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| Andrea A Year of Living In My Head |
My neurologist has been working on me a while to get an internist. I have so far tried out two - neither which clicked with me.
Trust. The first, when I told her my blood pressure ran high during menses she cocked her head sideways and said "Well, that can't be, why don't you come in and have the nurse take your blood pressure at that time and we will see". Like a) her nurse will get a more accurate read than my home cuff or the drug store and b)it is all in my head and she needed an official nurse reading. Also, her office was a ferry ride and 30 minute drive away.
Trust. The second charged me $310 a visit because I needed the "highest level care". She was never with me more than 10 minutes, frequently did not remember things she was going to do, and never crossed from her side of the room over to mine. Not sure that is $310 a visit care.
Yesterday I went to a new doc. Energetic, alert, super up-to-date knowledge, he spent the time, asked a lot of questions, and may be a good fit. Every record he makes will be online accessible for me to see and be a reminder of all the things he and I want to do. So if I forget that he said to monitor my blood pressure at 9am and 9pm I can check that.
The only thing I had a problem with is that he questioned whether some of my stroke symptoms were really psychological -- if the symptoms I experienced post-stroke were my mental gymnastics in trying to cope with a stroke. He was asking if the brain shut-down, slurred speech, uneven tilting walk, brain sparks, dizziness, unawareness of my left side, tripping, dropping, memory holes were from the stress of dealing with a stroke? The mind-numbing fog that descended was mental? I know he will change this thought process once he sees where my stroke damage is. The distinct MRI image pretty much shuts doctors up, and they realize this is not all peri-menopausal female issues. (Yes, I have frustration issues with the wide swath being female has cast over my health care).
The first thing he asked after we went through medical cursory questions was : So tell me about your stroke. I did a big pause, and then laughed. I am not sure he understood. That is a loaded question. This thing that I have been working into the concept of my life, and my concept of death is so much more than a two minute disembodied trail of symptoms, and each time I tell the tale there is a different angle. I don't think I can tell you about my stroke is one fell swoop. Do you mean the series of physical events leading up to it? Do you mean what happened physically and mentally afterwards? Do you mean how they treated it? What tests I had? What they ruled out? What they don't know? What I do? How my life is now rolling down an entirely different track... some of it chosen, a lot of it chosen for me? I know, I know he meant the western medicine list of physical details. But that isn't anywhere near the whole story, is it?
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| Locking mechanism on my bathroom door that I pulled apart to fix. This is an easy fix. Other things, not so much. |
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