Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Doctor Visit, Year Twenty-three



Last Month

The new doc was a nice guy, even though he was about twelve years old. I appreciate that his practice, at a major medical center here in the City of Angels, has a significant number of young adults with developmental disabilities. I'm older than I look, he assured me at some point during the initial visit. I have three children. Generally, these visits consist of The Doctor asking me a whole lot of questions whose answers are duly noted in chicken scratch on the clipboard he or she sports. Nowadays, there's a keyboard and a computer screen that's always facing away from The Mother and The Patient. I'm not sure why this is so, but given the mundanity of the questions and the number of times in The History of Sophie, Inc. that I've answered them, I like to imagine that Sophie's file is flagged with some kind of red banner or star that stands for Noncompliant Mother. I like to imagine that it says somewhere in the reams of "information" it purports to have regarding my darling daughter that there's anecdotal evidence of seizure control success with cannabis medicine, but mother is a bit on the aggressive side so shouldn't be supported because it'll go to her tiny little mother mind™ and blow it up. I like to imagine a banner running across the screen that says, We have not helped this person in the 23 years that we've been treating her, but pretend like you know what you're doing.  Mother historically has been correct about her daughter and mainly appreciates kindness and honesty. To be fair, this was a Doctor and not a Neurologist, and like I said he was kind and direct and spoke to Sophie like she existed and I feel a bit of relief that we perhaps have finally found a physician that will coordinate her care, when it's needed. When it's needed is the operative phrase here, and it's been my experience that we're sort of held in thrall to the medical system, that we're a bit enslaved to its protocols and rules and regulations. But, I digress. The Doctor asked all the right questions for a bit and was respectful of my wish to not vaccinate Sophie. When he suggested that she should be tested for immunity to hepatitis, I reminded him that she would have no immunity, since she is no longer vaccinated, and then he suggested that she should be vaccinated with that and with the flu vaccine as well since the risk of complications and death from those diseases is so great, and I wanted to tell The Doctor that I feared Sophie's death every single goddamn day, and it wasn't from the flu or hepatitis, but that I'd also reached a sort of equanimity about it all, at least the death and absurdity part, but instead I demurred and gave a 16th century smile. When he asked whether Sophie was sexually active, I pulled the sword out of the scabbard at my waist and cleaved the keyboard in two, right between his legs, missing the member that had given him the three children, of course, because my aim is always true. Then I took a hold of Sophie's wheelchair and rolled out of the examining room.

21 comments:

  1. Ahhh...the Noncompliant Mother. Sign me up.

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  2. Hoping you at least rolled over his foot.

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  3. I can't believe he asked you if she was sexually active. WTF!

    Doctors and people in general never cease to amaze me.

    And you are not a noncompliant mother, you are a Momma Bear!

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  4. There is too much wrongness in that question to even begin to address. I am speechless.
    Well.

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  5. That takes the cake...you should have cut out his tongue!

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  6. Oh. Bless his heart.

    Ignorance and asshole-ness abound.

    I made up that word. I kinda like it.

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  7. Jesus Crispy Christ. Keep your sword sharp darling.

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  8. Seeing the love and perseverance and vulnerability in the double portrait of you and Sophie is an antidote to the peculiar and seemingly unconscious perversity we frequently encounter in medical settings. Your writing and your photos matter. Your 23 years of anecdotal evidence does not go unnoticed.

    "... Philosophers, poets, artists — their raw material includes the anecdote, and they remain, even more so than scientists, our best guides to what it means to exist." (Carlos Lozada)

    https://journalism.nd.edu/faculty/carlos-lozada/

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  9. And this was the nice doctor!

    The only people i know who have gotten the flu this year are those who had the flu vaccine. My brother, a doctor, would say that comment is "unhelpful."

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    1. not me! I get my flu vaccine every year, but that's my choice. Haven't had the flu in ages -- decades. Maybe just damned good luck.

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  10. I wish you really did get him by the balls. Seriously.

    As for the stuff doctors write down on noncompliant mothers etc., even if you could see the screen, they always write in code. They even discuss this at conferences. Some of the code is downright rude.

    I have one doctor who starts typing away on her keyboard while she interviews me and I got so annoyed that I now stop talking when she does that. It took her a while to notice I was still there and now, victory!, she no longer does it. But I am sure there is a rude coded message in her notes now.

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  11. Good thing you have a mighty sword, Elizabeth!

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  12. I'm glad you had your trusty, sharp sword.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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  13. The doctor's question leaves me speechless. It's too bad that something hadn't left him speechless before the question left his mouth.

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  14. From one non-compliant Mother to another, you Go Girl! I like to Imagine all kinds of things too that would put a Positive Spin on the whole damned Process, it's nourishing to the Soul if nothing else.

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  15. Terrific! You capture perfectly the condescension, the dismissiveness, the arrogance, the ignorance - everything we mothers of children with disabilities contend with. And somehow you even made me laugh!

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  16. We are all "enslaved to its protocols and rules and regulations", which includes inane questions like that one.

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  17. everything we mothers of children with disabilities contend with. And somehow you even made me laugh!


    สมัคร D2BET

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  18. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

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