All your pain will end here / Let the doctor soothe your brain, dear

[erika]

Oh yes,
in other news, I got my test results back from the doctor.

Besides angering the fuck out of me by not giving me actual numbers (except for the shit that's wrong) or reference ranges (so I can tell them they're using the wrong reference range like they were 2 years ago)——everything mostly appears to be fine.

"Your kidney, thyroid functions are normal." WHAT THE FUCK IS NORMAL WHEN YOU DON'T GIVE ME NUMBERS OR REFERENCE RANGES, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

Moving on!

My liver enzymes are a little elevated: it's processing 5 medications, so I'd like to ask wtf do you expect, GP?

My triglycerides are high and my HDL is low—this is actually typical of people with PCOS, so I'm surprised my GP didn't mention that, but then again this is practically a form letter, and also she's a [censored for non-woman-friendly language].

Surprisingly, I do not have diabetes. I'm sure my A1C or whatever test they ran to determine that must've been perfect or my doctor would've been ALL over it, because when she looked at me she was thinking "you are type 2 diabetic," I could see it in her face when she talked about the likelihood of diabetes. Fat people always get diabetes, don't you know, and it's THEIR fault.

"I will let you work on your diet and weight and we will repeat this in 3-6 months." I will repeat my foot up your ass because I'm changing physicians.

Side note: I don't think I mentioned it in the entry where I originally talked about going to see the GP for the first time in like 10 years but basically, this doctor

• chewed me out for being overweight and said I'd be pretty if I weren't fat


• said I had "male patterns of hair growth" (I wish I were kidding, by the way the clinical term is HIRSUITISM, FUCKFACE)


• said idiopathic hypoglycemia doesn't exist, it's just a result of poor nutritional habits


• told me that since I'm a nursing student I should have a better diet and know to exercise and she shouldn't have to tell me.

Comments

[crazypumpkin]

Yes, because all nurses are the picture of perfect health. *facepalm*

If that were the case, some of the massive nurses studies that have been done wouldn't be possible because we wouldn't be able to compare sedentary vs. active nurses, or ones who make different health choices. The stupidity of doctors still manages to astound me.

[erika]

Exactly. It's ridiculous.

[madelienegrey]

Okay, so I've only just met you, but FUCK THAT NOISE. Gah, that experience is bad enough to walk out and demand your money along the way (as if they'd refund it, but I'm so tired of doctors with crappy bedside manner who only look at your WEIGHT (or worse, BMI) as their magic unicorn fairy measure of health).

Sorry.... this hits home. I have two diabetic parents, a diabetic sister, and I exercise and eat right all the time, but I still get the "you're doing it wrong" speech from doctors because there is no way I can drop the 15 pounds I need to be Magically Healthy™ and reverse my insulin resistance. You'd think that going to school for 8 years, they could figure out why that would be. /rant

Oh, and hello... nice to meet you. :)

[erika]

I mean, yes, I need to start exercising and I really need to eat better, as subsisting on amphetamines and cigarettes is not doing anything good, but there were SO many better ways she could've told me.

And hello! Wonderful to meet you too.

(frozen)

[polemista]

Why do call an asshole "Dr. Blind"?
What's blindness to do with despicable behaviour?

(frozen)

[erika]

I'm sorry if you took it that way; that was just some lyrics from the song.

(frozen)

[polemista]

Oh I missed that reference, thanks for telling me.
Shame there's no song called Dr. Crazy, Dr. Insane, or Dr. Lunatic you could reference.

(frozen)

[erika]

Yeah, I'm really sorry, I honestly didn't mean to offend anyone. I'll change the title to a different lyric from the song.

(frozen)

[polemista]

Thanks! It's not so much that I'm offended, although I do get tired of how often my disabilites are used as insults, it's more about how disability as insult harms disabled people because it's part of the whole negative portrayal of disabiliy and I wish people would think about this more. That's why I was commenting, to get people to think, not because I like to catch someone using an ableist word. :)

(frozen)

[erika]

I know that being disabled does not excuse me from using ableist language, and I apologize for unintentionally doing so.

However, your comment that it's a "Shame there's no song called Dr. Crazy, Dr. Insane, or Dr. Lunatic you could reference." was just as much (if not more so) an ableist comment as the one you believed I made. With the notable difference that you actually said that directly to someone who's mentally ill, whereas I was quoting a song, with no intention to be disrespectful, and not directing the comment AT anyone.

Your method of "calling out" seemed to not be thought through at all and, additionally, was quite hurtful to me. In the future, please check your own biases before attacking someone else for theirs.

(If you did not mean it to be a biased comment, but rather a way of showing me how calling a horrible GP "doctor blind" [which I never directly did] made you feel, you should have been MUCH more clear in that, and not just commented in what felt like a direct attack.)

(frozen)

[polemista]

Yes I did say that specifically to make a point, because you seemed to shrug it off as "just a song therefore not my words".
It was meant to be funny in a nudge nudge way but it doesn't come across well, you're absolutely right about that.

The thing about intent is that you probably didn't think blind and partially sighted people would read your journal, and therefore this isn't directed at anyone. But that's the problem as far as I'm concerned, most people assume their readers aren't affected by what they write and it just isn't so.

Sorry about the late response, I didn't have Internet access for a couple of days.

(frozen)

[erika]

Look, we're not going to see eye to eye on this one. You deliberately insulted me, in my own journal, in order to make a point about what COULD HAVE offended someone who may or may not be reading and who would have known, were they a regular reader of my journal, that all of my entry titles are taken from the current song I'm listening to and are meant solely to be a comment on that entry, not some broader brush with which to paint humanity.

It may have been a mistake for me to title my entry as such. However, right now, you've gone right past "calling me on a mistake" and straight to "acting like I pissed in your cheerios" for what was NEVER intentional, and NEVER mean-spirited.

If this is the way you act when you call people out on unintentional mistakes, I hate to see what you do when someone is actually being prejudiced, because I sincerely doubt that they will EVER listen to you if you go about doing so this way.

I'm freezing this comment thread. This subject is closed.