I guess what I feel most strongly right now is a sense of relief that there was actually something wrong with me, seriously wrong for that matter that is documented and better YET: Can be FIXED! I was getting quite tired of people asking me what was wrong and not being able to give them a decent answer.
A woman from church who is a major Juicer/Germaphobe/Spiritual Oils Guru went so far as to suggest to K-Sue that perhaps I was a Hypochondriac. Kind of a ridiculous statement to make when I had broken bones, multiple surgeries and the like.
I am happy to know what is wrong...now we have to determine the extent of the damage. An MRI Monday will determine if there is any infection...either way I will need a major operation on that ankle to fuse the two bones together.
Well those are my brief thoughts for tonight...see you on the morrow.....
That is so common in medicine. Whenever someone, doctor or otherwise, has no idea what is wrong with you, it must be Munchhausen syndrome... So much easier to blame the "victim" of poor health than it is to delve into what is truly wrong and try to fix it.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in the service, I actually overheard a few doctors I worked with state, "you can't ever listen to a patient, they'll lie to you about what's wrong." I was highly offended, and told them that if they no longer wanted to work with people I'm sure they could find a rewarding career behind a computer in a locked room where they never had to see another human being.
Just because a "lay person" may describe things in a way that a doctor doesn't understand, or are too stupid to put the puzzle pieces together due to narrow thinking doesn't make it any less of a traumatic experience for a patient. I taught my people to ALWAYS listen to the patients, and then think about what they were saying and "translate" into medical terms to try and find out what the underlying symptoms were and thusly finding the cause of that. Only when you look at the big picture can you see what the true cause of the issue is.
We find that primarily doctors treat women patients with women issues very poorly, as if they're all crazy, but obviously, from your experience it is NOT localized to only women. I can fully appreciate your pain, consternation and desperation. I too have some weird symptoms for my own disease process, and for more than 10 years I dealt with being "crazy" rather than a real patient with real problems.
For me, they're still finding out about my disease/syndrome, and for years I have been encouraging doctors to look at my symptoms as a whole not as piece meal, since I think they truly go together. They're finding out I was right more and more the whole time, but until they truly look at the "worst case" scenario, such as patients like me, they will never fully understand the extent of this illness.
A diagnosis is truly a blessing, and I'm so happy for you that you have one, because now instead of "crazy person making things up", you're vindicated as a REAL PERSON with REAL medical problems which can hopefully be fixed and sorted out.
I'd love to post more on personal experiences from both sides of the fence and if I can, I'd like to tag your post if I can figure out how so that others can read and follow your own experiences as well.......we'll see if I can figure it out LOL........I can be a bit computarded at times and so I'm not fully certain that I can.