Kim Possible :kimoji_fire: on Nostr: Edited to add: men are also gaslighted by medical professionals. I am about to be ...

Edited to add: men are also gaslighted by medical professionals.

I am about to be anything but brief. No one has to read all this. Skim if you want the gist, but I just realized how angry and insecure I feel after decades of medical "care." And I'm not alone. Read the replies to this thread and see.

Long Medical Rant:

When one doctor heard an abnormal heart sound, which they called a "fifth beat" and later told me I had "bunny ears" on my EKG, they sent me to a cardiologist. They basically told me I had an electrical delay (a branch bundle block or BBB). BUT, it was on the right side of the heart. They told me flat-out that they would do basic tests, but that NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HEART. Oh, okay then. Guess if it's not the left side, there's no danger? It felt exactly like when my thyroid just suddenly stopped working. They said there's no point in seeing an endocrinologist because they only treat diabetes and no one cares about hypothyroid. So I will never know why it stopped working? It isn't an important clue in some way? When my gallbladder stopped working, the insurance required ultrasound first. They said "It looks fine." I shot back "What does that have to do with function?" I demanded a HIDA scan. That's a nuclear medicine test where they measure the ejection fraction of bile through your system. If it's under 22% you need surgery. Mine was 0%. It was 100% blocked. They had to give me morphine to get the radioactive tracer to move through. I don't understand why that works. They said I would be loopy. No. One round of morphine always feels like nothing to me. It takes two rounds to get me to stop screaming if I'm in severe pain. Luckily, I could handle gallbladder attack pain without screaming, but it was bad. I had basically stopped eating due to pain avoidance and had lost 40 lbs in six months. Then I got really sick after surgery because they make you eat in order to receive pain meds. I didn't know that I was Celiac, and they gave me crackers. Anesthesia already makes me sick. To keep from heaving, I have to stick to ice chips (no water) for the first 24 hours, during which I shake the whole time, even wrapped in blankets. I'm a lot of trouble: intractable nausea is the official term.

Back to the cardiologist adventure: to make matters more cloudy, my EKGs were inconsistent and the stress test showed that my heart functioned better under stress, which is abnormal, but again, nobody cares. This is a distinct pattern.

Much earlier than that, I was diagnosed with a bleeding disorder. Not all of my clotting factors work. It was so unusual that there was no name for it, and they basically said try not to get in accidents, never give blood nor be an organ donor.

I feel like other than my migraines and rheumatoid arthritis, which took ten years to diagnose and involved near-constant gaslighting, I have received a lot of "no one cares" messages. I don't even want to talk about the pre-hysterectomy nightmare.

Even when I went to the hospital for a severe allergic reaction, the EMTs were mean to me. "You have to drink more water, and soda doesn't count." I looked at him as best I could with my entire face swollen like a balloon, like "What would that have to do with anything, also incorrect assumption." I could not see my own eyes in a mirror, mere seconds after taking the medication. EMT got mad at me for having to throw up in the ambulance. He messed up the I.V. line and it had to be redone. When they switched stretchers, I was shaking horribly from the reaction and EMT MeanGuy sighed and asked "Are you doing that on purpose, or are you just cold?!?" IDK if Y'all know, but allergic reactions cause horrible racking full-body pain, very similar to kidney stone pain. It's relentless and unbearable. They ended up giving me six I.V.s to flush out the medication. But, it's how you are treated that sticks in your memory, isn't it? Like the doctor who said "Well we found out why you're screaming like you're having a baby in here." Or the nurse who scolded me for kneeling on the bathroom floor and I snapped back "Oh, do you throw up from a standing position?!?" I've been scolded by a respiratory therapist for not holding my nose during a breathing treatment, while my blood pressure was sky high. I've been scolded for flinching when I had a paronychia infection cut with a scalpel (you can't have any numbing meds for that predicament). He said his seven year old could take pain better than I could.

I have had excellent doctors, each like a welcome oasis in an angry violent sea. But you look out to the sea from that island and you know you are going to have to go back out there eventually.