Medical Misery

As some of you may or may not know, I’ve been through a lot of health problems over the last several years. Dating back from 2000 to 2008 I had countless doctor’s appointments and six surgeries on my back. The first few were due to a cyst, and the rest were for herniated discs and pinched vertebrae. 

The majority of my teen life was spent in hospitals, at doctors offices, and bedridden. It has not been a fun road. It’s been one filled with a lot of bad things, but luckily I had a great circle of friends and family that pulled me through it.

But all wasn’t over once I was relatively stable. Obviously going through so much trauma will leave you in pain, and for me, it’s left me in extreme pain since as far back as I can remember. I’ve been to many different doctors, pain therapists, physical therapists, phycologists and psychiatrists, and I’ve usually had relatively decent experiences. There are always exceptions to the rule; the people who make your life miserable.

Unfortunately this takes me to my current issue. I’ve been seeing the same pain therapist for over a year and a half, and have never shown any signs of foul play. I’ve taken steady random drug tests for the entirety of being a patient and never failed one. I’ve been on a steady amount of controlled substances for a long long time since my surgery, and most recently this doctor has been prescribing it. I have had several issues with him in regards to being insanely strict and very unwilling to work with me in nearly any situation I had.

The last time I saw him, he gave me two months of prescriptions. I got the first month filled, and I’ve been taking it as directed since. This week was the week I should’ve filled the second month. However, this weekend I realized it had been run through the washer and drier. You see, I don’t have a laundry room in my small one bedroom apartment, and very lucky for me my Mother lives around thirty minutes away. She rather do my laundry than have me pay for it. Unfortunately I left my prescription in one of my shirt pockets and it was run through the wash. There was nothing left.

The repercussion of this entirely human mistake has been tremendous. The doctor’s office (when they actually felt like communicating) essentially told us that what was washed was all we had. When we (my mom and I) told them we had accidentally washed it, they replied, shockingly, with “then bring us the scraps from the laundry”. We were baffled. I couldn’t believe that a doctor I’d been seeing for nearly two years exhibited this level of distrust. I understand there are rules and regulations, but for a patient who has records from several doctors over the last ten years including records from previous pain therapists and my general practitioner, not to mention two years of completely legitimate drug tests, I couldn’t believe my ears. We told them “there are no scraps. there’s nothing.” To which they replied “the doctor wants to see the scraps”. We told them that we could run any paper through the washer and bring them in and it wouldn’t look any different.

To our bewilderment, they simply said “then you will not get a new prescription”. Just like that. In the middle of being prescribed to a controlled substance for months, from a doctor I’d been seeing nearly two years, they simply told us that they were going to cut me off cold turkey, putting my health at risk. I suffer from high blood pressure as well, and cutting me off from a strong prescription is NOT the way to ensure my survival.

Finally we played phone tag enough to get them to begrudgingly agree to let me come in tomorrow to take another drug test and schedule a follow up appointment. I agreed, and thankfully have the day off tomorrow. Obviously they don’t understand most people can’t just drop everything and go on a doctor’s whim. So tomorrow I will pick up my prescription and not go back. I will find a new doctor. This level of distrust and downright unethical treatment of a legitimate patient just isn’t right.

What are your thoughts?