I’m the living proof that the USA is great at stunt medicine, but absolute and utter crap at caring.
This article was rescued from another publication. It was minimally edited for publication here.
I’m the embodiment of someone who on the one hand received both life-saving care from the medical industry, and on the other hand received complete and utter shit from that same industry.
Do you know how great it is to live with this dichotomy inscribed inside my very body? Not very great. I’m going to go out on a limb and declare that it is like living in an abusive relationship. It is like living with someone caring about your well-being when it suits them, and on the other hand not fucking caring at all about your well-being the rest of the time.
When you get the care you need, you think about all the times that they’ve let you down. When you get crap, you think about all the times that you got the care you did need. When a new problem surfaces, what are you supposed to do then? Trust them? Or fucking run away?
Is it any wonder that I get panic attacks when my health is seriously threatened? Due to the abuse of the system, I have no strategy to move forward. Do I trust the system, or not? I have good reasons to go into either direction. So instead, I freeze and start to panic. Thanks, healthcare system!
Oh, I want to believe. I am scientifically minded. I hate anti-vaxxers. I hate them so much that I left a server dedicated to supporting people who have one of my diseases. The moderation there was almost non-existent, and every few weeks we got a new wave of anti-vaxxers. I said “fuck this” and left! I just couldn’t bear the onslaught of anti-scientific morons anymore.
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My cancer caused me to be revaccinated for everything under the sun for the past year or so. However, the repeated beatings I’ve received from the medical establishment have left me with a gigantic dose of skepticism at their ability to deliver on the promises that they make.
I’ve been beaten by the establishment, both before my cancer and afterwards. The beating that are coming afterwards are especially hard to swallow, seeing as I fired the entire health care team that was taking care of me prior to my cancer. I replaced them with doctors who actually care, or so I thought.
I’m discovering now that my actions were only so much pissing in the wind. The healthcare system is inherently designed to cause doctors to pass the buck and ignore the calls for help of their patients. It is not one doctor, one practice, or even one hospital. The entire system is corrupt from top to bottom.
ACAB. Do you know that slogan? I’m seeing it here and there these days on social media. “All cops are bastards.” I’ve got a new slogan for you: ADAB.
All doctors are bastards.
Will this doctor listen to me and provide the care I need? Or will I get shafted? If I don’t get shafted now, then when will I get shafted?
All my doctors eventually shafted me.
All… of… them…
Eventually.
Yes, even those who I picked out myself, thinking “This is the doctor I want on my team.” They all shafted me. It does not matter where they come from. They can be from a rural hospital, or from a world-renowned hospital in the big city. It does not make a difference. Eventually, you will get shafted. It may take longer to get there in the world-renowned hospital, but, eventually, you will get there!
My Cancer
In this case, my doctors did save my life. However, the care I received leading up to the correct treatment was awful. I was misdiagnosed a bunch of times. I lost count at some point because one doctor in particular was pretty fond of coming up with the illness of the week.
The last diagnosis I got before getting the correct one was actually one for which the treatment was making my condition worse! Some doctors had correctly posited that I probably had cancer, but they were telling me the diagnosis would be hard, and could leave me permanently damaged, because of the treatment I had received for a disease I did not have!
So on the one hand, my healthcare team for cancer did save my life. On the other hand, this was the very same team that also responded to my famotidine crisis and passed the buck!
Famotidine Causing Depression
The famotidine causing depression in me is an example of this bullshit. I’ve given the details in another article:
In brief, famotidine is capable in some cases of causing depression. It did in my case. It was a surprise, as I had been taking it for over a year before is started messing me up in the head. I did ask for help from doctors, but my team, from a world-renowned hospital, passed the buck to another team, and I was left figuring things out for myself.
Emergency Care
Sometimes I joke that emergency care doctors may be good at identifying broken bones, but their diagnosis for anything else is stuff they pull out of their rear end.
If I think about my own history honestly, that’s not even true. Why? Because they can’t even reliably identify broken bones. I once went to an emergency clinic with a broken pinkie toe. I had banged it against a table, and it was hurting like hell. I thought it might be broken and told them.
They did an X-Ray, said it wasn’t broken, and sent me back home. Later that day, I got a call from that practice. Hmm… what could be the issue? I pick up, and they tell me that my fucking bone is fucking broken after all! I went in there with the correct diagnosis, but they completely ignored me.
And I cannot count the number of times when I went to the ER only to come back home with a bullshit diagnosis. Migraines with aura but without pain. Lol! Wut? That’s a real diagnosis I got ages ago, but it was trotted back out when I had cancer.
Listen, I know that it is possible to have migraines, migraines with aura, migraines with aura but without pain. I’m skeptical that I ever had that. A doctor simply pulled that out of their ass when they couldn’t figure out what I really had.
I also cannot count the number of times when I went to the ER and was just told to “chill out,” even if further events proved that I had an actual physical condition going on.
So yes, I am living proof that the system is great at stunt medicine but crap at actually caring for people.
ADAB!
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