Time to put calk in my Doc's toothpaste

[Trisha]

When you think you can make ends meet, someone moves the ends. . .  It's not just that my Doctor (primary care, GP) is young enough to be a son of mine, nor that he doesn't quite get around to expressing professional comfort in addressing me as a patient as my disability & few, but inescapable limitations trip him up.

Really, it isn't that.

He's decided that I present a bit too seriously, somber; I'm not emotionally comfortable, with a sense of humor in his presence.  He's trying to push an anti-depressant on me.  "A new one, and it's supposed to be really effective - just a small dose, a children's level, really - it's something I think you should consider."

It was a challenge to refrain from kicking him in the shins.

He seems to think I should spontaneously get out more on my own these days; he mentioned how the proffered meds "showed great effectivness in alleviating symptoms of social anxiety in other TBI (traumatic brain injury) cases!"

Maybe it's because I'm 6 years post-op as my own woman.  Statistically, it's a time when TS women can get depressed from family rejection being intractible (not an issue for me as mine is either dead or has decided decades ago I should be shunned as the accident that left me disabled was clearly God's Punishment), or integrating seamelessly into society failed (nope - I'm your typical mountain dyke), or. . . something.  If I'm to be more at ease with yet another round of surgery looming for Kathryn, I marvel at the concept!

His emphatic recommendation was dismissed with sardonic courtesy.  I did, at least, manage that.  After all, it's been over a year since I stopped smoking, and my cholosterol is down 85 points by that and diet, though I did gain 22 pounds.

Anybody else have a tale of like sentiment about a recent encounter with their GP?

Me?  I'm thinking about seeing if there's some way I can sneak some calk into the guy's toothpaste!

[TarpleyG]

Sounds like you've been through a lot.  Do you feel "depressed", unhappy, etc. or is this just some doctor looking for some more perks from a cute pharm sales girl?  My last doctor kept trying to peddle cholesterol drugs on me but I wasn't having any of it so I started eating right and my level went way down.

Me???--I'd look for a second opinion.  Doctors aren't as smart as everyone once thought.

Greg

[Trisha]

He's a good guy, clinically proficient - but Kathryn and I have noticed that few clinicians find a category to their liking for me.

(shrugging)

Life is what it is - and loads of people have it far beyond worse.  I have no idea if the pharm rep is a cutie - the Doc is married and has a spectacular S&R German Shepard.  If anything, I suspect that casual introspection on his part finds him feeling "If I was in her shoes" psychotropic mood-altering pharmacology would be on his top ten list.

Who knows.

I can't shake the idea of calk in his toothpaste, though. . .

[Bogie]

Darlin, this calls for only one thing...
 
Prep-H... And all you gotta do is swap the label...

[Guest]

Heheh..

Best of luck to both you and Kathryn these days, Trisha.

[Azrael256]

Few things irritate me more than a GP prescribing psych drugs.  I had a GP try to push anti-depressants on me when my parents divorced.  It never occured to him that making a 14 year old depressed was like shooting fish in a barrel and that maybe, just maybe I'd snap out of it on my own.  After two days of the shakes (I took a whopping one of the pills), I pitched the bottle.

I've got a tube of this cool silvery silicone that adheres to metal if you need it.

[auschip]

Anybody else have a tale of like sentiment about a recent encounter with their GP?

Me?  I'm thinking about seeing if there's some way I can sneak some calk into the guy's toothpaste!

Here's a good story.  I broke down and went to my GP, as I was alternating between chills & sweats, had a nasty hacking cough, and generally felt like leftover death.  When the Doc walks into my room, I am laying down on his table shivering.  We go through the exam, he prescribes drugs, and I agree to take them.  

Before leaving, he mentions that he noticed that while I was laying down he saw my bald spot, and wants to prescribe something for that also.  We go back and forth for about 5 minutes regarding my not caring about my hair, and him letting me know that the medicine doesn't only grow hair, but also helps my nonexistant prostate problem (it keeps you from having a prostate problem!).  In the end, I took the prescription because it shut him up, and I could leave to get the drugs I needed.  

The funny thing was, he is about 5'5 and I am 6'4.  The only way he could even tell I was thinning on top was the fact that I was laying down waiting on him anyway.

[Stickjockey]

He's decided that I present a bit too seriously, somber; I'm not emotionally comfortable, with a sense of humor in his presence.

All the stuff you've been through the last couple years, and you're supposed to be all sunshine and flowers? Whatever.

Of course, I'm not a big fan of psychotropics anyway. Way overprescribed.

[Trisha]

Yep, I missed the "u" - talley that with just getting naps at night, though "oops" is more likely.

Preparation H is the unquestioned classic - but white, adhesive silicone just conceptualized better in his case, that day.  Though Kathryn's experiences as a hard rock miner while in her late teens & early twenties gave her practical experience with rubbing a cut stick of dynamite on a hard hat sweatband - that's not practical in these unhumorous days (purportedly gives a world-class headache, btw).

The Doc nailed a hot button with me when, right out of the chute, he thinks his recommendation to me would be more reassurring if he told me, "All I'm suggesting is a pediatric dose - it's the same level as I prescribe to 5-year olds!"

Visualize fulminate of mercury-filled ping-pong balls in a blacksmith's shop. . .

Ahem.

Do I get out much?  No.  With the price of gas these days, even less.  And I'm writing (it's a little break from being Kathryn's caregiver while the calendar ticks off the days before she gets her pre-surgical tests) - and that's pretty immersive (I'm most of the way with the prequel and sequel to the first story - and I've gone back and found it works at least as well pared to the point of being worthy of a PG-13 tag).

auschip - now that's good for a laugh!

My thanks for the indulgence - I shouldn't have to see the Doc again for another year, Goddess willing; and in a year, Kathryn'll have more repairs completed and we'll probably be tackling home improvement projects together again!

While continuing with chores today, Mstilav Rostropovich will be the featured soloist on cello, playing Bach.

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

Part of my coming of age (44) is realizing the inherent failed humanity of those in the medical profession.

I see one doc, 30 minutes from here, who is a product of the Canadian socialized medicine system.  He is amazingly personable, extremely brilliant, and always at LEAST 2 hours late for our appointment.  I game his system now.  Make the appointment at one, show up at 2:30.  He amazes me with his diagnostic abilities, and his ability to retain information.

The other doc I see, right here in town, reminds me of someone you might have lived in a frathouse with.  Always wears Carhartt clothes, heavy hiking boots, and is gruff and probably not as smart as I am.

That's scary, going to a doc you can lead by the nose to do anything you want done.

[Car Knocker]

That's scary, going to a doc you can lead by the nose to do anything you want done.

Fully half the doctors graduated in the bottom 50% of their class.

[Guest]

How would you say the rate of clinical depression and suicide among post-op transsexuals compares with the rest of the population at large? It doesnt seem like an unreasonable concern.

What is the disability that you speak of?

[Trisha]

The statistics?  It could well be in the 50%, but I haven't looked it up in years.

Traumatic Brain Injury, 23 year survivor.  The stats for depression for that is likely similar, and not uncommon for anti-depressants mandated as routine.  Which I find creepy. . .

Hon, the focus for me was that he was pushy about it without engaging me re general state of mind.

Did that help?

[Matthew Carberry]

It's got to be easier to cut and paste diagnosis and treatment from the manual than to accept the responsibility (not legal liability, just good old human responsibility) of judging someone elses state of mind accurately.

I'm not sure that it being his job makes it any easier (although it is kinda his duty).  I know I'd rather say "the book says" instead of "well, I think", when other's happiness is on the line.

But I'm not a paid medical professional....

Perhaps instead of caulk in his toothpaste you could hide a spine in his jacket?

[Trisha]

Hmmmm. . .good idea. . . now, all I have to do is come across a largish salamander!

OK, then a peeve from Kathryn about Doctors in general:

"If I hear another Doc say I'm "A Medical Anomoly" one more time, I'm going to do that line from Cosby, "Her flesh pulled back from her skull, and flames shot from her eye sockets!"  So what if I cope with pain better than they've seen?  What do I care if they've never had a patient who kept working when both patellas were out?"

She loathes virtually all Doctors when she has to be their patient.  It doesn't help when they admit to her face that 1) she's been practicing medicine longer than they have, and 2) compared to rural EMTs/medics said Doc feels sorely lacking in practical medical skills. . .

She glints, at that.  Her eyes, especially.  If you've spent a pleasurable hour honing a perfect edge on a KBAR with a Lansky system, you probably know what I mean.  

By this time, I'm sitting back in the corner, not interferring in the least, just refereeing, ready to kick him back into play. . .

[Tallpine]

These days, I stay as far away from doctors as possible.  Statistics show that people that go to doctors are less healthy than those who don't

I had a GP tell me that click in my knee was nothing to worry about... about a year later it blew out and I had to have "open knee" surgery.  The orthopedic surgeon asked why I didn't come in sooner when he could have fixed it with the scope...?    Even the surgeon couldn't figure out how I could hurt my knee by working - he insisted that I must downhill ski or play football.  Even now they call it "Sports Medicine" as if working people don't count for bovine excrement.

I got sick on a job and another doctor pumped me full of drugs and sent me back to work, so that my body had no defense against the chemicals in the air.  Went through 7 years of hell from COPD after that.  Went to doctor after doctor, and it was a nurse friend who actually offered a non-drug suggestion that finally helped.  Of course, if the doctor can't figure out how to help you, then you must be crazy

Heck, just going to the dang doctor is enough to make anyone depressed

[Trisha]

I find handloading helps enormously!  Honing knives is a close second!

Plinking soda crackers with a single-action .22 is just about the all-time favorite, though - 'specially when they're taped to a bit of string.  Practical meditation.  On a quiet day, you can swear you hear that barefoot guy playing a bamboo flute on top of the ridge. . .