vanillafluffy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
vanillafluffy) wrote2009-05-22 01:30 pm
vanillafluffy) wrote2009-05-22 01:30 pm
Medical paranoia
I'm on my way out the door, but wanted to share this---in an email to a friend, I wrote:
"It seems to me that once you go to a doctor, they will *find* something wrong to keep you coming back. Pretty soon, you have a condition---or two or three---and you're having tests and more tests and all kinds of drug interactions and you go from being a little achy from your original complaint to hurting from some procedure or other. Maybe it's fatalistic of me, but dying quietly at home sounds a helluva lot better to me than winding up on tubes in a hospital somewhere while being ravaged by drug-resistant strep that I picked up while I was in there getting poked for something that wasn't bothering me until some doctor decided it was a big fat hairy freakin' deal. (/rant)"
To which she responded, "Tell me how you REALLY feel!"
I know, there are a lot of conditions that don't manifest outward symptoms until a late stage. And the older you get, the liklier they become. But geez Louise, I've seen the constant-tests-and-a-boatload-of-meds scenario, and I don't want to go down THAT road, either.
OR the road to Melbourne, but I gotta....
"It seems to me that once you go to a doctor, they will *find* something wrong to keep you coming back. Pretty soon, you have a condition---or two or three---and you're having tests and more tests and all kinds of drug interactions and you go from being a little achy from your original complaint to hurting from some procedure or other. Maybe it's fatalistic of me, but dying quietly at home sounds a helluva lot better to me than winding up on tubes in a hospital somewhere while being ravaged by drug-resistant strep that I picked up while I was in there getting poked for something that wasn't bothering me until some doctor decided it was a big fat hairy freakin' deal. (/rant)"
To which she responded, "Tell me how you REALLY feel!"
I know, there are a lot of conditions that don't manifest outward symptoms until a late stage. And the older you get, the liklier they become. But geez Louise, I've seen the constant-tests-and-a-boatload-of-meds scenario, and I don't want to go down THAT road, either.
OR the road to Melbourne, but I gotta....
no subject
That said, I do know what you're referring to with people who either think medicine can defy natural aging or who wind up being overtreated by multiple doctors. Being a good patient and keeping up with your own records is pretty much essential.
(Even the simplest things can go awry: The hospital that's a stone's throw from my doctor's office had not sent her my test results after a week, but I had a copy that I took my appointment with her.)
no subject
Or the ones who run in to see the doctor every time they sniffle, or bang their elbow, or pass gas. Okay, maybe that's a wee bit extreme, but I tend toward the other extreme. If I'm not in pain that's at LEAST +7 on a scale from one to ten, if I'm not spurting from an artery or unnatural orifice, I figure I'll probably survive. Sometimes there's a fine line between hypochondriac and plain old WIMP.
But yeah, I'm gonna have a little preventive tune-up done....