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Shouldn't have done that.
One of the first things I did with my lump sum check was write a
letter to the State requesting a copy of my State Aid hearing tape
from the previous year. Had Legal Aid appealed the decision, they
would have made such a request but, as they hadn't, I could make the
request myself if I was willing to pay the fee. At the time I
couldn't afford the fee, but now with the lump sum, I could easily
afford it. I wanted the copy simply for my records, as another
objective marker of the strange events of my medical care via what
the woman doctor had said. After a couple of weeks, I called the
state about it and they confirmed having received my request and that
they were hunting up the tape and I should have it soon.
After I moved into my first apartment I happened to fold my arms and
grasp my upper arm area with my hands. To my surprise, I realized
that my thumb and index finger could wrap around my bicep and touch
at the finger tips. I now had a different way of gauging how much
weight I had lost. After another horrifically painful experience
in the bathroom, I decided to look into visiting the community health
clinic and once again see if I could get medical care for my weight
loss and intestinal issues. I gave them a call and, as they'd have
to financially qualify me for service, they told me what
documentation to bring in with me. Once they confirmed I could
receive service, I would be wait-listed for that day.
The clinic was in an old business building on a forgotten stretch of
the main road and not directly next to a bus route. Looking the
routes over carefully, I found one that had a stop about four blocks
away and I was on one bus to transfer to another until I finally
arrived and made the walk to their door. Qualifying was pretty easy
and then I was in a waiting area chair. After a bit over an hour I
was called and taken in back where, by chance, I was assigned to a
male Vietnam Veteran Nurse Practitioner, 'Michael'. He was great and
I told him of my weight loss issues and bowel issues and existing
diagnoses of fructose intolerance and fat malabsorption problems and
various allergies. He was friendly and said, ''What we need to do is
slow down how quickly things are moving through your system.''
He gave me some free packets of food additive that was to do this and
then asked me if there was any other treatment I had over the past
few years that made my condition better. Thinking it over, I
remembered the joint doctor who thought I had Lyme Disease. He
put me on antibiotics but when he found out I didn't have it after
all, he terminated the treatment before it was done. I had felt
better at first, but then I quickly returned to my condition a week
or so after the antibiotics had been terminated. ''How about a shot
of penicillin?'' he asked. I wasn't sure what he meant and he asked
more directly if I was allergic to penicillin as he was willing to
see if it would help my health issues. I told him I wasn't allergic
and he left the room for a bit, and then returned with a syringe to
give me a long acting inter-muscular injection. Done, I was on my
way out to the side desk to make my follow-up appointment.
I was thrilled by the polite and friendly response I had gotten and
began to think that what I had needed to do all along was to see
nurse practitioners rather than doctors to be treated professionally
and with care. While setting the follow-up date, I began to feel a
little weak and shaky. Once the appointment had been set, it was the
perfect time to make the walk to the bus stop a few blocks away, but
I was feeling even worse and didn't think I'd make it and instead
went back to the waiting area and took a seat. A few minutes later I
was having shakes and troubles holding myself up in a sitting
position and went to the front desk to ask if they had somewhere I
could lie down for a bit. One look at me and suddenly many medical
staff members were called to help lead me to an exam room with a
short bench where they lay me down.
As they scrambled they asked me if I'd eaten something that had made
me sick, I told them I hadn't. Michael came in and told them he had
given me a shot of penicillin and there was a debate if I was having
an allergic reaction. One nurse was sent out to get me something to
eat and brought back some orange juice, I noted the fructose
intolerance and she ran off to get something else. The lead doctor
of the clinic came in and lifted up my legs so I was lying in a
sitting position as the nurse came back, this time with peanut butter
crackers, I had to tell her I was allergic to peanuts. There was a
quick discussion and she was off again. The main doctor let go of my
legs and they slowly settled down and he became angry as hell and
demanded I let my legs fall. As he again grasped them, still yelling
at me I finally caught on that he wanted me to actively push down
against his arms. Given my weakened state that was a challenge but I
did my best, pushing my legs down on his arms until I felt my lower
back slightly lift off from the table. The nurse came back with some
corn chips for me to eat where I had to tell her I was allergic to
corn as well. I asked for water, instead, but they wouldn't bring
that feeling I needed to eat something more substantial. The main
doctor asked if I could eat cheese and I said yes and he directed the
nurse to get a piece of cheese from the lounge refrigerator. Once my
heart rate and blood pressure were checked, they felt confident it
wasn't an allergic reaction to the penicillin. The main doctor let
go of my legs to fall off the end of the short table and he left,
Michael was showing signs of anger and left soon after followed by
the other medical personnel. I lay there for a bit alone until the
nurse came back with the cheese and a small cup of water for me.
Then she left me as well as I finished and then lay on the table a
bit longer before sitting up.
There was no one left in the room to ask if I could go, and the door
had been left open, so once I felt good enough I just left the clinic
and made my way to the bus stop and took the bus back home.
To my shock, some of the first mail I got forwarded to my new address
was a collections notice. It was for the two emergency room visits I
had made earlier in the year which had been paid for with my brief
Medicaid coverage. Unlike when they returned my old primary doctor's
false collection request, when I went to the collections agency to
tell them the hospital bills had been paid, they weren't interested.
As this was the hospital that had filed the collections request, it
was deemed to be unquestionably accurate and all I could do was pay
up or go to the hospital and have them withdraw the filing. Thus I
went to the hospital about it, bringing my paperwork, and they told
me that someone in their billing office must have 'fat fingered' in
the wrong code, marking the billing dates as 'default' rather than
'paid'. Once it was corrected in their computer, it took another
month for the collections agency to confirm it had been withdrawn and
I had no outstanding issues left.
After a month since my last call to them, I called the State office
again asking about the tape and when I'd get my copy. They confirmed
that the tape was in the judge's office and once he was done
reviewing it, I would get the copy. A few weeks later I received a
letter stating that the tape had been erased and under Colorado law
they were allowed to erase tapes after a little over a year's time so
they could be reused for other hearings. When I called up the State
office about it, they confirmed that the judge himself had erased the
tape and it was legal under the law and there was no recourse or
back-up copy. I was livid! Apparently once the judge
reheard the tape himself he felt he couldn't let a copy get out and
reveal how the hearing had actually gone.
The packets of powder the clinic had given me 'to slow things down'
made my bathroom bouts more frequent and much worse. Wondering why,
when I read the ingredients I discovered they were mostly corn
starch, so I stopped taking them. When I returned to the clinic to
see Michael to follow-up on the results, he was hateful and glaring
as I told him the packets of powder had made things worse so I had
stopped taking them and handed the unused ones back to him. Then I
noted that the antibiotics shot had made no difference. He barked at
me that he wasn't surprised as he had since found out that I was a
faker who was faking all of my health problems. Dumbfounded by this
I asked him what he was talking about and he returned, ''You know
what I'm talking about!''
A lesson I've learned in life: When someone
acts like they know something about you, you ask them what it is and
they refuse to say, that's because they don't know
themselves. They claim that 'you know'
what they are talking about in the hopes that you will fill
in the blank for them. So whenever someone acts like they
know something about you, but won't say what it is, that's because
they have no frigging
clue.
At least I can say Michael didn't flee the room after dumping this
crap on me. He told me our appointment was done and I was to leave.
I felt like I should argue, but given his mood and my not knowing
what he was talking about anyhow, I just left. My hopes that the
community health clinic would be a new chance to have my health
issues addressed fizzled and I was again left to wait until things
took their natural course. I honestly didn't believe I was going
to be around for many more years.
Reflecting on the whole experience and what I could have done so as
not to have angered Michael, all I could figure was I shouldn't have
gone to the desk and asked if they had some place I could lie down
when I felt shaky after the shot. I should have left the building
and then laid down on the ground out of sight until I felt strong
enough to make it to the bus stop on my own. That was the only thing
I could imagine doing differently...
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