dangerous compassions

I call you / from the comet's cradle

Thursday, December 06, 2018

doctor trauma

Yesterday, doctor trauma.  Not fitting in the chair I had to sit in to get my picture taken, pain in my legs as I was squoze.  Stepping on the scale: "whenever you're ready!" 

The doctor's idiocy about my cough.  "You know, it's the season for coughs!  Things are going around!  The cold weather."  I kept telling him I've had it since summer.  "I haven't heard you cough yet," he said.

I told him how I'm afraid of the sleep study, and he's telling me there's nothing to be afraid of.  Complete dismissal of my terror, as if he doesn't know what terror is or doesn't believe I could feel it.  No problem solving whatsoever, just a "there, there."  Don't feel the way you feel.  There's no reason for it.

I wanted to be like, "See on my chart where it says anxiety?"  Another doctor confirmed it--I have feelings that can wreck my life.  If you don't believe me, maybe you could believe the other doctor?

So he ordered an x-ray for my toe and a pill for my tongue, a blood test for the clotting disorder I might have inherited from Dad, and then he left nervously, unhappily, without saying goodbye or more handshakes, sending in the nurse to explain to me what to do next.

When he left, I started to cry.  I didn't want to touch my eyes because I thought I had germs on my hands, from being at the doctors, from touching things.  Ming gave me a tissue.  I didn't want to cry in front of the nurse. 

"Is everything okay?" the nurse asked when she saw I was crying, amused.  I assured her everything was okay.  In the parking lot I sobbed, so frustrated, and txted my mom.  Ming gives the new doc a C+.

What if I'll never be ready?  He said my ankles swell, more in summer, just because I'm fat.  He says if I do have sleep apnea, it could go away if I lost a lot of weight.  "That doesn't happen right away," he said.

Last time I was in the hospital, when an urgentcare doc sent me to ER afraid I was having a stroke, I was in the back, soon to be released, shaking with fear.  "I notice you're shaking," the doc said.  "Why is that?"

I told her I was afraid of doctors.  "Is there anything I can do to help you not be afraid?" she asked. 

I told her no.  Driving home, flipping through my paperwork, I saw all I'd been prescribed--there was an anxiety med I could take just for going to the doctor.  I cried then too.

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