No Tattoo For You!

If you know me at all, you know my opinion of most doctors are that they are all a bunch of quacks who fly sound for the winter nice people who try their best for you.  Despite that, they don’t always get things right.  I’m a firm believer in the fact you know your own body better than they do, and if you have half the brain God gave you (and are able to use it) then you pretty much know what is going on and what needs to be done.

But every once in awhile, doctors get things right, and after debating a certain issue, I think in one particular case my evil psychopathic skin doctor dermatologist called it.

I have several skin issues.  The biggest one is a skin disease called eczema.  The second is something I don’t remember the name for, but it’s a rare disorder that is particular to those of American Indian descent.  But in this case, this is all about eczema.

If you aren’t that familiar with what eczema is, it is an affliction from the devil, a disease that causes rash like symptoms, itching, swelling, and cracking of the skin.  It’s no fun, trust me on this.  Blisters can form, and the itching is unbelievable.  When the skin cracks, it’s not uncommon to have slight bleeding.  I know right?  Gross.  I can only say that it is much worse than what it sounds like.

Eczema can be brought on by a number of things.  Stress, diet, chemicals, certain types of fabrics, dyes, soaps, all that fun stuff.  Finding out what the causes are can be a trying experience.  In my case, the chemicals I work with cause most of my difficulties.

One of the things I’ve learned about my case, is that dyes are a giant no-no.  I discovered this after getting one of those fake tattoos at the beach.

Don’t judge me, I still have a bit of a child in me.

This was before they started using the henna style of ink.  The older ink they used has the same dye in it that hair dye does.  Needless to say, after the ink wore off my skin, I had a breakout and I carried 1/4” welts on my skin in the exact shape of the tattoo for six months.  My dermatologist took one look at it, and yelled for her assistant to bring a camera.  That’s right, my breakout, in the form of 1/4” red welts in the form of a dragon, was immortalized and passed around the practice and laughed at placed in my file.  This was followed by an intense lecture of why I needed to stay away from dyes of all types.  I can’t even cover up my grey hair, which is a real bummer, let me tell you.

Well, I recently decided I really, really wanted to get a tattoo.  Nothing big or anything, just something small, something personal.  After the expert tongue lashing lecture my doctor gave me however, I decided I had better check in with her to see what she thought.  I pretty much figured the answer would be no, but hey, we all have hopes and dreams.

So I placed the call.

I talked to her nurse, and told her the deal, and she said she would pull my chart and talk to the good doctor and call me back the same day.  I got the call back in under a half hour.

The return phone call went something like this:

(ring right) Hello?

Mr. Riley?  This is Nurse %*$! from Doctor’s %&##$!’s office.  I talked to her and explained that you wanted to get a tattoo.  She looked at your file and under no circumstances should you try to get a tattoo.  The results would be unpredictable, and frankly, we aren’t sure how bad a break out you would have from it ok?

(noise of phone fumbling) Mr. Riley, this is Doctor $%!!!** and I just wanted to tell you that you must have lost your ever loving mind.  Don’t you remember the fake tattoo?  Are you nuts or something?  I don’t think you are in your right mind for even considering this and let me tell you – yadda yadda yadda.

She went on for quite a bit.  I’m sure she had lots of evil fun telling me off like that, and have no doubt she was hovering by the nurse just so she could talk mean to me.

However, at the end of her rant, I did hear the words, “But it’s up to you”.  I quite distinctly heard in that tone “if you’re some kind of brain dead idiot”.

Ok, maybe the conversation didn’t go quite like that, but it was close.

Needless to say, she dashed my hopes.  I had to swallow sadness.

So, to summarize, according to my Doctor, no tattoo for you.

Sometimes it’s no fun being “special” as my mother likes to say about me, but I always thought she meant that in a more derogatory way.

Ah well.  I guess I’ll have to find some other way of expressing my uniqueness.

~ Kev

American Health Care – Continued

I thought you all might like to have a little update on my previous rant about my wife’s latest experiences with her health and the medical professionals who she is dealing with.

If you read my last post, you had to wade through my rant on why I dislike doctors, giving examples from my wife’s medical history (at least some of it).  I also recommended if you wanted to know what the latest thing that happened was, to go read her blog.  I’ll summarize and then give you and update.

After a trip to the ER to receive IV antibiotics to treat what she was told was a Urinary Track Infection, she was told to follow up with her General Practitioner (GP).  She made the quickest appointment she could, because.. well, she is sick.  Her Doctor was not available and the only person she could see was the Physician’s Assistant (PA).  Should have been ok for a follow up right?  Haha.  Joke’s on her I guess.

So, when my wife got into see the PA, she told her what had happened, and what was done, and what was still going on with her, etc etc.  Tried to give her all the information, including some information about chest pains she had been having ever since she had gotten sick.  Including some muscle weirdness in her leg.

Immediately, the PA decided she needed to see a Urologist.  I guess that’s ok, except, well, getting in to see a specialist doesn’t happen that quickly and hello?  My wife was still sick.  While the PA was merrily writing stuff in her chart about a urologist, my wife was trying to explain that she was still sick and what else she was experiencing.  For some reason, the news of the chest pains and leg muscle problem really irritated the PA.  She stopped writing and said “You didn’t say anything about that”.  Well, yes she had, she had told her first thing, and then repeated it all while she was writing.  The PA got irritated about the muscled weirdness but when she felt the muscle in my wife’s leg, she said, oh thats not supposed to be like that.  My wife tried to explain the pain in her chest, and although I’m not a heart doctor, or even a doctor, it was kinda clear it wasn’t like a heart problem.  It’s to low in her chest.  Well, better safe than sorry right?  Ok, I can get on board with that.  So the PA actually got.. pissy.  Pissy enough to stomp out of the room and come back with an EKG machine.  My wife got hooked up and….. suddenly the PA is upset and nervous.  She THEN and ONLY then took her stethoscope and listened to my wife’s chest and heart.  Her next comment was just as bad if not worse.  It appeared that suddenly the PA was hearing something in my wife’s chest that was SO BAD, that she needed an IMMEDIATE x-ray.  Something serious was afoot!

So, confused, and still sick, and not even having her infection problem addressed, she was practically thrown out the door to go have an x-ray with the instructions similar to “Go x-ray place. No pass go. no collect 200 Dollars.  DO THIS NOW NOW NOW.  Very important and S.E.R.I.O.U.S.”

My wife was standing there going.. well what about….

“NO YOU GO NOW NOW NOW”

So away she went.  She had been told that she would go have the x-ray and the Doctor would call her that afternoon.

So she goes to get it done.  Then comes home so the Doctor can call that afternoon.

Two days later, and after leaving two voice mails at the Doctor’s office, no call.

Well, I will be the first to say that my wife was freaked out.  Wouldn’t you be?  If you had gone in and told you had an abnormal EKG and something S.E.R.I.O.U.S going on in your lungs that you had to address that before ANYTHING ELSE?

Yeah, she was scared.

Well, I’m ashamed to admit, that after two days of waiting, and her two voice mails (you know you can’t talk to a live person except to make an appointment right?) I lost it.  I lost it big time (turns red in embarrassment).

I got on the phone and I called and got the appointment desk.  I then proceeded to give the poor girl the what for.  Not her fault I know, but I was angry and scared and irritated and frustrated and a bunch of other stuff.  I even chewed on some nails before calling to put me in the mood.  Ok, that part is not true, but man.

I told this poor woman what was going on, what had happened, what was supposed to happen and what had failed to happen.  After telling her that IT JUST WASN’T RIGHT TO SCARE PEOPLE THAT WAY AND NOT EVEN BOTHER TO RETURN A CALL, she promised to go speak to my wife’s doctor herself.  Her GP, not the PA.

This happened about 2 minutes before 5 PM.  Guess what happens the next morning?  At 8:30 AM?  Yup, she finally gets a call.  The first one basically was apologizing for not calling back, and then blaming it all on my wife because she had left a message after hours.  -cough- excuse me? What difference does that make?!?!?! IT WAS VOICE MAIL –growls-

Anyway.  30 minutes later, the PA calls back and says, oh I just got your x-ray and everything is fine!

-headdesk-

So my wife goes, oookkkaaayyyy…. what now?

The response?  Oh, I’ll call you back shortly to tell you what to do next.

That was yesterday morning.

We’re still waiting.

Meanwhile, my wife is running a fever again, and her skin in starting to hurt again and and and…..

-headdesk-

Did I mention I dislike Doctors?

-deskkick-

Quackingly yours,

~ Kevin

American Health Care

I usually try to stay away from writing rants.  Being negative is not something I aspire to on a regular basis, although I shudder to admit it happens.  In fact, I just wrote a blog about it.  But sometimes, events pile up and you just have to get it off your chest in hopes of staying sane.  Now, my wife will say I’m obviously not sane, but hey, sanity is a relative thing for me.

So, American Health Care.

In America, we are supposed to have one of the best health care systems in the world.  If you stop and think about it, it kinda stands to reason.  Due to capitalism, our society is supposed to thrive on competition.  I recognize that we are privileged to have the health care system in this country we have.  Try to keep that in mind while I go about my discourse here ok?

I have a deep dislike of Doctors.  I have a deep dislike of Hospitals and especially Dentists.  Except for Dentists, my dislike doesn’t stem from any deep rooted fear of illness or needles or anything like that.  No, it actually stems from the fact I think Doctors are crazy as loons.

Doctors, the ones who we place our trust in to handle our health issues, go to school for a long time.  They pay big bucks for their education so in turn they can earn big bucks and get the satisfaction of being a healer.  I guess it’s like a calling or something.  They also spend crazy hours studying and go for years with little to no sleep, from school and their residency.  Some have to continue this trend when they actually go into their respective specialties.  Such as ER Doctors.

So I have a question.  A prize winning question.  If they spend all this money for schooling, and go to school for so long to get that MD tacked onto their name, why oh why are they so….. ignorant?

-sigh-

I say that with love.  Honestly.  But…. I really dislike Doctors.

How could so nice and witty of a guy like me, possibly dislike Doctors, you ask?  Well, I’ll try to explain.

I’m actually going to explain by using my wife as an example.  Don’t worry, she won’t mind me airing this particular business.  Check out her own rant on the subject by going to her blog:

Rylie’s Rants n’ Raves

My wife is not a hypochondriac.  She hates to be sick, hates going to the doctor, and will deny being sick even when she is running a fever and bed ridden.  She will do everything she can think of to believe she really isn’t sick at all.  Unfortunately, sometimes this gets her in trouble.  She will delay going to the Doctor when she needs to, until the situation is bad.  Like “have to be admitted to the hospital” bad.  I know, silly, but it’s a little quirk of hers.

Also unfortunately, my wife, who refuses to believe in being sick, suffers from a few medical issues.  Not the “Woe Is Me” kinda issues either.  I mean maintenance medicines for long periods of time, possibly for the rest of your life kind.  Because she has these issues, she has, according to her, unfortunately had the misfortune to visit the Doctor on occasion.  Even, horror of horrors in her world, “Specialists”.

Here is just a couple of issues my wife has suffered from since her teen years.

1. Migraines
2. Excessive Sleeping
3. Abnormal High Rates of Urinary Tract Infections

The migraine issue is actually a little bit deeper than just your normal sometimes splitting headaches.  She has migraines, yes, but for a long number of years, she had your more normal kind of headaches just about every single day.

The excessive sleeping problem.. well, that is one for the record books.  Not only can she, and has, often fell asleep in mid sentence while laying in bed talking with me, but the woman could sleep up to 18 hours a day… straight.  On the return from our Honeymoon from Florida, she fell asleep at the Florida state line and slept all the way to North Carolina.  I woke her up, only to learn we couldn’t stop for the night and she went back to sleep for the rest of the way home.  Just so you know, that was 12 hours of sleep.  We got home at 2 AM and she walked right into our apartment, got in bed and slept until 2 PM.  When I say excessive sleep, I really mean, excessive.  To answer the obvious question, no, when she sleeps like that, she has absolutely NO trouble going to sleep that night.

The abnormal high rate of urinary tract infections also goes deeper.  My wife is one of those strange creatures (and aren’t all women strange creatures anyway?) who has no symptoms of the infection… until it’s really really bad.  Like practically need to be admitted into the hospital bad.  In fact, the last urinary tract infection she had, she did get admitted, for a week.

Ok, I given us a baseline to work from now.

Years ago, my wife’s GP tried to address some of her issues.  Including the three above.  Well, for some reason, he started just throwing pills at her because to him, the diagnosis was “women’s issues”.  You think I’m kidding don’t you, but I’m not.  That is actually what he said.  Well, it wasn’t long before this quack job had my wife on so much medication that she actually carried a small basket around to hold them all.  I mean how crazy is that?  She pills for this, she had pills for that.  One of the pills was Prozac.  Now, I didn’t think my wife was depressed, and the funny think is, neither did she.  But her GP put that down as par for the course because of her “women’s issues”.  Fast forward a few month and guess what?  My wife had no clue who she was, where she was, what she was doing, was glassy eyed, confused and just plain off.  Did this help any of her issues?  No.  Not at all.  The masked, to some degree, some of them, such as the migraines.  She had pain pills for that.  But no root cause was looked for.  Just here, have some pills! Go and feel sick no more!  After a few incidents that I won’t bother to get into, my wife finally had enough.  One day, she simply opened the trash can, dumped all her pills, declaring “I’m sick to death of swallowing this crap”.

The good news was, my wife came back.  The bad news was, she still had medical issues.

My wife decided it was time to take more direct action in her own health care at this point.  After doing some research, she found a lot of articles about headaches and migraines and Chiropractors.  Now, even in this enlightened day and age, most “regular” Doctors scoff at Chiropractors unless you have a very limited set of issues that might require adjustments.  But, my wife, wanting to do what she could, decided to go see one.  Her Chiropractor took x-rays of her neck after examining her and guess what? It was discovered that my wife spine in the portion of her neck actually curves the wrong way.  So she decided to take the chance and started going through adjustments.  After just 1 month, she realized that she hadn’t had a headache in a week.  And the time kept growing.  She eventually had to stop seeing him after 4 months because of our insurance at the time.  But, since then, she still has headaches, she still has migraines, but nothing like she had before going to see a Chiropractor.  Let me remind you, the cause is due to the curvature of her spine at the top, something the GP never even investigated.  All he wanted to do was throw pills at her.

Next, after being admitted to the hospital for a week due to a urinary tact infection, she was finally advised to see a Urologist.  After YEARS of having, on average, 4 or 5 urinary tract infections a year.  They discovered that her bladder doesn’t empty itself like it should.  Wow.  It took her getting admitted into the hospital and almost dying by the way, to get told to see a specialist where the problem was discovered.  It appeared that it was just easier to throw antibiotics at her on a regular basis.  She still has UTI’s, as she has one now, but now it is has been over a year since she had one and they normally aren’t as bad as they used to be.

Now onto the last issue.  The excessive sleeping.  This is something she had gone round and round with her GP on.  Did he run tests?  Sure, blood tests. But that was it.  When he didn’t find anything, he decided it was due to “women’s issues” and depression.  Well, she continued to live with this problem for years until finally she got a new GP.  After going the same route with blood work, and her telling him she wouldn’t take “women’s issues” as the cause, he sent her to the sleep clinic.  Side note.  To be fair, her current GP is much better than her last and doesn’t appear to be a complete quack.  Maybe only half of one.  Ok, the sleep clinic said, yes you have a problem.  She was diagnosed with Idiopathic Hypersomnia  What does that mean?  Basically it means her body wants to sleep all the time.  Idiopathic Hypersomnia is kinda related to Narcoplsey and they try to treat it the same way.  After trying a few drugs, what they found that worked was Ritalin and Addaroll.  Yup, in adults that is basically speed.  But it allowed her to stay awake during the day and even though she would take one before going to sleep (yes, she took speed before going to sleep), she could actually wake up in the morning.  They discovered that she could fall asleep, and I mean be into R.E.M. sleep, in under 5 seconds.  Weird, huh?  Well, these were actually pills she didn’t mind taking.  She has been taken them for a long time now and has reached the point where her body finally has become accustomed to them so she has to come off of them for a period of time.  Not fun for her, but hey, there is no other treatment option available.

I’m sure you can get a glimpse of why I dislike Doctors now.  Right?

Well, I’m not done.

Last week, she came down with a UTI.  First one in a long while.  After being on antibiotics for 2 days,s he was much worse and this was on a Friday.  Knowing that if we waiting until Monday when her GP’s office was open again, and the fact she was in tears from pain and couldn’t work, I took her in to the ER so that she could get IV antibiotics.  Of course, that seems to have done the trick.  She is better now, but not well.  The ER Doc gave her instructions to follow up with a visit to her GP ASAP.  So she did.  And you know what?  You know what?  What a freakin’ disaster!

She had to see a PA.  Her GP was booked.  The PA didn’t listen, didn’t seem to care she was still sick.  Oh no, she decided that my wife suddenly had to have a chest x-ray RIGHT NOW.  Well, I won’t get into more of it, you can read her blog on it if you want to know (and btw, it’s a rather amusing read).

So my question about why Doctors are so ignorant?  I really want to know.  Why do they insist on treating people with deeper issues than the flu or a sinus infection the same?  Why do they come in, listen to you for 5 minutes, and then throw pills at you?  Why can’t they USE their education and DO something for sweet Christ’s sake?

I’m sorry, but throwing pills to mask medical problems is NOT healing.  It’s NOT prudent care and it sure as you know what not “Do no Harm”.  With the side effects of today’s medications, throwing pills at problems DOES harm.  It’s insane I tell you!  It’s crazy!  I know they call it “Practicing Medicine” but I gotta tell you, I think after all the schooling they get, there would a little less practice and a little more practical.

I’m convinced that this whole problem with Doctors started when “Management Firms” like HCA came into being.  They set bottom lines, they set visit times and other assorted crap.  You know, it really infuriates me that our Health Care has been reduced to money on friggin spreadsheets.  Now, can you even manage to imagine what it would be like if the Government started getting involved????  Oh, woe is me!

Medically Frustrated and Disgusted,

~ Kevin