Doctor's office encounter

As a rehabilitation counselor, my primary objective is to advocate for people with medical conditions or disabilities. This includes advocating for myself.

I went to a physician this week whom I had not seen before. I wasn't going for face pain or dental treatment, but I was a little nervous. Let's face it; most people who have to go to the doctor a lot are intimidated when they go see a practitioner new for them.

Before the appointment, I had downloaded forms from their website and had completed them. I had given the office staff my insurance information over the phone. We were almost set.

When I opened the door, I was greeted with "I need your insurance card and your driver's license. I take the items from my wallet and hand them to the person who asked for it. She hands me a clipboard.

"Read this and sign it." she says.

"How are you today?" I ask.

"I'm fine," she says. She doesn't ask how I am. Maybe she's seen so many patients she can tell just by looking at us?

"Do you have a pen?" I ask.

"Right there," she says. She points to a pen. I use it. I ask for something on the form - like how much will this cost - to be clarified. Someone else helps me. Before I can sit down, I am called back.

I am helped by a lady who acts as though she's a nurse. She didn't tell me her name, but neither has anyone else there. This is the part of a doctor's exam I hate: all the questions. However the nurse asked them so quickly and put me in a room that I barely had time to think about the answers. How wonderful, no time for anxiety. She was cordial and nice but worked as fast as lightening.

The physician came in and was wonderful. He shook my hand, introduced himself, listened, and gave me some good information. He ordered tests. It's nothing serious, but I knew that before I went. When he opened the door, I saw the staff ready to leave. It was 5:00. I was rushed out as they told me I was their last patient of the day.

No kidding, I thought. I commented on the fact that I was holding them up and got out as quickly as possible. In the car my husband and I commented on the unprofessional behavior of the office staff. They have the "you're just a number to us" routine perfected. Bob told me that while I was with the doctor, the office staff talked about my being the last patient of the month. They wanted to close out the month but they couldn't until I left. Oh well, they'll do it the following day.

Have you ever felt less than human at a physician's office? You know it's not just the money we pay when we are in the doctor's office that makes us a client, a consumer of services. We're not just patients. We're the people who pay the insurance companies to pay the doctor's offices. Can we get better service than at the fast food drive through? Yes, but only if we make it happen.

No one wants to "cause trouble" when seeing the physician. It's important, though, for us to remember that we have valid and important input. When we enter the assembly line, we have every right to remind people that we're human. We count. Each one of us.

Have you been hurried along while visiting your physician? Left with unanswered questions? Please tell me about it.

Experiencing and Recognizing Loss -Disability

Let's talk about loss. Depending on who we are and what we have lost, the definition of it can change somewhat. If we are talking about a personal loss, we're trying to help someone truly understand our plight. That's when it becomes necessary for us to accurately portray what the loss involves. This is where the dilemma arises. Do we depart from our efforts to "think on the sunny side of life" and expose our inner bellies of pain and grief to someone else? We wonder if the other person can be trusted with our reality. It's a risk when we invite someone in to really hear the truth about the loss that is so personal to us.

I'd like to digress a little bit and address the word loss. In school we learn not to use the same word over and over again in a paragraph or even in an essay. I like to ignore that rule in my blog. If we want to deal with something, how can we do so if we call it by another name? Why sugarcoat it? It's not just an issue, is it? It's loss. Something we once had is gone. Period. We want it back, but it eludes us.

Because loss is such huge subject, I want to write about it for a while. Today I'll try to tackle one of it's sub-topics: disability. It's a topic I can really get fired up about.

Disability benefits are necessary for some people with facial pain. This is true for people with trigeminal neuralgia, orofacial pain, neuropathic facial pain, and face pain that has been named something else. I don't have to tell my readers why their pain causes dsyfunction and disability. They already know. Let's talk about what happens when we are forced to explain it to someone who has not experienced it.

No one - absolutely no one - wants to have facial pain. I have talked to hundreds and hundreds of people. They're all interested in one thing: "How do I get rid of this?" So if you are going through a disability application process, whether private or through Social Security - you'll be asked to explain how your pain affects your ability to work. It's a fair question. But the answer isn't fair.

Most people with facial pain do everything they can to make their lives as normal as possible, as enjoyable as possible. Those of us who understand that a mind-body connection (and that's MOST of us) exists want to think about things that encourage us to keep going. We want to think about the wonderful things we still have, even if the wonderful thing boils down to the fact that we are still alive.

So what happens with the time comes to explain the pain to people who review disability claims? We have to reach into our minds and think about the loss, the things we cannot do but would like to do. We have to remember that once we identified highly with our jobs and our ability to perform. Whether we are in the business world, teaching a class, or counseling others, work is all about fulfilling expectations. To walk away from something that fuels our self-esteem and bolsters our identity is devastating. We lose a part of ourselves. We also lose income.

I have spoken with many people who have lost their jobs, their homes, their medical benefits, their spouses, their self-worth. The list of losses goes on and on. Let's get even more personal: they've lost their ability to kiss, to speak, to chew, to swallow, to concentrate, to remember important things, to brush their teeth. It's difficult to stop naming the losses.

If people are trying to cope with everyday life, chances are their losses don't live on the tips of their tongues. People who have pain are either trying to maintain their ability just to get through the day or trying to move on with their lives. Why bring up the losses that cannot be changed? Because we have a valid claim that we must substantiate.

The thing I hate about the disability benefit process is that we have to justify being sick. It's much healthier for us not to think about it and to focus on the good things in life. But to get the money - which we deserve - we have to think of our worst case scenarios and expose our vulnerabilities. It's just not good for us.
We're putting ourselves out there to be judged. It's frustrating and causes feelings of guilt and helplessness. We've already experienced these feelings because of the pain. Now here they come again as we try to justify our needs. With the explanation emerges the feelings we try so hard to suppress.

We feel so alone, like failures. But we aren't either one of those things. We are coping with something many people are afraid to understand. They don't want to let it sink in. After all, could it happen to them? Will they take the chance to identify with your situation? Probably not. You already know this, don't you?

There's a time and place for everything, something else you already know. The time to make the loss and the pain clear is during the disability application process. It's not fun to share the pain. It's going to feel crummy, but you're surviving the pain, and you'll survive this process.

I'd love to hear from you, about your losses. It may help others if you post them here on this blog entry, too. God bless you and may you regain what you have lost.

For more information on loss and disability issues, please visit my website: www.withgreatmercy.com