The prospect of changing family doctors is nerve-wracking. We were spoiled in Ohio, I guess. Our doctor was from Canada, and sometimes he would see patients until 10PM. Here, if you find a doctor who is in past four, you are lucky.
The doctor in Ohio also treated my husband and me as people, not just case studies. Here is an example. Nine years ago, I had a thyroidectomy. My goiter was older than some of the junior high students I taught, and although my thyroid hormones had never become unbalanced as I had been told they would, the goiter's size was becoming a problem. It looked like the horror stories in my fourth grade health book.
Nobody told me that there were emotional consequences for your body while your thyroid hormones were being rebalanced. The surgery was in early June, and by the end of the summer, because the endocrinologist balanced my hormones in increments, I was a mess. The surgeon had told me that in essence I had no thyroid, so the medical reason for upping the synthroid so slowly escaped me. Anyway, it just happened that my mom had died in February of that same year, but the depression that followed her death was NOTHING compared to the one without the thyroid. I really was having suicidal thoughts, and the fact that I knew there was a physiological reason for them didn't help a bit. Late one night,when I was desperate, I made an appointment with Dr. Kamp. I couldn't help it; when he walked in, I asked him to drug me or commit me. What he did was to swing a chair around, sit down on it, and tell me to talk to him. That and the fact that the man always asked about all the rest of the family whenever one of us went to see him earned him my respect. And my trust.
Then we moved to Indiana. No reasonable hours. Oh well. I could live with that if I were a person. I lost hope of being one just before I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. When I told my family doctor that I couldn't bend my left index finger, he said, "Sure you can. It just hurts," and proceeded to bend it for me. Had it been left to him, because my RA is seronegative, I would never have been diagnosed, and all of the research says that early treatment is critical.
He wasn't any better with my husband. Neither of us have ever been skinny, and since we are middle-aged, there are very few diets we haven't tried. We came to the conclusion long ago that our problem was portion control. Nevertheless, we are both rather defensive about our weight, and when my husband was diagnosed with high blood pressure, he was so defensive and depressed I doubt I could have gotten him to the doctor at all had it not been a condition for his returning to work (at least those railroad health tests are worth something). The family doctor lectured him for thirty-five minutes about his weight, and I can tell you he did not listen for more than thirty seconds. We have both heard it all beforeand although we work at it, most of the time we find it cause to pat one another on the back if we haven't GAINED weight.
Last fall, we had enough, so don't ask me why it took until February to act. The old family doctor had gone on to the big city (Indianapolis), and we were left with the new partner. At first glance he seemed OK, but by the second visit he was telling us results for tests we had that we had never been informed of or, if we had, the results were normal and he was telling us that they were not. Now I know that doctors are busy people, but so are we, and if they are going to make us take medicine, I would rather they paid attention to what OUR test results were. Whether that doctor was having a bad day or the office had recorded our results incorrectly I don't know, but it seemed time to change.
I asked around and finally found a doctor that people who have lived here for a while like and he is actually taking new patients. So tomorrow is the big day. Of course my husband sent me in first, to test the waters. I know doctors find it annoying when you have researched your own health condition, but especially with something like rheumatoid which, it has been pointed out, can shave a decade off my life expectancy, I think it would be irresponsible NOT to research. And I want to find out why the old doc was threatening my husband with cholesterol-lowering drugs when his overall cholesterol is 179. Sure, the numbers for HDL and LDL don't quite balance out like they do in the textbooks, but don't you need to take the patient as an individual? Although my husband feels duty-bound to whine about the dietary changes we have made, he really has been a good sport. We have pretty much cut out salt. I bake the meat he takes in his lunch; lunchmeat and processed foods are a rarity. And we are working on ridding ourselves of the transfats and upping the exercise.
The librarian at one of the buildings I work in said that her doctor (female and no longer taking patients) congratulates her patients if they lose weight but does not harass them. That makes sense to me, especially since the guidelines have been revised downward and if your patient is middle-aged and has never met them, chances are ......
So tomorrow is the big day. Let's hope we have found someone with a calling to medicine, and that the calling is more than dollar signs.
The doctor in Ohio also treated my husband and me as people, not just case studies. Here is an example. Nine years ago, I had a thyroidectomy. My goiter was older than some of the junior high students I taught, and although my thyroid hormones had never become unbalanced as I had been told they would, the goiter's size was becoming a problem. It looked like the horror stories in my fourth grade health book.
Nobody told me that there were emotional consequences for your body while your thyroid hormones were being rebalanced. The surgery was in early June, and by the end of the summer, because the endocrinologist balanced my hormones in increments, I was a mess. The surgeon had told me that in essence I had no thyroid, so the medical reason for upping the synthroid so slowly escaped me. Anyway, it just happened that my mom had died in February of that same year, but the depression that followed her death was NOTHING compared to the one without the thyroid. I really was having suicidal thoughts, and the fact that I knew there was a physiological reason for them didn't help a bit. Late one night,when I was desperate, I made an appointment with Dr. Kamp. I couldn't help it; when he walked in, I asked him to drug me or commit me. What he did was to swing a chair around, sit down on it, and tell me to talk to him. That and the fact that the man always asked about all the rest of the family whenever one of us went to see him earned him my respect. And my trust.
Then we moved to Indiana. No reasonable hours. Oh well. I could live with that if I were a person. I lost hope of being one just before I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. When I told my family doctor that I couldn't bend my left index finger, he said, "Sure you can. It just hurts," and proceeded to bend it for me. Had it been left to him, because my RA is seronegative, I would never have been diagnosed, and all of the research says that early treatment is critical.
He wasn't any better with my husband. Neither of us have ever been skinny, and since we are middle-aged, there are very few diets we haven't tried. We came to the conclusion long ago that our problem was portion control. Nevertheless, we are both rather defensive about our weight, and when my husband was diagnosed with high blood pressure, he was so defensive and depressed I doubt I could have gotten him to the doctor at all had it not been a condition for his returning to work (at least those railroad health tests are worth something). The family doctor lectured him for thirty-five minutes about his weight, and I can tell you he did not listen for more than thirty seconds. We have both heard it all beforeand although we work at it, most of the time we find it cause to pat one another on the back if we haven't GAINED weight.
Last fall, we had enough, so don't ask me why it took until February to act. The old family doctor had gone on to the big city (Indianapolis), and we were left with the new partner. At first glance he seemed OK, but by the second visit he was telling us results for tests we had that we had never been informed of or, if we had, the results were normal and he was telling us that they were not. Now I know that doctors are busy people, but so are we, and if they are going to make us take medicine, I would rather they paid attention to what OUR test results were. Whether that doctor was having a bad day or the office had recorded our results incorrectly I don't know, but it seemed time to change.
I asked around and finally found a doctor that people who have lived here for a while like and he is actually taking new patients. So tomorrow is the big day. Of course my husband sent me in first, to test the waters. I know doctors find it annoying when you have researched your own health condition, but especially with something like rheumatoid which, it has been pointed out, can shave a decade off my life expectancy, I think it would be irresponsible NOT to research. And I want to find out why the old doc was threatening my husband with cholesterol-lowering drugs when his overall cholesterol is 179. Sure, the numbers for HDL and LDL don't quite balance out like they do in the textbooks, but don't you need to take the patient as an individual? Although my husband feels duty-bound to whine about the dietary changes we have made, he really has been a good sport. We have pretty much cut out salt. I bake the meat he takes in his lunch; lunchmeat and processed foods are a rarity. And we are working on ridding ourselves of the transfats and upping the exercise.
The librarian at one of the buildings I work in said that her doctor (female and no longer taking patients) congratulates her patients if they lose weight but does not harass them. That makes sense to me, especially since the guidelines have been revised downward and if your patient is middle-aged and has never met them, chances are ......
So tomorrow is the big day. Let's hope we have found someone with a calling to medicine, and that the calling is more than dollar signs.
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