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wolfsbrideThose of you who know me or read my journal, know that I have history of chronic lung problems that has culminated in severe scar tissue in my right middle lobe. I also have a very high drug threshold which means if they want something to work they have to give me enough to drop an elephant. Sadly, I also have a very high pain threshold, which means when I ask for more drugs and they say no, I'm capable of just gritting my teeth and bearing it. Those two things in conjunction with the fact that I'm a very non confrontational person has led to instances where my needs get pushed aside in the name of 'well I'm the Doctor and I say so'.
For the past.... eight weeks I've been battling a chest infection. I went to the doctor as soon as I realized that my simple cold had zeroed in on my lungs and asked for, because of the history I have, prednisone as well as a strong antibiotic. I guess doctors don't like it when patients ask for meds by name, because the first thing he said after I asked was, oh goodness no! You're not BAD ENOUGH FOR PREDNISONE, YET!!!
I kinda boggled really. I think my first thought after that statement was.. Uh.. Why the hell would we wait until I'm bad enough???? But because I'm non confrontational, I didn't push the issue.
In the six weeks since the infection, I have been through four rounds of antibiotics. Of which, the last round ALMOST brought the infection under control. I say almost because it was close, but no cigar. When I went back after my third round of antibiotics, my doctor, after listening to my chest and diagnosing my wheezing as not that bad, gave me a prescription for five days of antibiotics and said he wouldn't give me any more.
So for the last two weeks, I've been plodding along, not quite better, circling back to getting worse. On Tuesday, my Doctor's office called saying some test results had come in and could I come in on Thursday. So last night and this morning, I decided to skip my ventolin because I thought, if I go there non medicated and get him to listen to my lungs again, surely he'll hear how bad I am and give me more antibiotics and hopefully something strong enough to work too.
After keeping me waiting as usual, he ushers me in, blathers on about the test results and even though I sat probably only a foot away from him WHEEZING LIKE A KAZOO and COUGHING UP A LUNG, he was prepared to hurry me out of the room without even addressing the issue. So I asked him to listen to my lungs. He did. His response? Well, you're making a lot of noise, BUT IT'S NOT THAT BAD!!!
OMG!! IS THIS GUY A CLOSET SADIST??? Like if he considers my lungs not bad; I'd hate to see what he thinks IS bad.
To give you some idea of how restricted my breathing was at this point, picture trying to suck air in and out through a straw, only the straw is clogged with a golf ball. My breathing is so bad that I can only move in slow motion. The walk from my lobby to my apartment door that SHOULD take all of two minutes takes ten minutes because I have to stop every five feet to keep from passing out. I've been living off my emergency inhaler so much that one puffer that should last a month lasts under two weeks. The last time I tried to get it filled my pharmacist had to call them directly and beg them to fill it explaining that I had a chest infection and I was using it to breathe. I guess they frown on mainlining the stuff.
I couldn't believe it. I just... I blew up. Me: You know what! I'm done! I have given you chance after chance after chance because I think you're a nice guy and you've let me down every time. I'm going to leave here and call a cab because I CAN NOT WALK THE TWO BLOCKS TO THE WALK IN CLINIC AND YOU DO KNOW WHY? BECAUSE I CAN NOT BREATHE! I will get THEM to listen to my chest and they WILL give me antibiotics and then I WILL be finding another doctor and having my records transferred because you may be a nice guy but you've become a LOUSY doctor!
And I left.
Frighteningly enough, this seems to be the new trend in medicine. Apparently, the grand high pooh bahs in the associations that tell doctors what they can and can't do, have either implemented a new policy or are enforcing an old policy that dictates that doctors can't prescribe over a certain amount of certain kinds of drugs - various antibiotics being some of them. This is also the new/old policy for scans. I had also asked my doctor for a requisition for a CT scan of my lungs because it'd been about four years since my last one and I was having such a hard time with my breathing, even in light of the infection, that I wanted to see if my scar tissue was bigger or still the same size. I was curious because over all this was not the worse chest infection I've ever had - and boy is it kinda sad when you get to the point where you can prioritize your infections on the basis of seriousness - and yet my lungs seemed to be having a great deal of difficulty working regardless. I can't have that test either.
I had no idea but according to my doctor, one CT scan equals the equivalent of 100 x rays. So what the grand high pooh bahs are concerned with is the long term effects of antibiotics and various medical scans on peoples' health. Which is great and all fine and dandy, HOWEVER, my question then is, at WHAT POINT do the long term effects become more important that what is happening NOW? Frankly, if I'm DYING NOW, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to care that, OMG! This scan MIGHT cause me problems TEN YEARS down the road. My other question is, what is the point of having drugs and equipment if you are going to tie peoples hands when it come to using them?
I UNDERSTAND where they're coming from. Really I do! But I think maybe there needs to be more of a balance than just an arbitrary number beyond which you turn people away. If I keel over dead because I didn't get a test that clearly, in hindsight, I needed, all the numbers in the world are not going to matter very much.
My other objection to this is it does not take individuals into consideration. I know there are people that run to the doctor every five minutes crying about something or the other. But I am not one of them. If I say I NEED drugs, you can be sure I've got one foot in the grave already. That's just the kind of person I am. When people ask me how I am, I could be missing limbs and spurting blood all over the place, and I'd be like the knight in the Monty Python sketch - Oh it's just a scratch.
My pharmacist is so nice - when I explained my frustration with the doctor and not improving, he started looking up different kinds of inhalers to see what else I could take that might help my lungs better. Guess what? All the good meds? The ones that actually work? They're not covered. A three month supply of the good inhalers would cost me six hundred dollars. JUST the inhalers. I did a quick calculation, based on the times that both my government medical plan AND my extended health plan ran out, and a three month supply at those times costs me eleven hundred dollars.
I'm a bookkeeper. I know the purpose of a business is to make money. And I'm not naive enough to believe that drug companies provide drugs out of the goodness their hearts, but I'd kinda like it if maybe, just maybe, the drugs that keep people alive, didn't cost an arm and three legs. I mean, I pay taxes. I pay seven hundred dollars a month to a private health insurance company... What the hell am I paying for if I can't get the drugs I need at a price I can afford?
I'm kinda wanting to go hunt down some numbers on the costs of synthetic drugs because I know a bag of pot is pretty damn cheap and it'd be a sad sad state of affairs if you could get illegal drugs for cheaper than the mainstream ones.
For the past.... eight weeks I've been battling a chest infection. I went to the doctor as soon as I realized that my simple cold had zeroed in on my lungs and asked for, because of the history I have, prednisone as well as a strong antibiotic. I guess doctors don't like it when patients ask for meds by name, because the first thing he said after I asked was, oh goodness no! You're not BAD ENOUGH FOR PREDNISONE, YET!!!
I kinda boggled really. I think my first thought after that statement was.. Uh.. Why the hell would we wait until I'm bad enough???? But because I'm non confrontational, I didn't push the issue.
In the six weeks since the infection, I have been through four rounds of antibiotics. Of which, the last round ALMOST brought the infection under control. I say almost because it was close, but no cigar. When I went back after my third round of antibiotics, my doctor, after listening to my chest and diagnosing my wheezing as not that bad, gave me a prescription for five days of antibiotics and said he wouldn't give me any more.
So for the last two weeks, I've been plodding along, not quite better, circling back to getting worse. On Tuesday, my Doctor's office called saying some test results had come in and could I come in on Thursday. So last night and this morning, I decided to skip my ventolin because I thought, if I go there non medicated and get him to listen to my lungs again, surely he'll hear how bad I am and give me more antibiotics and hopefully something strong enough to work too.
After keeping me waiting as usual, he ushers me in, blathers on about the test results and even though I sat probably only a foot away from him WHEEZING LIKE A KAZOO and COUGHING UP A LUNG, he was prepared to hurry me out of the room without even addressing the issue. So I asked him to listen to my lungs. He did. His response? Well, you're making a lot of noise, BUT IT'S NOT THAT BAD!!!
OMG!! IS THIS GUY A CLOSET SADIST??? Like if he considers my lungs not bad; I'd hate to see what he thinks IS bad.
To give you some idea of how restricted my breathing was at this point, picture trying to suck air in and out through a straw, only the straw is clogged with a golf ball. My breathing is so bad that I can only move in slow motion. The walk from my lobby to my apartment door that SHOULD take all of two minutes takes ten minutes because I have to stop every five feet to keep from passing out. I've been living off my emergency inhaler so much that one puffer that should last a month lasts under two weeks. The last time I tried to get it filled my pharmacist had to call them directly and beg them to fill it explaining that I had a chest infection and I was using it to breathe. I guess they frown on mainlining the stuff.
I couldn't believe it. I just... I blew up. Me: You know what! I'm done! I have given you chance after chance after chance because I think you're a nice guy and you've let me down every time. I'm going to leave here and call a cab because I CAN NOT WALK THE TWO BLOCKS TO THE WALK IN CLINIC AND YOU DO KNOW WHY? BECAUSE I CAN NOT BREATHE! I will get THEM to listen to my chest and they WILL give me antibiotics and then I WILL be finding another doctor and having my records transferred because you may be a nice guy but you've become a LOUSY doctor!
And I left.
Frighteningly enough, this seems to be the new trend in medicine. Apparently, the grand high pooh bahs in the associations that tell doctors what they can and can't do, have either implemented a new policy or are enforcing an old policy that dictates that doctors can't prescribe over a certain amount of certain kinds of drugs - various antibiotics being some of them. This is also the new/old policy for scans. I had also asked my doctor for a requisition for a CT scan of my lungs because it'd been about four years since my last one and I was having such a hard time with my breathing, even in light of the infection, that I wanted to see if my scar tissue was bigger or still the same size. I was curious because over all this was not the worse chest infection I've ever had - and boy is it kinda sad when you get to the point where you can prioritize your infections on the basis of seriousness - and yet my lungs seemed to be having a great deal of difficulty working regardless. I can't have that test either.
I had no idea but according to my doctor, one CT scan equals the equivalent of 100 x rays. So what the grand high pooh bahs are concerned with is the long term effects of antibiotics and various medical scans on peoples' health. Which is great and all fine and dandy, HOWEVER, my question then is, at WHAT POINT do the long term effects become more important that what is happening NOW? Frankly, if I'm DYING NOW, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to care that, OMG! This scan MIGHT cause me problems TEN YEARS down the road. My other question is, what is the point of having drugs and equipment if you are going to tie peoples hands when it come to using them?
I UNDERSTAND where they're coming from. Really I do! But I think maybe there needs to be more of a balance than just an arbitrary number beyond which you turn people away. If I keel over dead because I didn't get a test that clearly, in hindsight, I needed, all the numbers in the world are not going to matter very much.
My other objection to this is it does not take individuals into consideration. I know there are people that run to the doctor every five minutes crying about something or the other. But I am not one of them. If I say I NEED drugs, you can be sure I've got one foot in the grave already. That's just the kind of person I am. When people ask me how I am, I could be missing limbs and spurting blood all over the place, and I'd be like the knight in the Monty Python sketch - Oh it's just a scratch.
My pharmacist is so nice - when I explained my frustration with the doctor and not improving, he started looking up different kinds of inhalers to see what else I could take that might help my lungs better. Guess what? All the good meds? The ones that actually work? They're not covered. A three month supply of the good inhalers would cost me six hundred dollars. JUST the inhalers. I did a quick calculation, based on the times that both my government medical plan AND my extended health plan ran out, and a three month supply at those times costs me eleven hundred dollars.
I'm a bookkeeper. I know the purpose of a business is to make money. And I'm not naive enough to believe that drug companies provide drugs out of the goodness their hearts, but I'd kinda like it if maybe, just maybe, the drugs that keep people alive, didn't cost an arm and three legs. I mean, I pay taxes. I pay seven hundred dollars a month to a private health insurance company... What the hell am I paying for if I can't get the drugs I need at a price I can afford?
I'm kinda wanting to go hunt down some numbers on the costs of synthetic drugs because I know a bag of pot is pretty damn cheap and it'd be a sad sad state of affairs if you could get illegal drugs for cheaper than the mainstream ones.
