There I sat on the edge of the bed waiting. My blood pressure was a little raised after the excitement that I had experienced by entering the room. I could feel the prickles of anticipation. What would the result be I asked myself as I waited. It was not as if I had never been in the situation before. After all a woman my age has has experience. I took a deep breath telling myself that everything was going to be fine.
The door opened and in stepped a strange looking woman. Her skirt, shoes, knee highs and tight sweater all suggested that she had dressed in both a hurry and without glancing at a mirror. Her lank hair made me wonder if there was a water issue at her house. I let out a breath.
The conversation began pleasantly. We introduced ourselves and then came the usual questions. When, for how long, under what conditions. I waited for her to make suggestions. Her first one made me frown.
"Hyper ventilation causes cramps," she said. "You must breath into a brown paper bag when this happens. I don't know why they say a brown paper bag but I suppose any bag will do."
Silence.
"I don't hyperventilate when it happens," I politely responded.
"You do," she stated.
"I don't," I firmly contradicted her. "I know when I hyperventilate and it is not when these happen."
"Well I am sure you do hyperventilate," she seemed bored.
"If it is not hyperventilation then would else could be the cause?" my advocate asked from the corner.
"I don't know what to suggest," she replied.
The silence that followed was filled with raised eyebrows and widened eyes.
'Really," I thought.'You are a doctor and charging me god alone knows what for this consulatation and that is all you have to offer!'
She waited for some one to speak but both of us were a more than a little surprised.
The lap top lid was flipped open and she began to type while my advocate made some comments about my medical history and possible issues.
"If it happens after exercising then don't exercise," she uttered as if I was lying about exercising.
A silence.
"Look at these," she finally said turning the lap top to show us what she had found.
'Dear gods,' I thought as I felt my face developing a strange new twitch. 'She has GOOGLED it!!'
Not even bothering with WebMd she had gone straight to Google. There were pictures to show limbs in strange contortions similar to the ones I suffer. Just pictures folks - no explanations other than a name for these sort of cramps. She was very proud of the search engine's ability to find pictures that she could show me.
"And?" I asked.
"And?"
"What causes them?"
"Hyperventilation ..." she quickly scoured the page in an attempt to see if there might be a suggestion of something other than that being the cause.
"Blood tests?" I enquired beginning to wonder when she was going to throw the bones and utter a spell.
"For?"
"Calcium levels, magnesium - things like that," my advocate and I could not even look at each other at this point.
"I arrange for those," she looked up from the photos that clearly fascinated her.
I began to consider trying to force a cramp just to draw her attention back to the patient - Me!
"I have very low vitamin D which I think can be a cause of cramps," I began to mentally apply for my own M.D. certification.
"I'll check for that. So these sort of cramps are always in the extremities," she stated as if she was not reading something off the web.
'Yahoo?' I wanted to ask.
"They happen all over my body," I sighed.
"No they can't," she informed me.
"Well they do!" my advocate was losing patience.
"Are you sure?"
No, I wanted to shout. I pretend to be a pretzel unable to straighten the affected part of my body because that makes me a much more interesting guest, host, family member. I enjoy the severity of the cramps to such a degree that I actually want them to continue. Pain - ah what is not to love about it.
"Let me retake your blood pressure before you leave," she moved to my side.
"No!" I was sure that if it had been taken I would have been carted off to hospital.
"I'll have it taken some other time."
"But it was high," she moved toward the cuff.
"No! If you take it it will be very high and that is pointless," I edged away from her.
If she had shown the level of determination at solving my problem that she was displaying in taking my blood pressure I would have been reassured. Perhaps, the thought twitched through my stressed brain, she only knows how to take blood pressure.
The test results came back with a suggestion to take super high doses of vitamin D. Nothing else. No referral to another doctor. No how are you doing - zero, 0, nothing.
The woman on the other end of the phone was not surprised when I called to say I was changing doctors. I have lost faith in a practice that can employ a doctor who googles - at least insist on WebMd and please please don't do it in front of the patient! For some reason it seems to cause mistrust in the medical skills of the doctor. When a doctor shrugs and says "What do you want me to do?" you know that it is time to slid off the bed, pick up you handbag and walk away.
Until my specialist finds the cause I'll be performing almost daily as a contortionist for a fee. Just please don't take pictures and put them on Google.
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