V's Version

This is me with the oncologist that I was with through the first three and a half years of cancer. If it looks like he's making a pass at me - it's because he's like that. He does plenty (!!) of good in this world but isn't always appropriate. If you know me, you can tell that I'm not thrilled by how close he is but I was too intimidated in that particular moment to whack him over the head with the bag of chemo in my hand.

Yes - even I - a strong-willed can-do dyke - get sometimes intimidated by doctors. And that is the subject of this rant. (Look out.) If I (can-do dyke) can't wack a doctor with a chemo bag during an inappropriate gesture (which just happened to be caught on film) what chance does my mother-in-law have against the legion of specialists who tell her do this and do that? What chance does any of us have when we hear scary diagnosis or (even more frustrating) the blah blah blah big words that are too overwhelming to even grasp during our two minute session with the big cheese?

And don't even get me started with insurance companies.

But seriously - if you bought a big ticket item (say, a car) and someone (say the mechanic) told you that you had to buy a new car or else something really bad would happen to you, don't you think you would ask a few questions like "How scary of a thing?" or "Why can't I use the car I just bought?" or "Can't I shop around for a good price?" or "How will I finance this new car?" Don't you think you might ask "Why?" or say, maybe in a righteous voice, "Bug off!" ? Don't you think you would at least pause for details?

I would like to think that you would. And I would like to think that I would too. And if we would do that - then why can't some of us ask "why?" when a hospital orders a second $$ CT scan when they are holding a $$ CT scan from 2 days ago in their hot little hands? Why is it so often that no one thinks to ask, to challenge, to stand up as the medical consumers that we are?

I had to stand up many times. Even intimidated, I said no a lot. And it was shocking, scandelous, anti-establishment, rebellious and frowned upon. I was mocked. I was threatened (for real - I was once threatened that the sherriff would be dispatched to my home and I would be pink-slipped for endangering my own life when I refused to go along with a certain medical protocol.) I was accused of being depressed. I was NOT a very good girl.

I wrote everything down. And so should you. I made the doctors stop mid sentence to spell what it was that they were rattling off. I did research. I tried alternative therapies & recorded results (or lack thereof). Either I or one of my fabulous advocates kept decent notes and we were often able to remind a doctor of dosages, relate information from one doctor to another easily and refer back to medical events with accuracy and in a fraction of the time that someone would have been able to do in the three-volume tome that is my medical chart.

How can we empower each other to stand up? How can I take this gift of surviving and do something meaningful with it?

I'm going to think on it and you get back to me, OK? I know you have ideas.
.
.