What the Drug Abuse Epidemic Costs Other Patients

OK, I admit it, I'm in recovery. So, yeah, I fall in part of this category.

BUT - since I've been in recovery many years, I also don't fall into this category. I now fall into the "regular, old fashioned patient" category.

Regular patients can't get quality medical care anymore.
I have some conditions that I watch. I don't have the disease, but my conditions are well enough advanced that I expect certain blood tests at least every six months. I can't get my doctor to order the tests. Simple things like blood sugar, weight and balance tests....

Doctors aren't being taught medicine. They aren't being taught to think. Maybe it's the insurance industry that messed everything up. I don't know - maybe the pharmaceutical industry.... It's like there's a pill for every ill, and if you aren't sick - actually exhibiting a disease, doctors don't know what to do anymore.

Since I moved to Tennessee, this is particularly evident. I'm used to world-class medical care. California, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Reno....

But in East Tennessee, there is an epidemic of doctor-caused drug addiction. Opiate addiction, in particular. There is also a healthy weight-loss clinic business, which is uppers, downers, painkillers, HCG, and more.

The doctors around here have resigned themselves to patients who are looking for drugs. When they find someone who is interested in changing their life, changing their health, they - the doctors - either don't know what to do, or they get excited by the prospect of someone in their care actually getting better. Unfortunately, we have many more doctors of the former type than the latter. 

So, people like me, who pretty much know what is going on in their bodies, have an idea of what the protocols are, and are working to avoid developing worse conditions, are lost in the system - or not treated at all. I would love to find one of the doctors who get excited about someone getting better.

I had a doc in Knoxville who wouldn't touch me. Not even to check my glands or see how my reflexes were doing in my legs - which work, but have "issues" from past injuries. Maybe he didn't want to be a doctor. It was really strange.

Here, I have a female who will check me, listen to my heart and stuff, but she won't run the blood tests that I need run. I've asked for the tests and they still don't make it onto the orders.

I don't understand this new medicine. There are more specialists than ever, but nobody is practicing medicine. They are all sticking their heads in the sand. 

I'm not trying to game the system or commit insurance fraud. I'm not looking for drugs. I just want certain conditions watched so that they don't get any worse.

There are several medical colleges around this area - Duke being the best, Vanderbilt being next in line. Then there are state colleges like UT and ETSU. I'm sure there are others that I don't know about, since I'm relatively new - even after 12 years - to this area. There are pharmacy colleges, medical colleges, private and public universities. Why is medicine like this?

Maybe 15 years ago, things changed. I had a family practitioner who did everything. She watched my heart, blood pressure, did my pap smears and sent me for mammograms. When it was time for surgery she sent me to a surgeon to be evaluated. Not for surgery - just to see if it was warranted. True, she missed the asthma, but I never said anything about it, so how could she know? She told me to quit smoking, and I finally did a couple years before it was diagnosed.  

But today, good luck! If you find a doctor who will take the insurance you have (if you have any - even with the ACA, it is expensive) and has openings, you may not get quality medical care. Just because a doctor has the papers, doesn't mean they are any good. I've had burned out shells, doctors who won't touch me, doctors who will refer instead of treat, doctors with staff that were rude, and doctors who you can't even get in to see.

Therapists aren't much better. Drug addiction has caused a booming business in the therapy trade. Only it isn't real therapy. It's teaching coping skills to the uninitiated, and doling out head-meds for depression and anxiety to keep the patient under control. That isn't recovery. No more than suboxone is an answer for opiate addiction. It's just state-sponsored drug addiction - whether suboxone/methadone or head-meds. Same thing.

Finding someone who isn't interested in making their patient a zombie on meds - to help the patient find real healing and mental health - that's a therapist worth his or her weight in gold.

Medicine is a business, true. But it isn't a healing business anymore. I miss the hands-on people we used to have who practiced medicine.

So, even a person who is not addicted will have difficulty finding quality medical care. It's all because the addiction costs are so high. Burn out of physicians who might otherwise be quality caregivers, therapists only interested in what drugs one is on... It's a racket! And the poor patient is the loser.

Survivor-Speak

I was going to leave it alone. I really was...

BUT....

Do you have any idea how bad it feels to know that people blame you for being raped when you had nothing to do with it? What about this-- The first time I was molested, I was 18 months old. 18 months!

How in hell can a child, 18 months old, be held responsible for the actions of an adult?? How can a child 18 months old be blamed for being molested? What ADULT in their right mind would do such a thing?

So, this is going to be a rant, so get over it.

Children have no say in the actions of adults. We have been advocating teaching children, who should be living carefree lives and learning how to use their bodies and minds - to protect themselves against ADULTS who should know better....

This didn't even start to be talked about until the last 20 years. It's been going on forever....

At least that's what it feels like to me.

I used to feel so bad about myself, thinking I was the only one, and "if they only knew" and "I'm worthless because of" and "nobody cares" and a whole lot worse - constantly.

A while ago, I finally opened up about it. Cautiously at first, with therapists, then a partner. The partner got all weird and it ended the relationship. After that, I stopped talking again.

Later, I started sharing it a little bit - with trusted women friends - and always with therapists. Then, I "came out" to my family about the abuse. Not the family I lived with because they already knew, but the extended family that cared about me and couldn't understand why I was so self-destructive.

Then, I came out kind of publicly - in a group of adopted family that had members who experienced the same kinds of things. That made it safer for me to expand my reach, to be willing to share this with others.

When I went to college - between the ages of 55-60 mind you, I "came out" to my teachers about my abuse because some of the exercises and readings triggered really bad memories for me and I acted out or refused to do them. To protect my grades, I had to let them know why I couldn't do the work. My GPA overall was 3.34. I'd say sharing the information helped. I had to drop one class after talking with the professor because everything we read seemed to trigger me. I loved the professor, and I wanted to excel in his class, but I was getting worse and worse.

Self-protection, not self-destruction.

So, telling you, my readers about my history in this way is a form of self-protection. I may be ridiculed, taunted and some of you may unsubscribe. But the bigger issue is that there are MILLIONS of survivors out there. Many of them will never open up about their experience.

I hope these posts help someone who feels as bad about herself as I used to. Maybe she will tell someone and get better because of it.

It eats at your soul. I know this....

Open up, come clean about your experience to someone. Then someone else, and then someone else. The more we speak up, the less we will hate ourselves for something we had no control over. The more we speak up, the more we heal. The more we speak up, the more someone else will find the courage to heal.

Rape, molestation, -- these are violations of the body and the soul.  There's been a lot more public notice of this in the past 4-5 years, but many women my age will never speak about it. It's time it was made public so the world can heal and stop doing this to each other.



 

Staying Low-Key....

I'm staying low-key today. I'm so sick of being sick! I want to get better, and the best way I know to do that is to give my body what it needs - sleep, nourishing food, and more sleep.

This cough has been around for over 2 weeks, and the congestion continues. Some "cold!"

Even colds are supposed to be gone in a week. This is like everything else in my life lately, long and drawn-out.

So, sleeping, eating light but nourishing morsels, and crawling back into the bed. If I feel warm, I get up; cold, I crawl under the covers.