing with them. Finally one year it got bad though, bad enough that I drove myself straight to urgent care one day because I was certain I was having a cardiac event. Upon arrival they were again just not too interested, I didn’t present with anything life threatening, but suggested I get a blood test to make sure. This was the first time anyone had actually gone that far, but I would have to find a primary care doctor to review those results. Something I hadn’t done in years. I mustered up the energy to go through that process, being a new patient is a total pain in the ass in this system too. Finally though, I found a doctor that seemed to actually take interest in my issues. It was such a comforting feeling knowing that someone actually believed I was worth being looked at and monitored. That went on for about a year as we tracked a condition known as Hashimoto’s. My thyroid was going through a phase of first over productivity and then a phase of my own white blood cells attacking it causing inflammation and under productivity. Nothing really happened that year in the way of treatment, but it was so comforting at least feeling like someone recognized something wasn’t right. New year, new insurance, new doctors I could see. There we were, square one again. Never again since that doctor has anyone ever taken the condition seriously. Every trip to the doctor is another trip down guilt lane, making me anxious and unwilling to even try.

I miss feeling important, I miss feeling like I am being looked after purely as a human in need of care. It seems like adult healthcare only works that way once you reach the point of a life and death situation. What a drag.

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