Experience and Opinions

I have this married couple pair of doctors as my physicians. I have nothing but good things to say about them. All my experiences have been positive. They have always seen me on time, faxed prescriptions to the pharmacy who deliver them to me on an immediate basis. Call me at home to give me health updates as needed. Work with me on my drug requirements, respect my refusal to take certain drugs (statins) and are super encouraging, down to giving me night splints for my arthritis to avoid morning pain.

We've chatted on personal terms too - particularly on emigrant experiences which we share.

So I was at this dinner party a couple of nights ago and words were tossed around about this couple. All negative - by at least six others. How "arrogant" how "defensive" how "shoddy" were their personas as physicians. And the waiting times were appalling and how dare they only see ten patients a day and then, by gum, they were never there on time in the morning and always left early.

I had to double check we were talking the same doctors. And yes, we were. Now I can be Super Critic when asked, especially when it comes to medical people or customer service, etc. You can imagine the startled looks I got when I extolled the virtues of these doctors. I must have seen them maybe 10 times in the past couple months. And now I'm on weekly appointments to discuss my diabetes treatment and readings and also my blood pressure and readings and methodologies for coping with stress, regaining my physical competence and so on.

Mouths around the table fell open. No one else had a positive experience to report even at Health Committee meetings which these doctors attended. They were "abrupt" and "patronizing".

I saw one of the doctors today on my regular weekly appointment (no wait-time) and she was charming and helpful and so very kind and attentive.

I find it extraordinary that I'm just a solitary voice of approval amidst so much antagonism and disappointment. Usually it's the other way round.

The Call

So I had all these tests. And then today I get The Call. The doctor on the phone wanting to see me. Why? Oh can't talk about it on the phone. Has to see me F2F. Should I be worried? That remains to be seen. After The Talk.

Next time he's in clinic is Thursday a.m. Me worry? I'm trying not to.

Many of us are at the age. And guess what I'm dreading more than anything else?

Being on a permanent medical treadmill of appointments and tests. Like many. Comparing meds and Cat Scans and MRIs. Sole topic of conversation a long list of all that ails me. Goddess, no!

Zaps the energy, freezes the brain lobes.

Let me go to a corner, open a vein and quietly bleed out while the going is good.

Sorry about the mess.

Lighthouse Doctor

I had to visit my lovely doctor today, he thought I had pneumonia, I was beginning to believe him, being a bit dizzy. Hard of hearing too. You would have pitied me at rehearsal yesterday:

"Can you repeat that?"
"No, I'm not yelling at you, I can't hear myself!"
"The harmonies were a bit off? Oh, sorry, right."
"Oh, I'm just repeating her idea? Sorry."

Gives me a fresh appreciation for the gift of all my senses.

Anyway it turns out both my ears are infected quite badly requiring anti-bs and ear drops. Rather crucial it gets cleared up by the weekend, yeah? This script will do it, Dr. M says as he hands it to me.

Anyway, as he is wont to do, my doctor entertains me with stories as he assesses me.

1972.

He gets a ship to shore call from a lighthouse 2 miles off the coast telling him there's a patient in terrible pain who can't be moved. He heads down, as instructed, to the wharf to find an ancient oarsman and his dory ready to take him off across the rough seas to the small island.

My god, thinks Dr. M, the man doesn't look like he'll make it to morning never mind through tonight!

Dr. M offers to take one of the oars and the old man reacts in horror,

"No doctor will ever touch my oars. No sar. Your hands are for the healing!"

The oldster doesn't break a sweat on the arduous journey and pulls in at the small pier off the lighthouse. A huge Newfoundland dog bounds down countless steps and waits, panting.

"Follow her now, she'll take you to the sickbed!"

Dr. M followed the dog. Up and up and up. And there's a woman roiling in pain around the bed, her husband ringing his hands in sympathy and not much else.

Dr. M completes the examination and inserts a suppository and tells the woman she will be out of pain in about 15 minutes and heads downstairs where the lighthouse keeper offers him tea. In the middle of his tea there is a series of screams from upstairs and he bounds up, two steps at a time.

He bursts out laughing at this point in the story and gasping, regains control of himself.

"Swear to god," he sputters, "She must have been constipated for a month! A month I tell you! It even hit the ceiling!

"I laughed all the way back in the dory. I didn't wait to see yer man the keeper's face after he went upstairs to the wife! A month of Sundays would have to come and go to get the place cleaned up again!

"And the very, very best part, and this shows you the heart of us Newfoundland people right there, is that a few days later a fresh salmon was delivered to my door sent by the two of them!"

Should

Was there ever such a painful, unhelpful word? I have detested it since it was first used on me and there were times when I would use it constantly on myself.

You should do this.

You shouldn't do that.

I have a saying on my bathroom mirror that I look at it every morning:

Please, Gaia, don't let me should on myself today.

It is a word of failure. Of heartbreak.

'I should have done this to keep him, make her happy, played with the children more, spent more time with my mother' and on.

Sometimes I count the number of times people say it to me or about themselves during the day.

"You should walk more."

"I should go on a diet."

What a waste of breath those shoulds are.

For, you know, we all do things when we are good and ready and not because we were shoulded into it.

Example:

My doctor tells me I am diabetic, I should control my blood sugars for my own good before I have to take injections. I should take better care of my health. I should make a plan. I should make sure I live a valuable and productive life and for this I should start with my own health.

I tune out on all the shoulds. Shrug on my shawl of denial, heave the helpful pamplets and books under something and carry on as before.

But guess what gets my attention?

I've always taken a foolish vanity in my full head of hair, enough for two heads as one of my aunts would say. And guess what, I've been losing it in handfuls this past year. I must have lost, oh, 3/4 of my hair.

And finally, finally, last week I check on the web about hair loss. And yup, diabetes affects both the hormones and the auto-immune system and yup, this results in dramatic hair loss.

This gets my attention more than any shoulding in the world would and jump starts me out of denial and into, yup, action.

A bald WWW is just not in the cards.

But please, never, ever should me.

And I'll do the same for you.

Time Warp

I've had a few health issues in the last wee while. Minor, I should hasten to add.

It was time to find a local doctor.

I asked my friends and had various recommendations – but some of their doctors were full to the maximum and I've always had to feel that personal 'click' with a doctor. Simpatico, empathy, humanity, compassion, you name it.

About five summers ago I had taken a neighbour child to her family doctor when she fell ill and her grandparents had gone to town leaving her in my care.

I was blown away by this doctor and asked at the time, if he could take me on. He regretfully told me he didn't have room for an additional patient.

In the last few months I've had several calls from his wife who was on the same page of protest and activism as I was when it came to getting high speed for our area and had read my columns in the paper on this topic.

Yesterday I called her and asked her if I could get in with her husband, the doctor I had liked so much 5 years ago.

No problem at all, you're in, she said. Today was my first appointment.

I was greeted warmly at the door as before and led into this extraordinary light filled clinic overlooking their lavish gardens which has a wooden hand-carved roll-top desk, wooden cabinets, wooden examining table and floor to ceiling medical books.

The doctor and I then proceeded to talk Newfoundland history, motorbikes, the never ending trips one can take in this magical province, archaeology, family history, organic gardening, how you build your own cabin. That took 45 minutes. He then extracted medical history from me and examined me while discussing family diseases and our adult children.

We then surveyed a map of Newfoundland and he pointed out places I should visit where, long before Cris Columbus sailed for America, a whaling station was established in Northern Newfoundland and a dig has discovered the bones of the boats and the whales perfectly preserved in sub-zero temperatures.

My mouth must have been hanging open when he handed me scrips for 2 prescriptions and a requisition for my local clinic to get some blood work on me and a further requisition for a specialist appointment.

“Oh you're surprised at the time I took,” he said. “I do this with everyone. I only see 20 patients a day. I believe in personal service. I am not running a factory. My computer is in the basement where it should be. I simply love my work.”

I pinched myself all the way out to my car.

People: this is a real doctor in a real world. I am still gob-smacked.