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She’s a powerhouse, this woman: respected, high energy, award-winning tv producer. She researches each of her varied subjects extensively and always digs for the most unusual story lines. In her leisure time, she takes delight in plotting intricacies of vacation adventures. One year, when her significant other (S.O) and his teenage daughter realized they needed time together she found unusual fabric and sewing supply stores and museums and art galleries: thus satisfying teenager’s passions. She also found parking spots to make father’s rental car experience less traumatic.
Couple of months ago she revealed she wasn’t feeling well. Hadn’t been feeling well for several weeks. Main worrisome symptoms were inability to swallow and inability to stay awake. Lasting past the sore-throat-needs-to-catch-up-on-sleep grace period, and especially worrisome and - hovering in her memory – a friend’s recent death from esophageal cancer, which seemed to have the same symptoms.
She hit the internet and researched and researched including medical journals and found too much didn’t find anything and found she couldn’t figure it out herself. Finally, She made a doctor’s appointment (NO, she didn’t want anyone to go with her. If she had, creative re-scheduling of working lives would have happily ensued.) Her GP had retired, and in his place a woman doctor whose first language wasn’t English. (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Clearly suffering from fatigue and barely able to speak from throat pain, she gave her history and explanation of various symptoms. I can barely believe what happened next. I don’t know what surprised me more - the MD’s response, or powerhouse friend's. MD’s on-the-spot diagnosis: “post-nasal drip”, issuing a prescription for post-nasal drip meds without further investigation. No blood or urine tests, no follow up appointment. I was shocked. And more shocked to hear that powerhouse didn't ask, request, demand, insist. 'Disempowered' is how she described what she was feeling. The experience exhausted and frustrated and upset her. It also demeaned and demoralized her. She was both mortified and found it humiliating to have to answer to her family and community knowing her, as we do, as a take-no-prisoners kinda gal.
Took her another 2 months of feeling crummy to work up the strength (courage? determination? nerve? despair?) to have another go at it. I am itching to go with her – more to observe the doctor than to stand up for her (which she’d no doubt find embarrassing).
This, and other similar experiences make me wonder that the push toward empowerment and engagement and enablement forgets there’s a person who’s not feeling well and who counts on a healthcare professional to act like a professional – even when the person can’t act like an empowered patient.
Comments
Hoooo, boy, do I relate to your 'powerhouse' friend.
"I was shocked. And more shocked to hear that powerhouse didn't ask, request, demand, insist....She was both mortified and found it humiliating to have to answer to her family and community knowing her, as we do, as a take-no-prisoners kinda gal."
I'd suspect that she was likely also feeling secretly relieved to have a person with the letters M.D. after her name diagnose "post-nasal drip" as the medical culprit. Wouldn't we all rather have post-nasal drip than anything far more frightening and possibly deadly? The truth may have been that your friend didn't 'ask, request, demand, insist' because she didn't want to know.
As women, we are culturally acclimatized to do those things (asking, requesting, demanding, insisting) for OTHERS, not for ourselves. That may be why you feel compelled to go with her next time!
When I was experiencing clear heart attack symptoms (crushing chest pain, nausea, sweating and pain radiating down my left arm), it didn't stop me from getting on a plane at the Ottawa airport for my flight home to Victoria, BC. Two attacks in the airport before boarding, and two more during the five-hour flight itself, and not one word did I say to the flight attendants about my growing distress. I just didn't want to 'make a fuss', and I certainly didn't want to be one of those people they have to turn the plane around for because of a medical emergency!
Yet I know with absolute conviction that if it had been my daughter, or my friend, or my next-door neighbour, or even a perfect stranger with those symptoms sitting next to me on that long Air Canada flight, I would have been screaming blue murder and demanding immediate medical help for her.
Denial is a very powerful force (and one that can actually help to protect us under certain critical situations) but when it comes to our health, it can be a deadly adversary as we meekly put ourselves in the hands of our health care providers, as Christine wisely points out.
Thanks so much for bringing this important issue to our attention. We all need to be our own best health advocates - and it can be a hard lesson for some of us to learn.
regards,
C.
This story (and a coffee) could take us down several paths of conversation...1) we are all human and there are as many types of 'patients' as there are health professionals, and we're not all prepared to play the same role in our care; 2) an empowered person feeling in control of life doesn't necessarily translate to an empowered patient; 3) the "e" in e-patient can mean anything from empowered to exhausted!
As community member Carolyn pointed out in her recent post, a diagnosis can be more stressful and difficult to deal with than symptoms or medical events themselves. This can lead to all kinds of behaviours. I myself am a classic type A personality in many ways, but when faced with a health issue - whether its my own or someone I care about - I kind of freeze up and put myself in the hands of trusted health care providers to takeover the wheel on what feels like a car ride careening out of control. Maybe this is because we've been lucky to find great family doctors, obstetricians, etc so far, but as it should be - this is part of honouring the human face of health care. And when you want another opinion, the process can be exhausting on top of the symptoms you are trying to manage everyday... accepting help is so important. A health care team often includes your personal caregivers.
It often takes a nudging(poking/pushing/etc) SO or friend to be a patient advocate. But as you say, this is sometimes hard to accomplish. In a situation my family is dealing with, a spousal advocate has been instrumental in tackling a recurring problem (potentially gallbladder) that started 2 years ago and built up to an acute episode last weekend. The hospital did not run what seemed like a logical test given the symptoms, but a few days later a new GP did order it and is following up with a more thorough course of action.
I sincerely hope that powerhouse can get to the bottom of what it is she's dealing with, and that it's not overly serious. We've also posted an article about tips for communicating with healthcare providers before - http://www.caretoknow.org/content/10-tips-communicating-health-care-providers