I am definitely down in the proverbial dumps. I don't really know why.
After, as you'd expect, much multi-faceted angst, I kept my appointment
yesterday for my exam and TSH (the thyroid test). It was at P*la*n**ed
P.*hood and I was all thinking they'd be like the P*l*an**ed P.*hoods
back in CA. They weren't. (I guess I missed the place's whole name:
P*l*an**ed P.*hood of NORTH TEXAS.) I don't think it went well. For
several reasons, and here's the easy one: See, so okay, they do an
exam, PAP, breast exam, blood pressure, blah blah, TSH, all that stuff,
but see the thing is, unless I want birth control (heh), they can't
actually get me any medication. No prescriptions. And it was my bad,
not understanding that. My bad for assuming that doing a TSH meant I
could get a 'script. My bad for thinking they understood this on the
'phone as I went on and on (and probably on) about not taking my meds
from India regularly, wanting to find out my thyroid levels so I could
get on a correct does and take my medication as I should...Eh. So
story-short, I walked out with a whole stack of referrals, referrals
for a mammogram, for an endometrial biopsy, for high blood pressure,
for my thyroid, and they didn't seem to understand that I have no way
of getting this treatment. And I remembered about these "referrals"
from my old clinic-working days; this is a liability issue, they have
to send me off with these to cover their butts and as long as they
document the fact that they sent me off with referrals, they're in the
clear. It doesn't matter if I actually pursue the matter. And the thing
with the TSH... I STILL have to find an real other
doctor who will either agree to review the TSH P*l*an**ed P.*hood
already did or disregard it and order a new one (that I'll have to pay
for) before s/he writes me a 'script... So I'm looking at the cost of
another office visit.
And that's just the thyroid stuff. I plan to ignore the high blood pressure and the endometrial biopsy and the mammogram. The nurse-or-whatever at P*l*an**ed P.*hood didn't seem to understand why I wasn't on meds for my blood pressure, since it was first diagnosed back in 2004. No one seemed to understand why I haven't seen a doctor since 2005. It must be nice, living in that bubble.
Anyway. So that's the easy reason for my bummed-outed-ness re yesterday's appointment. It accomplished nothing. I mean, I had a gynecological exam and I had them test for STDs but I need thyroid meds, I need to know what's wrong with my breast. Eh. Eh-fucking-eh.
The other thing that's got me all angsty, I mean beyond my own apparent biological proclivity for angst, is my perception of the nurse's reaction to me, to my history. Because for the first time EVER, the first time in my whole entire LIFE, I was totally honest as I filled out the forms. And it was difficult. I'm slumped here telling you that it was EXTREMELY difficult. Because I ALWAYS lie, because I'm afraid of being judged (and also because the truth on most of those questions doesn't actually matter). But yesterday, with my brave, new, fuck-it mindset, I decided to tell the truth. Because, just between you and me, I'm fucking sick of lying. Of going through my whole freaking life lying, hiding things, pretending. I always lied because I was scared; I'm sick of being scared. Sick of it. So when the paper wanted to know my number of sexual partners in a lifetime, I put 50. And when it wanted to know "men, women, or both," I put both. And when it asked if I'd engaged in "vaginal, anal, oral," I checked them all. And when it asked if I'd ever been with a bisexual, I checked yes. And I said I'd been pregnant seven times, three abortions, one miscarriage, and three live births. And where it asked if I'd ever been physically abused, I said yes. And where it asked if I'd ever been forced into sex I said yes. And I checked that I experienced anxiety/depression. And at the section establishing my current level of sexual activity there was no option for celibacy, so I wrote in the margin "celibate last 4 years." And I was trying to calm myself down, thinking maybe they wouldn't think I was a freak, that maybe other people had slept with a lot of people or had abortions or been kind of bi. But nope. Apparently just me. Or, well, everyone else lies as much as I'd previously lied. Because the... I don't know if she's a nurse or what... the woman taking my height-weight-blood pressure, was uncomfortable as she went over my paperwork with me. She wore more crosses than I've... well, I don't want to say "ever" seen... but she wore a lot of crosses. She even had a cross on a ring. And another ring, big and silver, with cut-out letters reading "HE died for me." (She also couldn't spell "thyroid" and had to keep asking me, and while I'm not going to come right out and say that crucifixes interfere with spelling... I'm going to suggest that it's possible that crucifixes impede proper spelling.)
Eh. I need to stop writing about it. Maybe I'm projecting, maybe I'm imagining the crucifix woman's reactions, the double-take when she read the umber 50, her sigh at the three abortions. She didn't want to deal with the anxiety/depression. She asked me if it was current or in the past and I said that I still experience it. She said, "How often?" And I replied, "It comes and goes..." And she said, "It's in the past, then," and wrote down "past." She asked me about the abuse, assault, and I said it wasn't recent. She said, "Are you okay with it?" And I said, "Okay with it? It happened; I still think about it, it affects me." And spying on her paperwork, I read her writing: "Pt says she's ok with it." So at that point I thought, eh, it's just a bunch of bureaucracy, like in the clinic where OKC and I used to work, where we had to ask these questions but didn't really care (though I believe that both OKC and I did care, and tried to help...). See, if the "pt" states that there is a current issue, it necessitates some kind of action on their part and therefore it is always better to document that there is no current issue. ...And this falls in line with my orignial theory: the whole paperwork thing is a bunch of bullshit. None of it really matters and therefore I was correct to be lying all these decades and I picked a dumb forum in which to come out of the lying closet, come out all quiasi-bravely honest and crap. It's just a waste of time.
Blah blah. So I feel as though I wasted my time in every way yesterday. And I drove home and had to fight with myself not to give in to some stupid crying. Crying because no matter how rationally I'm "okay" with my own sexual history, I live in fear of being judged. And I felt judged. Whether I was or not. I felt judged. And that's just me being stupid, caring what, in my perception, strangers think. And wanting to cry because I thought that I'd take care of this thyroid issue, be responsible, get some medical treatment, and it was all crap. And now I'm right back where I started, needing to find a doctor, find the money. And because I was so upset that I thought I lost my sunglasses, and I get crazy when think I've lost something, and I kept checking my huge purse, checking the clutter on the dashboard, biting my lip, convinced I'd lost my sunglasses on top of everything else, convinced I was a loser, a failure, because I've slept with too many people, had too many abortions, because I weighed too much, and now I'd lost my sunglasses...
Eh. I got home, of course found my sunglasses right where I'd put them, right where I always put them, in the outter flap of my purse, and I'm trying to get my act together, water the birds/goats, telling myself oh-well, oh-well, oh-well... Telling myself that it didn't matter, that it was okay, oh-well, oh-well, oh-well. Telling myself I was crazy, reacting like this. And so that's about it. And I couldn't sleep last night, and then couldn't get myself motivated to go hiking this moring, and it's too, too hot, and I can't seem to get myself on a steady track this summer with my classes and this worries and frustrates me, and I'm thinking what if this dumb incessant bleeding really is uterine cancer? But part of me is being all sullen, stupid, being all fuck-it; let me just get cancer, then.
So I'm not, as they probably still say in Cali, in a very good place right now.
And, as always, behind in class stuff...
And that's just the thyroid stuff. I plan to ignore the high blood pressure and the endometrial biopsy and the mammogram. The nurse-or-whatever at P*l*an**ed P.*hood didn't seem to understand why I wasn't on meds for my blood pressure, since it was first diagnosed back in 2004. No one seemed to understand why I haven't seen a doctor since 2005. It must be nice, living in that bubble.
Anyway. So that's the easy reason for my bummed-outed-ness re yesterday's appointment. It accomplished nothing. I mean, I had a gynecological exam and I had them test for STDs but I need thyroid meds, I need to know what's wrong with my breast. Eh. Eh-fucking-eh.
The other thing that's got me all angsty, I mean beyond my own apparent biological proclivity for angst, is my perception of the nurse's reaction to me, to my history. Because for the first time EVER, the first time in my whole entire LIFE, I was totally honest as I filled out the forms. And it was difficult. I'm slumped here telling you that it was EXTREMELY difficult. Because I ALWAYS lie, because I'm afraid of being judged (and also because the truth on most of those questions doesn't actually matter). But yesterday, with my brave, new, fuck-it mindset, I decided to tell the truth. Because, just between you and me, I'm fucking sick of lying. Of going through my whole freaking life lying, hiding things, pretending. I always lied because I was scared; I'm sick of being scared. Sick of it. So when the paper wanted to know my number of sexual partners in a lifetime, I put 50. And when it wanted to know "men, women, or both," I put both. And when it asked if I'd engaged in "vaginal, anal, oral," I checked them all. And when it asked if I'd ever been with a bisexual, I checked yes. And I said I'd been pregnant seven times, three abortions, one miscarriage, and three live births. And where it asked if I'd ever been physically abused, I said yes. And where it asked if I'd ever been forced into sex I said yes. And I checked that I experienced anxiety/depression. And at the section establishing my current level of sexual activity there was no option for celibacy, so I wrote in the margin "celibate last 4 years." And I was trying to calm myself down, thinking maybe they wouldn't think I was a freak, that maybe other people had slept with a lot of people or had abortions or been kind of bi. But nope. Apparently just me. Or, well, everyone else lies as much as I'd previously lied. Because the... I don't know if she's a nurse or what... the woman taking my height-weight-blood pressure, was uncomfortable as she went over my paperwork with me. She wore more crosses than I've... well, I don't want to say "ever" seen... but she wore a lot of crosses. She even had a cross on a ring. And another ring, big and silver, with cut-out letters reading "HE died for me." (She also couldn't spell "thyroid" and had to keep asking me, and while I'm not going to come right out and say that crucifixes interfere with spelling... I'm going to suggest that it's possible that crucifixes impede proper spelling.)
Eh. I need to stop writing about it. Maybe I'm projecting, maybe I'm imagining the crucifix woman's reactions, the double-take when she read the umber 50, her sigh at the three abortions. She didn't want to deal with the anxiety/depression. She asked me if it was current or in the past and I said that I still experience it. She said, "How often?" And I replied, "It comes and goes..." And she said, "It's in the past, then," and wrote down "past." She asked me about the abuse, assault, and I said it wasn't recent. She said, "Are you okay with it?" And I said, "Okay with it? It happened; I still think about it, it affects me." And spying on her paperwork, I read her writing: "Pt says she's ok with it." So at that point I thought, eh, it's just a bunch of bureaucracy, like in the clinic where OKC and I used to work, where we had to ask these questions but didn't really care (though I believe that both OKC and I did care, and tried to help...). See, if the "pt" states that there is a current issue, it necessitates some kind of action on their part and therefore it is always better to document that there is no current issue. ...And this falls in line with my orignial theory: the whole paperwork thing is a bunch of bullshit. None of it really matters and therefore I was correct to be lying all these decades and I picked a dumb forum in which to come out of the lying closet, come out all quiasi-bravely honest and crap. It's just a waste of time.
Blah blah. So I feel as though I wasted my time in every way yesterday. And I drove home and had to fight with myself not to give in to some stupid crying. Crying because no matter how rationally I'm "okay" with my own sexual history, I live in fear of being judged. And I felt judged. Whether I was or not. I felt judged. And that's just me being stupid, caring what, in my perception, strangers think. And wanting to cry because I thought that I'd take care of this thyroid issue, be responsible, get some medical treatment, and it was all crap. And now I'm right back where I started, needing to find a doctor, find the money. And because I was so upset that I thought I lost my sunglasses, and I get crazy when think I've lost something, and I kept checking my huge purse, checking the clutter on the dashboard, biting my lip, convinced I'd lost my sunglasses on top of everything else, convinced I was a loser, a failure, because I've slept with too many people, had too many abortions, because I weighed too much, and now I'd lost my sunglasses...
Eh. I got home, of course found my sunglasses right where I'd put them, right where I always put them, in the outter flap of my purse, and I'm trying to get my act together, water the birds/goats, telling myself oh-well, oh-well, oh-well... Telling myself that it didn't matter, that it was okay, oh-well, oh-well, oh-well. Telling myself I was crazy, reacting like this. And so that's about it. And I couldn't sleep last night, and then couldn't get myself motivated to go hiking this moring, and it's too, too hot, and I can't seem to get myself on a steady track this summer with my classes and this worries and frustrates me, and I'm thinking what if this dumb incessant bleeding really is uterine cancer? But part of me is being all sullen, stupid, being all fuck-it; let me just get cancer, then.
So I'm not, as they probably still say in Cali, in a very good place right now.
And, as always, behind in class stuff...
Is there a general medical clinic in the area that could write the rx based on the blood work just done? We have community clinics around here that are at least a cheaper option than a private practice doc. As for the rest of it, I don't get PP having a crucifix laden employee. I just don't.
I'm sorry you're having a bad day.
You were open and that woman wasn't open to hearing it. That sucked, and I bet it reminds you of the feeling of all the other times you tried to reach out and ask for help and the person who was listening to you ignored you.
Remember that one person isn't everyone.
Give yourself big props for taking the huge step of being open and unapologetic about the truths in your life. That is the important part. Not every person will listen or sympathize, but some will, if you keep talking. Look, if you keep talking, you have at least a chance someone will hear you. If you don't at all, there's NO chance at all of ever being heard. Right?
I really do wish you could go to a sexual assault support group. Is there one in your area? I'm telling you if you were in one of those groups, you wouldn't think your story sounded so odd.
And did you ever look into that free/discount prescription drug thing I sent you eons ago?
I'd also encourage you to be up front and say, "No I am not okay with it" and "yes it does affect me now," if that is true, rather than let the person make the final call. It sounds to me like you disagreed with what you knew she was writing down. It's your medical record. You have the right to make sure it reflects exactly what you want said.