Pricks & Doctors

I did my first self-administered (inflicted) injection! I was all ready to do this, till of course I had to actually give myself the shot! Then I hummed and hawed and honestly was quite sure I wouldn’t do it- till I took a deep breath and stabbed myself.

It wasn’t fun.

Multiple staple pins, shooting pain and then blood! But this time I was better prepared. I iced my thigh, rested my foot and even took a day of rest.

Of course during all of this I was also asked to take a battery of blood tests. The results came in and it was pretty good. Through all my pain this was my bright spark and honestly was something I was happy about. Not that this made a difference to a sulky doctors assistant who went thru the tests… They were all normal, some even low… But of course she said they weren’t up to the mark. They needed to be lower… or what’s the point!? I shouldn’t even bother her again with these types of results. I pointed out that after 12 years I finally had such great numbers. She didn’t care. Consult an endocrinologist, get better sugar results… then lets chat! But I was below normal. “Go lower,” I was snapped at. And then she cut off the phone like the 5 seconds spent on the phone with me was a huge inconvenience.

And that ended my good mood and started my stress. Luckily for me, I had Neelima and Ankita drop by to just hang and deal with me.

My body felt like a truck had run over me and then gone back over me to finish the job off; and then there was this test issue… I was glum. I wasn’t even sure that a girls’ day would be close to what I need. I needed a good cry and trash tv. But I was wrong. A totally wonderful day where I was allowed to crib about the hundreds of treatments that were being experimented on me; to screaming about my feet nerves crossing; to hating the annoying docs who were more about the business and less about the empathy- I was heard. We gossiped. We laughed. We exchanged war stories and spouse stories- some of which were the same (😜), I had a day where I recovered. When songs say “love will keep us alive…” they were right….! I felt love in the room and I actually felt physically better!

But it also brought an important point up-doctors. Over the last few years I have been thrown around like a rag doll from one doctor to another. “Give my reference ,” doctors insist as they send me off! And of course there’s a finders fee I’m sure which I don’t really worry about, but it’s how some doctors deal with patients that irks me. Whereas there are a few who really seem to listen, many of them seem to talk at you rather than talk to you. With a disease as troublesome and as complex as MS during the off days it takes just a single harsh word sometimes to set off a flood of tears, I’m amazed at the short hand doctors use and the ways I’ve been over-billed; under represented and used as a pin cushion and petri dish for numerous experiments (most which have failed).

This is a profession based on care and whereas I have been lucky to have a few who have cared passionately and furiously- they have been limited by their expertise. I have met many more unfortunately who have been smug, superior and unkind. They have been just general A#$holes!

Know that when someone is in so much pain… it’s ok to say “I have no idea…” It’s not okay to hurt them- physically or emotionally. I don’t know why it hurts people so much to just say “I don’t know…” Those three powerful words don’t make you any less, in fact it allows you to learn. It doesn’t hurt the person you are misdiagnosing and it makes you a more evolved person cos it’s ok to say “I don’t know.”

P.s.-: Today I spoke to my GP (one of the good guys). “I don’t know,” he said; “but give me time…this is a mess!” He’s right. It is a mess and I trust him more for saying “I don’t know!”