Just take the meds, Jabba.

Every time I meet a medical provider for the first time, I'd have to be an idiot to miss the way they size me up.

Haha, no pun intended, but yeah.

I'm not a small person.

I've lost almost exactly 50 lbs in the past year and I'm not done, but unless you know me well, you wouldn't know that.

So their judgment is about 90% based on how I look.
The other 10% is the fact that I'm 'just a babysitter'.
I don't have a real job, ya know. I just take care of kids.

They look at me and drop about 20 points from my IQ before we ever exchange more than pleasantries. I can see it in the way they look at me.

It only goes downhill from there, as I'm not there for them to get to know and I sure as hell don't want to become friends with them, either.
And no, it's not me projecting.

I might be more open to believing that if:
A; it didn't happen every damn time and
B; if those 'professionals' didn't find an opportunity during our conversation to tell me how fat I am and tsk tsk disapprovingly. 

Oh, they don't say, "You're a great, fat hog."
No, they use words like risk factors and high BMI.
Those words are reinforced with disapproving tones and serious stares over the tops of their eyeglasses.

I'm told, sometimes forcefully what *I* need to do to fit into their little box. That pathological need to classify me and FIX me pisses me off more than just a little.

When Dr. Ird (I-replaced-dirtball) lectured me back in March about my BP, she was very intense. Wanted me to get an idea of how important it was to take medication.

"Your numbers just keep going up!" she said, leaning toward me.
"There are many things that can happen to people who have high blood pressure. You could have a stroke! You could have a heart attack! That pressure is making your veins just pound and pound!!"

(an aside here... my BP was like 140s/100's... not good. But compared to what happened when I started the BP medication-go-round?
It was amazing.)

She punctuated her lecture by smacking the back of her right fist into her left palm repeatedly.
She tossed in some threats about how if I had a stroke I wouldn't be able to draw anymore or do the things I usually do.
So against my gut feeling, (she completely dismissed my concerns about the heartburn medications and possible effects from them) I took the damn BP medication(s).
And didn't that go well!?

First, no one called me. NO ONE gave a shit. No one called to see how the medication was working. No one asked after each change how I was doing. I am able to take responsibility to keep an eye on things myself, and it's a good thing I do, but really. Not one call?

The effects caused by every single one of the doctor-prescribed drugs were horrendous.

Don't call them 'side' effects, as they. Fucking. Aren't.
They are effects, life-threatening and goddamn expensive.
(I thank my friend Natalie for that way of looking at it, I hadn't really considered it before.)

And when the first poison didn't work (bumping my BP up into the 220/130!!! range could be called unsuccessful, amiright?)  they said,"Why, let's try another!"

We did.

And another and another. 
It kept getting worse.
And made me so ill.
My god.

My doctor, who didn't get back to me about how to discontinue the first medication until DAYS after I asked for help, was on vacation during that crucial week.

And because I listened to her about the medications in the first place, I got horribly ill in the middle of the night and sincerely believed my life was in imminent danger, because I had NO OTHER OPTIONS I ended up in the ER two times in five days where they failed to do anything for me other than help with a migraine brought on by one of the poisons THEY gave me in the first place!

I was demeaned, dehumanized, degraded.
Talked down to.
Treated like a hypochondriac.

I'm actually embarrassed that I listened to any of the bullshit about getting on BP meds and didn't just take myself off the goddamn heartburn medication in the first place just to see.
(Medically Non-compliant, that's me.) 

When I called the clinic after the first disastrous exposed-to-a-billion-pathogens-by-clueless-hospital-personnel-AND-patronized-to-boot visit to the ER, I was effectively dismissed by the goddamn receptionist, too.

When I said, "Hey, my blood pressure is way up and I ended up in the ER and could I please come in and talk to someone," her response was to dismiss me.
She told me my numbers were, "Stable when you left the ER."
Her tone was unmistakable.

I was actually breathless/speechless for a moment.

She added, "And there's a discrepancy between your readings and theirs.

I covered that in that post, I don't want to write it up again.
She's just another asshole in an ever-growing line of them.

Yeah, that was fun. I spent MORE money to go in and talk to a nurse practitioner and be told I needed to schedule this test and that one and come in and have blood drawn (again). To be fair, she did listen to me.

When I called the clinic on Tuesday to verify, they told me their lab was closed. Which is a lie. It's open to appointment, I was told to come in.

But I had to wait on hold again for 10 minutes to find that out.
Have we talked about being on hold there? It's shrill, obnoxious, loud, OBNOXIOUS.

Several cycles of how to quit smoking and lose weight and get good sleep interspersed with a giant booming voice thanking me for my patience and assuring me they'll be right with me. With a clashing and discordant attempt at music. If you're already feeling like crap, or you have a headache, that stuff doesn't make things better.

What they really need is a 'press 8 if you'd like to be on hold without the noise' option. Just that would be amazing.

Streamlined isn't a word I'd use to describe how they do things.

I also would not use the words compassionate, caring, or concerned.

The feeling I've gotten in about 95% of my dealings with the clinic/hospital system I am *required* to use is that single patients do not matter on an individual basis.

We're just numbers, and if we die, well there are plenty more.
Before all this happened, I can't say I had a great deal of trust invested in Dr. Ird, but I didn't dislike her. I don't dislike her now, either.
But that tiny little bit of trust I had?
I don't have it now.

She's laboring under some pretty ridiculous standards.

I know what is expected from the doctors where she works.

I know I mentioned that I'd followed Dr. Dirtball there.
I'd been seeing her for 16 years and considering who I am and what I think of the practice of medicine in general, I'd developed some amount of trust.

When she informed me that she was leaving the practice, I asked her why.

She sighed.
Wearily sank down into a chair across from me.
Leaned forward, elbows on knees.

"Do you want facts or the sanitized version?"

I raised an eyebrow. "You've known me 16 years and you have to ask?"

I don't remember her her exact words.
I do remember the defeated tone in which she said them.

They wanted her to sell, sell, sell.
Sell vaccines.
Sell tests.
Sell more tests.

She was supposed to make everyone get a flu shot.
Be tested for hepatitis if they were born before 1963.
Catch up on booster shots for this and that.

The practice sees a large number of geriatric patients.
Medicare pays for that.

And for them, there's the added bonus that people of that age group are more likely to do the medical equivalent of 'Yes, Dear' when the doctor tells them they need something.

She was never able to measure up to their production benchmarks, either. See X amount of patients per day.

She usually worked through her lunch hour, either seeing patients or catching up on paperwork. She came in on weekends and on her days off so that she could do more administrative tasks.

She was worn out. Tired. Discouraged.

"This place is not about patient care," she told me.  "They are only concerned with how much they can bill. If you have good insurance, they will order more tests than you need to add to their magic totals."

Not what she'd thought she was signing up for when she closed her solo practice.

She confided that when she'd practiced alone, she spent so much time on the telephone with insurance companies arguing about coverage that she was constantly behind and harried.  Her stress level was making her ill.
She said wryly, "I thought coming here would make things better for me. It hasn't."

She commented on the revolving door of the practice, too.
So many doctors come and go, and can't take the pressures being placed on them from above. They tell them why they're leaving, but nothing changes.

She had thought that being able to hand off the administrative tasks and day-to-day minutiae of private practice would give her time for the actual practice of medicine. To do patient CARE.

"Not this." she finished, gesturing around her.

Said it again, defeatedly, "Not... this."

A few days later, she was gone. I haven't seen her since.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So here's where I am now.
I've been off the heartburn stuff for three weeks now.
My system seems to be balancing a little better. I still have a bit o' the burn, but I have generic tums and generic Pepcid for the worst of it. It's keeping things under control.

I decided to taper off the latest BP medication, the one the veterinarian-masquerading-as-a-human-doctor in the ER prescribed for me.

When I took one, within two hours I was nothing but clammy, out of breath and weak for about 14 hours. It made me very ill, just like all the other shit they've tossed my way.

I did not call the clinic to ask for help in stopping this medication. I've already seen how 'helpful' they are. And their demonstration of how much they 'care' has been quite clear.
Fuck that.

So I did the same get-off-the-med routine my doctor left me on my voice mail four days after I started the process with the first medication. I'm on a skip day today.

My BP has been 120-123 over 79-82 for three days in a row.

Gee, it's almost like those heartburn drugs that I'm no longer taking had something to do with the high blood pressure.

Why didn't I think of that?

Oh yeah. Guess I did.