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As there was no apparent quick fix for my health, there was no
reasonable expectation to return to work. Yet student loan bills had
to be paid as well as COBRA health insurance premiums. After
visiting some local resource counseling groups, I found I could file
to temporarily suspend my student loan payments due to health issues,
as well as file for the state's aid program to receive a short term
monthly stipend which would cover my insurance payments and a few
other expenses. I went to my mother's primary care doctor and he was
willing to fill out the paperwork for both and then reminded me of my
up coming appointments with the nutritionist and psychiatric nurse.
I mailed in the paperwork and then went home for the couple of days
until my first of the appointments. I was continuing to eat as if I
had a full-time job, but as I didn't my savings were quickly
dwindling, and due to medical bills as well. At my mother's mobile
home I at least had a room, heat, and water, but little else. By the
end of the month I would look into the Food Stamp program and by the
time the first of the state aid checks arrived, I was also receiving
a partial allotment of food stamps to minimally keep me fed. Rather
than ever increasing my food intake as the doctor repeatedly advised,
the financial crunch made maintaining my current diet highly
unlikely.
When the dietician's appointment came, I had to go to the hospital
and wend through a maze of disused hallways to find her office
stuffed into a dimly lit closet in the oldest part of the hospital.
Apparently the system hadn't accepted the nutritionists' role as a
high profile need at the time and it definitely didn't help with
first impressions. Still, given that my stuttering didn't help
with first impressions, I felt we were at an equal footing as I
introduced myself and she welcomed me to sit by her desk. Looking
over her notes, she said the doctor had told her that I had been
losing weight by simply not eating enough food, as confirmed by my
recent hospital stay, as well as the preceding dietary survey which
showed I had a grossly substandard calorie intake, barely adequate
protein intake and even suffered from a folic acid deficiency. That
last one surprised her as she hadn't realized the dietary survey
system measured folic acid intake levels.
Regardless, she provided me the standard diet that she presented to
all patients and we went through it step by step. I was frustrated
as it seemed like a lot less food than I had been eating during the
past few years. She assured me it would be plenty of calories to get
me building up my weight and then we would adjust it to smaller
portions once I reached a reasonable weight level. As for the folic
acid bit, she actually wasn't sure what foods would be a good source
of folic acid. I noted that apparently the dietary survey kept track
of that and perhaps we could refer to it. She thought that was a
great suggestion and left the office to get a copy.
Minutes turned to nearly an hour and I was starting to think this was
another example of the medical profession: That my appointment was
over and I was to figure out on my own that it was time to leave. I
started to put my coat on and gather my things when she returned,
apparently without a following appointment on her books she felt she
had plenty of time to get things sorted. She apologized for the
delay and looked frazzled and worried. She told me that when she had
gone to my file, all of my testing result sheets and lab work were
gone, leaving only copies of the doctor's narrative reports. This
lead her to notify the records department of the missing pages and,
as tests and other lab work were retained on their computers for a
period of months before being purged, they would be able to reprint
them and put them back into my file. She had then gone straight to
the lab wing that had processed my dietary survey and had them
reprint it and asked if they could list from their records which
foods were high in folic acid. What they told her was that their
system didn't yet track folic acid levels in most foods and any
result it gave on it was invalid. Sure enough, looking at the
resulting report, for most everything I ate there was just a dash in
the folic acid column, no meaningful value.
But there was something
more confusing and
disturbing to her.
My dietary survey showed that I had been averaging three thousand
calories a day, had a protein intake of one hundred and eighty
percent of what I needed as well as showing a healthy excess in the
many other levels it tallied. She couldn't imagine how the doctor
had gotten it so wrong. If I had been losing weight on my recorded
diet, then I'd have to eat double the portions of every meal she was
recommending to me to expect to gain any weight...
For the first time hearing any feedback that corresponded with my
own experiences, I asked if I could have a copy of the dietary
survey results for myself. She handed me the one just reprinted and
said she'd get another copy made for her records. I asked if it
would be possible to get a copy of my hospital file as well. She
said I could but, given the time needed to reprint the various
testing results, I should wait about a week before asking. On the
way out she showed me the patient records office that I would go to
when I came back to make the request.
It was a week to wait to make the request and another week for them
to photocopy my whole restored file before I was able to go to the
hospital and pick it up. In the meantime I'd have three visits with
the psychiatric nurse.
By the end of the year I received notice from the student loan people
that my loans had been terminated. This surprised me and I called
them up to ask what that was about? They told me they had
processed the request to terminate my student loans due to health
reasons and they had agreed with the doctor's determination that I
would never be able to return to work. As I had reviewed the
paperwork myself before sending it in I told them it had been a
'temporary' suspension of payments request, not a permanent
disability notice. But as far as they were concerned, the computer
said it had been processed as a permanent disability notice, it
was approved, and thus the loans were gone. There was no review
process so I didn't need to worry about it.
As I got off the phone, I was astounded as I just had a huge stroke
of luck. But it was little solace as I finally got my hospital
records and reviewed them to conclude that my mother's primary care
physician must be insane.
I was off to the psychiatric nurse to be treated for it.
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