Y’know how we all take our health for granted? All is well and we just bump along when suddenly that all encompassing shift takes place that stops us dead in our tracks when illness strikes.
Well, the whole business of our relationship with doctors was suddenly in sharp focus as I recently became quite ill. No—there will be no organ recital in this blog post. But I do want to tell you about the sudden dependency and anonymity you’re thrown into when trying to navigate the whole medical care process. You don’t have to totally rely on the doctors – the only ones who can tell you what’s strong and how to treat it and get well. Suddenly they’re in charge.
So there I was, with 5 doctors handling my case, dealing with separate systems that had gone nuts. 5 doctors, each of whom saw me only through the filter of his/her specialty. Each called in to focus on the anonymous person with the crimps in her system
And I was being handled anonymously by them through my primary care doctor- they were talking to each other about me in their own private lingo from their special vantage point. I realized that I as a person really didn’t exist for them. They could address my system malfunctions but knew nothing about me and how this conglomeration of illnesses was affecting me- a whole person who was used to moving at top speed through life, quite in charge of my own faculties and choices.
So I thought I needed to emerge – to write a letter of introduction, telling them all whom they were dealing with, hoping for a personal connection and identity, generating a new look at me, not just my problems.
And I did it. I told them why I was writing, with a really a quick bio telling them who I was, what my life was about and why I needed their help to get me back to where I was, in lieu of actually meeting and getting to know them.
I had each letter hand-delivered, with a list of all five doctors and how they could call each other at the end of each letter. And y’know what? It worked like a charm! I got to talk to them with special appointments. One even gave me his cell phone number in the event I got anxious. And once again I felt really know and cared for.
Just a thought about some ways to break through today’s express systems and back to the old one-on-one personhood status. And stay healthy!!
P.S. All is well, mending, healing and a little wiser for wear.
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Reading Between the Lines 