When you try your best, but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep
~Coldplay~
I’ve spoken before about having an invisible illness. I have talked about my Facebook group, an amazing and supportive group of folks.You can find us here.
In Memphis, the weather often yo-yos crazily, from day to day and even hour to hour. It will be raining for two days, sunny for a few hours, back to rain, sunny for a couple of days, and then rain for a few hours. As I’ve gotten older and had three children, my migraines have gotten considerably worse in the past ten years. Ten, almost 11 years ago, is also when I broke my pelvis giving birth to my youngest son.
As I read one of my cohorts articles, Screened Out, I realized I had an opportunity in my lap. You see I’ve been on the other side of that too. I’ve been dismissed by doctors for imaginary reasons because I was sick and I would bring their numbers down. It took me almost 6 years to find a doctor that even cared about the pain that I was in, 6 years to find a doctor that looked at me and not through me.
Recently, I’ve moved back to my hometown, for a little while (from Chicago, back to Memphis). When I was a child, my father began Health First Medical Group in Memphis, TN with his partner Dr. Manoj Narayanan. When I was nine, my father passed away, but until the day Health First closed, new employees learned of the man who helped begin what was once the largest practice in Memphis. Since I’ve moved back, it is now closed. The doctor I used to see saw me for a while, but he doesn’t take my insurance any longer so now I have to go find another doctor,a time consuming process. They’re going to send me from specialist to specialist again, even though I know what’s wrong and I have records to back it up.
Since my word is not good enough anymore, I usually manage well most of the time with cannabis and so I hardly have to ever go talk to a doctor, ever since I had this last surgery about four years ago. However, the other day I took a nasty fall. I got out of a friend’s car, turned and kicked the speed bump they had just crossed. I went sprawling, my glasses went sprawling, I didn’t even have scratches on my hands. It happened so quickly, I didn’t even have time to put my hands out to try to stop myself. It started raining the next day, so I started to get a pretty bad migraine, but I know how to deal with that. I did wake up with a pain going down my spine and hurting pretty badly. Anyone with an invisible illness, hurting pretty badly doesn’t send you to the ER. Hurting REALLY REALLY badly sends you to the ER. So, I waited another three days and woke up with the same pain three more days, before I went into the ER. Unfortunately for me, this happened on a Monday. I had the bad luck to get sick at a time when only people who have no choice go to the ER which makes me not a patient, but a suspect…..
To be continued.