Some Doctors are Quacks Part 2

I last left off with having trouble walking down the street by myself because of the pain in both my head & eye.

It had now been 5 months since the strange headaches and vision problem started. I was still no closer to finding a diagnosis. I go see my family doctor for my regular physical and tell her all about the past 5 months. When I tell her of the suspected MS, she says ''But you don't have any other symptoms, do you?'' Well, No, not really. She makes note of everything and shakes her head. The headaches and vision aren't improving, sometimes they are hitting new heights, so I try to see the neurologist...ok, he's told me I should make an appointment to see him. After his office gives me the run-around of a few days, his receptionist finally tells me he will meet me at the hospital the next week. And she sets a time. So I wait, and go to the hospital for the appointment. I check in and wait...and wait...an hour later, I go back up to the reception and ask how much longer he's going to be, I had an appointment. That's when the nurse on duty tells me ''oh, you're not seeing him, you're just seeing one of the regular ER doctors''.

What the F... was the point of me making an appoinment with this guy????He never intended to show up in the first place. HE makes the appointment, HE sets the time, then HE DOESN'T show up???? I was so upset. I mean, you tell a person you think they have MS, you give them a speech about what the future will hold, and you tell them that if they have any questions night or day, to give a call. AND THEN YOU RENEG ON ALL OF IT!!!!

Needless to say, I went back to my family doctor (a doctor who has never steered me wrong, by the way), told her what happened and asked for a referal to a different neurologist. I think she was as angry as I was at how I was treated. A month later I go see this new neurologist. She does all these tests that the other one should have done much sooner, the results were NOT MS. Huge relief!!! She believed I had migraines, and put me on Verapamil, it was supposed to help lower my blood pressure in order to allieviate the headaches. I already have really low blood pressure, and I told her about it...she thought the benifits would outweigh the risks. OK, so I take the drug. Suddenly I can barely make it up a flight of stairs, my chest hurts even if I so much as walk to the end of the hall and back. I throw the pills away. The eyesight is still bad, the headaches are there.

Now we are at the 13 month mark of not really knowing what is wrong with me. I make my yearly appointment with the optomotrist, tell her all that has happened since the last time I saw her. She said, there is still one more doctor who's testing would be definative on the eye question...an optho-neurologist. I'd never heard of that before. A neurologist who solely deals with the eye. A month later, I go see this optho-neurologist. She tests me for a number of things, looks at the MRI, and after all the tests come back, it truely shows there is nothing wrong with my eye. More over, I never had optic neuritis, nor MS.

Finally, after 15 months of being mis-diagnosed, she comes up with the answer. Paroxsymal Hemicrania. It's a very rare form of headache, found mostly in women over 40. It's an inflammatory headache that can affect sight, hearing, sinuses, and nerves. It can hit 5 - 40 times a day for any length of time, from a few seconds to hours, and removing yourself from light or noise doesn't help the pain. She put me on Indomethacin, and 20 minutes after I took the first capsule, my headache eased up and my eyesight returned. 20 MINUTES!!!!! After 15 months, all it took was this very specific medicine.

When I think back to all that happened, and all the crap that I was perscribed I realize that when a doctor receives their license to practice medicine, it truely means PRACTICE, and practice, and practice. Not necessarily DO any.

In the 1 year and 3 months of all this the sum of diagnosis': Iritis, Optic Neuritis, MS, Migraines, and finally Paroxsymal Hemicrania.

The drugs/perscriptions: regular over-the-counter medicines, Steroids, hyro-morphine, Gabapentin, Lyrica, Verapamil, and finally Indomethacine.

No wonder my hair was falling out!!

My New Banner - Some Doctors are Quacks Part 1

I decided to add something very personal to my blog header. Yep. That's my MRI. I had it done a couple of years ago, well, I HAD to have it done a couple of years ago.

I work in a job that is 60 hours/week for 10 months/year. Having just finished one project, I had gone directly onto something very small, only a week of work. So I do that, then crash. Completely. I slept for 20 hours a day for 3 days straight. Sleeping all night, waking up to have breakfast, back to bed til lunch, woke up & had lunch, then went back to bed until supper. Woke up long enough to eat, then maybe a half hour longer, then sleep through the night. 3 days of this. I put it down to exhaustion. When I woke up on the 4th day, I suddenly could barely see out of my right eye, and I had developed these horrendous headaches. Part of my face would freeze, my pupil would contract to the extreme when I was around ANY light (just the right side mind you, the left would react normally), my teeth hurt, my sinuses hurt, and my skin around my eye was super sensitive.

After waiting what felt like forever to see an optomotrist, I was told that my eye was healthy, but they made an appointment with an othomologist just in case. In the meantime, I went to the dentist, thinking the toothache had something to do with a cracked tooth or something. I even had a root canel. None of this worked, my headaches, etc. were so bad that every 2nd day I ended up in the emergency room at the local hospital trying to get something for the pain.

A month later I finally got in to see the opthomologist. He tells me there is nothing wrong with my eye, and it's just optic neuritis, and it would go away in 6-8 weeks. It had already been over that and it was still going strong. So I wait the 6-8 weeks to come back for my follow-up, during this time, I continue my visits to the emergency room. I can barely work because of the pain.

Finally, another 6 weeks pass and I go back to the opthomologist. He tells me I'll be ok, there's nothing wrong, the eye will clear on it's own. Blah, Blah, Blah. I convince him I want to see a neurologist. He hums and haws, saying the neurologist probably wouldn't see me over something like this. He kept trying to convince me not to see a neurologist. By this time I'm livid and practically demand to see someone. So he calls the hospital, and very appologetically tells them he has a woman who really thinks she needs to see someone because of this 'little' problem. (I'm in the room for the phone call so I hear everything this whiney little idiot says).

At any rate, the neurologist says he'll see me right now, can I come to the hospital? I can't get out of the room fast enough, and head the few blocks to the hospital. After the neurologist checks me over and orders some tests, he tells me he thinks I have MS, and will order an MRI for me. He immediately puts me 3 days of intravenous steroids, and gives me a perscription for Gabapentin. The steroids don't help, oddly enough, neither does the Gabapentin. After a few weeks of the drug not working, I call the doctor's office to ask for something else for the pain. It takes another 5 days for them to get back to me and the Dr. issues me a perscription for.....GABAPENTIN. It's like he didn't even look at my file to find out I was already on it, and just arbitrarily issues another perscription. Finally, he gives me a perscription for Lyrica. A drug designed to control nerve pain.

By this time, my hair is falling out by handfuls, my nerves are shot and I can barely work. This Dr. was supposed to order an MRI for me (which would've been free), of course he forgot. So the only way I could get one before another 5 months had passed was to pay for it myself. Over $800.00. Thank God my parents helped me to pay for it. This doctor also forgot to fill in a form (that I sent him) to show my union that I was physically unable to work. I couldn't even ask them for financial help through our medical services provider.

I'm so stressed by this point; I can't see out of one eyes and I have trouble walking on my own because of the constant headaches.

I'm going to stop writing now, because this still upsets me, I'll continue this tomorrow.

Year of Wonders A Novel Of the Plague

The 2nd book in my series of personal book reviews is a book called Year Of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.

The story begins in a small English Village in 1666 after the plague had all but ravaged this tiny village of just over 300. Anna, a housemaid at the village parish, is trying to entice her pastor to 'eat, just a little, to gain strength', to admit visitors, to see people, anything to get him out of his depression and help him to regain his faith. Then the story backtracks to the spring of 1665, when the plague spore was first brought to the village in a shipment of cloth from London, destined for the local tailor. At first no one realizes, or wants to admit, that the sickness is the dreaded plague. First the headaches and fever, red blotches similiar to rings, then the tell-tale pus sacs in the gland areas. Finally, sneezing & death. Of course the end is ineveitable. What is amazing, is that the village decides -almost to a person- that they would voluntarily quarentine themselves to prevent the spread of the disease. Thus giving themselves a death sentence.

The book is well written and, for myself, amazingly vivid. The description of the village itself had my mind creating the like, imagining who these people were, how they lived (which I eventually looked up), and the manner in which they died.

Although books about catastophies like the plague can often be considered depressing, I could not say I found Year of Wonders to be so. The book showed the best & worst of human nature during difficult times, with the best-of winning hands down.

I was so intrigued by this book that I searched out (on the internet), the incident Year of Wonders, was based on. It happened in the English village of Eyam, a small mining community of about 350 people, located in Derbyshire. The plague spore was indeed brought to the village in a shipment of cloth from London, destined for the local tailor. A short time later, as people began to get sick, healthy villagers were thinking of leaving, hoping for the safety of neighbouring villages or the nearby city of Sheffield. The church leader, William Mompesson, convinced the villagers that to flee would quite possibly bring infection to those places, who up until this time, had been plague free. The villagers agreed to quarintine themselves and a local Earl agreed to provide food and supplies as long as no one left the village.

Of the 350 people who inhabited the village in 1665, 280 had died by the end of 1666.

Again, I am amazed at the heroism of the people of Eyam. To give so much of yourselves to protect your neighbours... I know it may sound wishy-washy, but the night I finished Year of Wonders, I prayed for the victims & said thank you.

Two things to check out: Year of Wonders A Novel of the Plague, by Geraldine Brooks,
and anything about the village of Eyam. The village has a plague museum, the house the plague first occured in is still standing, as is the Parish of St. Lawerence.

Stasiland

I've been reading the book Stasiland - True Stories from Behind the Iron Curtain by Anna Funder. I became interested in the subject of the Stasi after seeing the German movie The Lives of Others. 'Stasi' stands for: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security) the official secret police of the Former East Germany. The movie is the story of a Stasi officer who undertakes surviellience of a playwrite for the GDR government in the mid 1980's. I'll write about the movie at another time, for now, the book. Stasiland.

Ms. Funder is an Australian living and working in the former West Berlin. While working at a local oversea's TV station, she becomes interested in life during the GDR era, and places an ad in one of the local papers asking for people who would be willing to come forward and tell their stories. Stories that would be more than difficult to relate and relive. Many people answered her ad. Ordinary people, courageous people, terrified people, even a few ex-Stasi men. All wanted to tell their stories, all wanted to be understood. Without getting too far into the story (you have to read the book yourself), I must say I was amazed at the length that the Stasi would go to 'encourage' someone to become an informer, or to 'co-operate' with them. One of the people Ms. Funder writes about refused to help, and her life was ruined in so many ways.

The Stasi found many reasons to punish: for having a western book, for wanting to go to the West, for making jokes about either the party or those in power, amoung other things. And the punishment was....I don't even have a word to describe it. Horrible? yes, Outrageous? yes, Demeaning? yes. All of these and more. A trip to the Hohenschonhausen prison for an 'interview', could mean you would never be seen again, or, you may get to go home...eventually.

With the passing of years the memories don't always get easier. Yet the survivors seemed to hold no grudge, it's just the way it was.

I remember when the Wall came down in 1989. I was watching the news with my West German roommate and her Mother who had come to Canada for a visit. We watched in awe as ordinary people from both sides amassed and eventually overran and tore down the legendary Wall. People lifting others to the top, East & West shaking hands. Families finally getting to see each other, some for the first time ever. And the Stasi could do nothing. My roommates' Mom kept saying ''It's happening too fast, there's something wrong''. She was suspicious. I didn't understand why until I read Stasiland.

Ms. Funder is a wonderful writer who is able to get her subjects to open up and revel their very personal, very heartwrenching stories. I hope that the book, Stasiland, along with the movie, The Lives of Others, will help to pave the way for others to tell their stories, and for those reponsible to finally be held accountable.


I would recommend this book to anyone!

Of being impressionable

I've been reading a book that is a collection of stories from people who dealt with or were involved with the Stasi government in the former East Germany. Actually, it was a movie called 'The Lives of Others' that got me interested in the subject. Then I found the book 'Stasiland', by Anna Funder. I am amazed at what people in the GDR dealt with on a daily basis. I wonder what it would have been like to live in a society where you couldn't trust your neighbours or even your family. Or you could just 'go missing', and all record of you would cease to exist.

My own heritage is of Ukranian/Russian decent. Although I was never in East Germany, I have been to the former USSR, and from what I understand, some of their policies were the same.

I was on a 2 week study tour that was part of spring break tour offered at my high school. It was 1983, the first year (to my understanding), that they allowed in western students. What an eye-opener. I think it was in the former Leningrad, that we saw a long line of people, stretching around the block. Something that in North America could signify a new movie opening. We asked our state-supplied guide what the lineup was about. She told us that today was the day that everyone who's last name began with a certain letter could buy shoes. Our group of kids and teachers went to a Canada/Sweden hockey game, I went to see if I could get a snack...ice cream, one flavour-vanilla, 20 kopeks. I remember young people trying to talk to us, not long because as one said, ''KGB, I'll get caught''. But these kids wanted to know how different we were, I suppose to see if they had been lied to through the propoganda machine. I guess their position was pretty much the same as in the GDR. One thing though, I do recall everyone being very nice, even the guards in Red Square...of course there was no Russian Mafia at that time.

Being 17 and impressionable, I took in all I could from this country of my ancestors. And thanked God, they saw the need to leave. On my way home, as I was going through customs in Canada, the customs officer said ''Welcome Home'', I started to cry.

Sometimes I wonder what it would've been like for them (the soviets and GDR) if they had taken the best things about Democracy (ie freedom to think, express oneself without fear of imprisonment, freedom to decide), and the better things about Socialism (ie free medicare, being encouraged to study the subject you have the most apptitude for, free schooling) and put these two together and create a new society. I laugh at myself because I have no idea what they would try to call it.
I wonder if we could handle a society in which you were encourage to think and act freely (within the confines of law), and have free schools and medicare. What would the taxes be like???

Also, I wonder...if they had it all to do again, I mean the fall both of Socialism in Germany and Communism in Russia, would they do anything differently? Take more time perhaps, do it a bit slower?, stand up to it earlier? Or revert to the past?

Sunday thoughts

So here I am, at the computer with so many things flying through my head. News of the week: is it ok for a Dad to mercy kill his severely sick daughter?, is it ok for a 41 year old man to have sex with a 15 year old girl and not be held accountable?

I don't really have an opinion one way or the other about mercy killings, although if I was in the position of having no qualilty of life, I'd rather be put out of my misery, than be kept alive. If I can't move, eat, speak, or do anything on my own, for me it would be kind of like being in a prison, a life sentence without having committed a crime.

Now, about the 41 year old man having sex with a 15 year old girl. This one gets me so riled. If this girl were to commit a crime, she can't be mentioned because of the young offenders act, she would NOT be considered an adult, she is NOT allowed to buy alcohol or cigarettes because she is NOT considered an adult BY LAW. And yet, this 41 year old man can argue that the age of consent for sex is something like 14 or 15. Who made this law anyways???? a pedofile?? If it's ok for her to consent to sex at 15, and be held accountable for whatever happens, then maybe the young offenders act age should be lowered to...10 lets say. Try everyone over 11 as an adult. Don't try and tell me that a 15 year old boy is less responsible for his actions than a 15 year old girl. Oh yeah...and the age itself should give it away FIFTEEN, emphasis on the TEEN part. Teen does not mean Adult.

Oh and then, I think it was this week that an international child porn ring was busted. It had something like over 1,200 members world wide. Where does this sort of thing come from? I mean what goes through a persons head when they are raping a child???? I've been told it's all about power. There has to be something we as a society can do to stop this sort of thing from happening, I don't mean bigger task forces, I mean finding out where it comes from psycologically. I know alot of people say, oh well, he/she had a hard life. GET REAL alot of people have had a hard life and lived through more crap than some of these people and yet they turned out ok. Sorry, but I truely believe you have made a conscious decision when you do something like hurt a child...it's your decision, no one elses, you have the power to stop....maybe they are just too cowardly.

If you can guess from this post, that I was abused as a child, well, you're right. I laugh when people say that abuse is more prevelant today than it was when I was a child. My best friend growing up was also abused. It was just as prevelant, we just didn't talk about it, were encouraged not to talk about it. Oh, by the way I turned out alright. Sure I was angry and was ready to do myself harm, but I never once thought of harming anyone else. Guess that's why I have no sympathy for those who claim that they had a hard life, or society made them do it. I figure GROW UP, take responsibility for your actions. Or are they too scared??

I'd be interested to hear from others. Where do you think child abuse stems from? Is it ingrained like a predatory response,? all about power? Can we come up with some sort of early screening and should it be made mandatory? Is it simply a chemical imbalance?