Getting Into Trouble With The Doctor

Relaxing after chemo.

“Are you a bad patient?” I was asked at school a co-worker.

How many minutes have you known me to know the answer to that one?

Of course I’m a bad patient.

You see, I didn’t get the chance in early childhood education to read the script a medical student was given when they are set to deliver bad news such as “You have Stage 2 invasive mammory carcinoma”.

So naturally I revert to my early childhood education classes.

How to argue effectively.  How to get someone to do what you want them to do.  How to make people focus on what you are saying.  How to stop someone from talking – nicely.  How to divert attention. 

Some of you who know me are thinking, “Now how come she doesn’t use those with kids?”

*insert blank stare here* (I might have learned that one in school too – the art of silence)

So how have I gotten into trouble with the doctor? 

• ·       The doctor who told me I couldn’t work while in chemo without even asking what my job was (or introducing himself, or even making chit chat to get to know me) – I pretty much just walked away from the noise/script he was blathering.
• ·       I worked out at the gym the day I got my second Granix shot (my defense was if things were going to hurt, it could of either hurt because of the shot or my workout).  Apparently there’s a TON of germs at the gym.  Go figure.  Maybe more than school.
• ·       My max arm weight is 10# at the gym.  In doing wing weights (my name for the ones you start at your side and bring them together prayer style – again, early childhood education, not gym degree) 10# flew together.  Upped to 20#.  Much better.  I already look like a lazy dork at 10#.  You can’t even use the pin for 10#.
• ·       Asking for rum/vodka/frosting as accutramints at the ultrasound biopsy.  I was hopped up on lidocane and anxiety on that one.  And I’m pretending delusions are a result of too much lidocane.  It might be on WebMD.
• ·       Using my birthday European style, putting the date before the month when asked my secret password by the doctor.  Luckily the nurse who was my cohort got more of the doctor’s glare than I did.  No square, didn’t care, had that lidocane.
• ·       Requesting my blood pressure be taken AFTER they insert the port.  Not that it was any better.  Probably should have let them, not allowed to write them down, and used it as a baseline.
• ·       Stripping down to the street-legal basics for a weight measuring.  Those chemo drugs they give you are based on your weight.  No one needs to be sticking more poisions in me because my purse, coat, boots and vest weigh an additional four pounds.
• ·       Drinking about eight gallons of water for the actual chemo treatment.  Something about too low of sodium.  I call BS.  And I need something to do during chemo.  So liquid consumption and subsequent multiple/constant bathroom breaks/field trips are in order.  In my mind it flushes that crap out of my body.

 

(Only I would call cancer killing/life saving medicines “crap”, but I did).