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Given that I wasn't getting anywhere gaining insight as to why I
couldn't get taken seriously for my weight loss issues and bathroom
bouts by medical doctors, and the student psychologist wasn't helping
me with it, I decided to go to the community health clinic and
request a copy of my records. I hoped that by going through the
notes, I would find clues as to what made my health issues something
to ignore. Making the request in person I was told it would take a
bit and I spent about an hour roaming the large clinic building and
even walking the grounds. Finally the copy was done and I picked it
up and went home on the bus. Once there, I looked over the notes and
found nothing unusual or informative except for my body
temperature. With each appointment at the clinic they would take
my temperature and blood pressure and note it in my records, I had
never thought to ask what the readings were. Now I was looking at
them in the notes to discover that my body was usually ninety-four
degrees Fahrenheit with one time being recorded as ninety-two
degrees. That seemed surprisingly low but the doctor had never
mentioned it to me.
I would later learn that with emaciation one of the last things
that happens when a body doesn't have enough calories to burn is to
lose temperature once the body had finished burning much of what's
left, such as muscle mass. If
anything, this objective measurement in my records reflecting my
emaciation only redoubled my concern that my health issues were being
ignored by medical doctors! But what could I do except
seek the advice of the student psychologist I had started to see? I
would soon get frustrated with him and find someone else to see.
During that time I had developed a line of pain going down the back
of my left leg. At first I thought I must be sitting funny at my
computer chair and tried different positions without improvement.
The pain just persisted and continued to grow worse to the point that
over the counter pain killers didn't mask it enough to let me fall
asleep easily. I made a new appointment to see my assigned doctor at
the community health clinic. When I arrived, Betsey listened to my
complaint with concern and did some mobility checks with me and then
made an appointment for me with their 'pain specialist'; she had
been very impressed with him and was sure he could help me.
When I arrived a few weeks later I checked in and was directed to
next check in at the doctor waiting area. When I was called, I was
ushered into a new exam room, or so I had at first thought until I
got there to discover a small room with just a chair and a love seat
and nothing else, it was like a smaller waiting room. I thought the
nurse had brought me to the wrong room but she confirmed the name of
the doctor I was supposed to see and it was the same name I had been
told and so I took a seat and waited. A moment later this new doctor
came in to see me and asked why I was here to see him. I told him
about the line of intense pain going down the back of my left leg and
he still didn't know why I was there. I told him that I was told he
was their 'pain specialist' and he would be able to help me with it.
He told me he was actually the clinic's on-site psychologist and
didn't understand why I had been sent to see him. Did I know why?
I didn't. And as he didn't know either, we mutually
concluded the appointment had been setup by mistake and I was
immediately back at the doctor waiting area desk to make a follow-up
with Betsey to find who the right doctor was I should have seen.
The following week I saw her and asked about their 'pain specialist'
I was supposed to have seen as I had been sent to the wrong doctor.
It turned out I had been sent to the right doctor she thought I
should see about it. I told her that when I told him about the
line of pain down my left leg he said it wasn't the type of issue he
helped with. So how was that the right doctor for me to have
seen? She just said with that and my multiple other
symptoms, she had felt he was the right doctor to see about 'my
pain'. Did the clinic have an actual, medical, pain specialist
who could help me with the line of burning pain down the back of my
left leg? No. Was she going to
help me with it? No, she answered with a polite smile,
she 'didn't think it was something in her field'. So who should I
see about it, then? I asked in frustration. She didn't know
and that was the end of the appointment.
After my bizarre time with the female counselor came to an end as
noted in the previous segment, I was once again back to the doctor
referral helpline and they had nothing left to suggest to me, so with
little other clue I pulled out the phone book and looked through the
yellow pages for counselors and began to pull names out at random.
For most of them, they had answering machines and I would leave a
message asking if they were taking new patients and if they could
help me with issues working with medical doctors, a few were at
offices with a receptionist who told me they weren't taking new
clients. Of those I left messages with, most didn't call me back,
some that did recommended I just see another medical doctor and get a
second opinion. When I explained I'd been doing that for years and
not been able to find one to take my health issues seriously, they
didn't know what to make of that and either way didn't think they
could help me.
The aide for one of the doctors called back and told me he was
accepting new patients and we set an appointment. When I arrived at
his office, I was ushered into a large area with plants and a
windowed wall letting the afternoon sunlight in. And then he arrived
and I realized he was the same psychologist as I had met at the
community health clinic. This resulted in our mutual surprise as I
hadn't recognized his name in the phone book and he opened up his
copy to review the listings to find they had misprinted his name in
the book, using his first name rather than his last. Still, since
I was here why didn't I talk to him about what the problem was?
I told him that I wasn't comfortable about it as I thought it would
be a conflict of interest given that he worked with the very
community health clinic staff I wanted to talk about. He noted that,
since I was already there and he didn't have anything else scheduled
we might as well talk a little bit about it. So I decided to give
him the gist that I was seeking a counselor who could help me
understand why so many people in the medical profession wouldn't
seriously address my health issues and used the burning line of pain
down my left leg as an example. Rather than having a complete
medical work up to figure out the source of the pain and address it,
I had instead be sent to see him without either of us being told why.
He reflected that we had concluded it had been a mix-up, hadn't it?
I answered that I was told at my follow-up appointment with Betsey
that she had sent me to the right doctor in her opinion
and otherwise wasn't going to address it herself. That didn't
make sense to him and he didn't know why she would have told me that.
And that was exactly why I had been looking for a counselor, I told
him, to help me understand this and work out a strategy to get by the
problem so I could have my health issues successfully addressed. Did
I want to work with him about it? I again said I felt it was a
conflict of interest given that he would likely want to support his
colleagues rather than me. He agreed that might be the case and we
decided to stop there. He asked if he could write a note about this
meeting to add to the community health clinic's records. I asked him
not to and he agreed.
When it was time for my next three month supply of fat enzymes, I was
to get the script from my assigned doctor, Betsey, then take it as
before to Premier Medical Center to have their doctor copy it under
his name and then I could get my next three month supply from their
pharmacy. After this proforma appointment with Betsey where we
didn't talk about anything else but the renewal of the prescription,
I went back to the records department to ask for a copy of my file
since I had last seen it. My hope was to again get insight as to why
I had been sent to the on-site psychologist rather than a doctor who
could help with leg pain. Again, the records shed no light on that
decision, but the copy did include a report by the on-site
psychologist about our meeting outside of the clinic in direct
contravention to our agreement at his office!
In Colorado, it
seemed patient confidentiality meant absolutely nothing.
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