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When I first went to the community health clinic I was asked what had
made my health better and I noted a time that I had antibiotics and
things improved until the antibiotics ran out. Yet, given a long
acting injection of penicillin, it had no beneficial effect. And the
consequences of receiving the injection had ruined a good
relationship I had started to build with the nurse practitioner
there.
I had spent the subsequent year thinking this over and theorizing why
the injection hadn't worked while the oral antibiotics had. Was
it a case of what was wrong with me was something in my intestines
themselves and not in the rest of me? That would explain it as oral
antibiotics would have direct contact with whatever was in my
intestines while, with the intramuscular injection, things hiding in
my intestinal space would float protected while the antibiotics
flowed through the rest of my body carried by the blood stream. I
knew we were supposed to have various types of 'intestinal flora' in
our guts, could it be that I had a bad variation that was causing my
persistent weight loss and painful bathroom bouts? If that was the
case, though, wouldn't I have been infecting other people, especially
all of the friends I saw most often? Clearly they weren't having the
same problems as I had so, then, what did that mean?
With my new health insurance coverage and newly assigned doctor at
the community health clinic a few months later, I decided to make an
appointment and discus my long term health issues with her. She
greeted me with a smile, but otherwise wasn't interested except for
the news as to whether the fat enzymes had been helping. The answer
was ''Yes'' and I had in fact gained one pound during the two months
since I had last seen her. She concluded that was good enough and
otherwise didn't take my other thoughts seriously.
And so I concluded that I needed help with that. Given my new
insurance coverage, I called various doctor referral helplines in
search of a counselor who wouldn't be put off by my 'situation' and
could help me find why medical doctors didn't take my weight loss
issues seriously. I finally got a recommendation for someone who was
taking a limited number of patients as he was finishing up his
education in psychology. I called his number and left a message and
he was willing to see me... An appointment was made.
Arriving at a central building that hosted many mental health
professionals, I provided my insurance card and found out the
co-payment amount and figured I would only be able to afford an
appointment once every two weeks. And then I saw him, his room was
in the lower level of a hillside building, he was young and trim with
the classic Freudian goatee and glasses. He had a slight limp left
over from a construction accident before he decided to change fields.
He wasn't sure how he could help me and when I told him of my
problems establishing a constructive relationship with medical
doctors and I wanted help with that, he was more interested in
my 'situation' and childhood experiences.
When I tried to explain to him my mixed sex nature, he just couldn't
get it, but at the same time I wasn't going to show him either
as he wasn't that type of doctor and he wasn't familiar with
the intersex label and what it meant, nor did he seem interested in
looking it up. When I tried to explain it to him I thought that
perhaps I was supposed to be a girl given what happened at
puberty. He couldn't understand why as I didn't seem ''prissy''
to him. It turned out the reason he had been recommended to me
through the doctor referral helpline was because he had done a paper
on transsexuals, but as that wasn't my 'situation' he concluded that
I had been referred to him by mistake. Still, he was willing to make
a go of it.
While still not interested in my experiences with medical doctors, he
did perk up when I told him of my experience with the vocational
rehabilitation psychologist and the never ending bubble test he had
me take which resulted in such bizarre findings. It turned out he
was coming up to speed on giving that test himself and wondered if
I'd take it for him. I explained the problems I had filling in all
the bubbles given my writing by hand issues and then also my
confusion over what the meaning was of the cultural terms many of the
test questions relied on. He came up with a proposal to address both
of those issues: I could take the test home with me for the two week
period until my next visit and fill it out a little at a time, for
those questions where I didn't understand what the terms meant, I
could just save those for our next appointment when we could talk them
over.
I returned to the office two weeks later with all but a quarter
of the bubbles filled in. We discussed the questions I hadn't yet
answered due to not understanding the terminology and then he told me
what he thought those questions meant. Based on that I finished
filling in the bubbles and he took the bubble sheet and told me he'd
have it scored by my next visit. When I returned, he said he
couldn't have it scored by computer as he wasn't yet certified to
give the test and he hadn't finished scoring it by hand and so it
all came to nothing... As did a few more follow-up sessions and
we mutually decided to end our visits, in my part as it seemed a
waste of my time and limited money, and in his case as he would be
graduating soon and didn't know if he'd establish his practice in
town or somewhere else.
I was back to the doctor referral phone numbers again and got the
name of a woman whose office was at the other medical hospital
in town. I thought this might be a good sign as, if she was
working at the hospital, she must be deemed good enough to be there!
Making an appointment with her, the first meeting seemed to go well
and we found a good date for the second appointment where we would
get into the meat of my issues dealing with medical doctors. When I
arrived for that appointment she demanded to know what
'psychiatric hospital' I had been confined to in the past...
I told her I hadn't been. She told me she knew I had
because she had found out about it from my doctor. What doctor
was that? I asked. She wouldn't say, it was a secret.
Well I assured her that I had never been to any psychiatric hospital,
let alone confined to one. She just glared at me and decided that we
should move on to other topics.
She wanted to come up to speed on my family background and childhood.
So I began and I mentioned my brothers and sister and she yelled at
me, ''YOU DON'T HAVE A SISTER!'' This startled me and I assured her
I did and she yelled back that she knew I didn't. I sat there
dumbfounded trying to imagine how she felt she had a better knowledge
of my family than I did. When I asked her where she had gotten that
information from, she again stated that she had sources of
information that I didn't know about, but wouldn't say who or what
they were. She concluded that to properly start our relationship I
should get the records from the psychological student I had been
seeing and provide them to her as a starting point. I agreed to.
When I called his answering machine and left a message about the
request, he called back and was more than willing to provide me a
copy but asked that we have an official close-out session as part of
it. An appointment was set and I went to his office to see him, talk
about how our sessions hadn't been fruitful and tried to determine
why and then he handed me the folder of his records and that was
that.
When I arrived at the other counselor's office a couple days later to
hand her the paperwork, she angrily called me into her office and
then yelled at me for ''two timing her'' with another counselor. She
didn't tolerate anything like that and wasn't going to put up with
it! When I told her that I wasn't 'two timing' her she glared at
me and told me she had witnessed me at the other psychological office
just a couple of days ago seeing someone. When I pointed out to her
that it had been the student counselor and I had gone there to get
the records as she had requested, she fumed and reminded me that she
didn't allow 'two timing patients' and then asked for the records. I
handed them to her and then all was quiet for the majority of our
time as I sat there as she read them. She then declared them to be
worthless as they didn't state what psychiatric hospital I had been
confined to.
At this I once again pointed out that I had never been confined to
any psychiatric hospital and she once again sternly noted that she
knew I had as she had heard it from somewhere. I decided to also
note how she was also under the misimpression that I didn't have a
sister even though I did. ''I KNOW YOU HAVE A SISTER!'' she yelled
back at me. When I said that she had repeatedly assured me I didn't
at the last meeting, she told me it had been a mistake and to drop
the subject. We made an appointment for a follow-up meeting but I
was starting to think that perhaps she was the one who most needed
the appointment for mental health issues.
For the third appointment, the bus had a mechanical problem and
rather than getting me to the bus stop fifteen minutes early, it
bought me to her office ten minutes late. I checked in with the
waiting room receptionist and went straight to the office to see the
counselor but it was locked so I assumed she had something she was
finishing up and would call from the waiting area once done. I went
back and took a seat. After a while I flipped through some magazines
and then after five minutes I returned to her locked door and this
time knocked. And knocked. I drifted to the receptionist to
ask about it and as far as she knew she should be here. When I asked
about my checking in and hadn't she let her know, the receptionist
explained that all she does was press an intercom button and say the
next patient is here but never expects an answer back from the
doctors, she just lets them know. I asked if she could use the
intercom again and she pressed the button and called back and this
time waited for an answer but none came. Perhaps she had gone to the
bathroom or something the receptionist guessed. Either way, as the
buses at this end of town ran on the hour and a half, I still had the
rest of my appointment time to kill and went back to looking through
the old magazines available to use up my time. When it was time to
leave for the bus I again asked if the receptionist had ever heard
back from the couselor and she hadn't.
The following day I got a ranting phone call from the counselor and
she was pissed at me because when she'd gotten back into the office
that morning the fact that I had an appointment with her and she
hadn't shown was the talk of the office. HOW
DARE I EMBARRASS HER LIKE THAT! I told her I didn't know
what else to do, once I arrived and she wasn't there. She informed
me that she had actually been there but since I wasn't in the
waiting room at the start of my appointment time she decided to leave
early, so it was my own fault. I told her that, actually, it
was the bus that had broken down and I had arrived at the office only
ten minutes late. THAT DIDN'T
MATTER! I had
embarrassed her and gotten her in trouble with her supervisor and the
next time the bus is even as little as one minute late I was to not
check in for the appointment, I was to not even enter the
building, but stay outside until the next bus came!
She then wanted to confirm the time for our next appointment. I did.
But after the call, I continued to be disturbed by her attitude and
the way she had been treating me during all but the first
appointments. I decided to write her a letter detailing my reasons
and canceling our following appointment. I never heard back from her
and I was once again back to the doctor referral helplines...
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