Have you ever looked at the scales most doctor offices have for how much you drink? Or smoke? They basically have it as you don't drink at all, or you drink 1-2 drinks a week, some places even only give the option of 0 drinks or 1-2 drinks a day.

I might... might... if I'm having a really good day and push around my pill schedule enough... have a few drinks on Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or New Year's... I won't tell the doctors that I don't drink alcohol, because well... I do. But at the same time even if you averaged the drinks I have on the holiday's there's no way they even come close to any of the offered scales to choose from. So I'm forced to lie from the get go, just filing in the forms... I either lie and say that I don't drink at all, or I have to lie and say that I drink FARRRR more than I do.

Thankfully I quit smoking, as that was another one... you could only list the number of packs you had a day. Sometimes I smoked a quarter of a pack, sometimes I smoked a half a pack, rarely did I ever smoke a whole pack. Averaged all out and I'd say I smoked about 7 cigarettes a day. (Like I said I really don't have an addictive personality, I have a habitual personality that without the addicting 'sensor' or whatever it is in the brain that says YES YES MORE. It's simple to change a habit and quit whatever I need to quit doing.)

Caffeine is another one... I can drink 1000mgs of caffeine one day, loading up on basically nothing but caffeinated drinks to get my fluids in for the day, and the next day I can drink nothing but good ol' water and nothing, except a bit more excitability on my part. Caffeine calms me down, but even then I don't really NEEED to have caffeine. But they don't give you a way to explain it, and then it gets put into their computer files as little check boxes by the nurses that say you either smoke too much, drink too much, or are too caffeinated.

Whatever happened to the old days when the doctors would actually write, or the attending nurse, would type up your personal experience. Your symptoms, how you felt, what was wrong with YOU. Where your symptoms weren't regulated to little check boxes on a computer screen, where you're asked to grade you're pain... 1-10 with a little emoji chart in case you weren't sure. I mean, I'm pretty sure if I'm screaming and crying in pain, that the nurse shouldn't have to ask me what level my pain is... or worse still refer to an emoji chart to see if I match the sad face, proving I'm really in that much pain.

And sure they'll say, "Well the ER's are over run, we simply can't take the time with each and every patient to jot down every little thing, we just need the main points and move on..."

Well aren't the ER's kind of overrunning themselves? I can't count the number of times I have had to make return visits to the ER's because instead of getting better from their prescribed treatment I get worse. And it almost always turns out to be the doctor simply didn't take the time to read all the symptoms and do the proper checks before prescribing a treatment and releasing me. And I'm not talking about things like the common cold or the flu. I'm talking about getting pneumonia, that was probably bronchitis when I went to the see the doctor but he ignored me when I said I didn't want a cough suppressant and gave me one anyways that I thought was an exporrant (sp?). Worse of all it was on a Friday that I started feeling badly, I couldn't get into my doctor and walk-in care was already closed. The ER was the only option for medical treatment. By Sunday I was right back up there with full blown pneumonia.

I mean I grew up in a far larger city than where I'm currently at. Yet our hospital was maybe half the size of the hospital here in town, with probably half the staff as well. Yet still there wasn't a long wait at the ER, you went in, you went to triage when it was your turn, they took your vitals while asking about your symptoms and if it was your first time their they'd ask about your history, or if it had been awhile they'd ask if anything had changed... Someone would bring you a blanket, or an ice pack or whatever you needed to feel comfortable while you waited as the triage nurse finished typing up your symptoms. And then you'd go and wait for a bit. Unless it was a full moon outside you normally got seen with in 30 minutes or so. The doctor would have your medical chart. Basically your history in his/her hand.

All without computers... or rather without what we think of as computers today... those computers basically did a glorified dewey decibel system to locate charts and images. And guess what, if the doctors thought you were scheming for drugs, as they did back then too, they simply picked up the phone and called the surrounding hospitals or pharmacies to see. Back then they could talk to each other... there was none of this HIPPA stuff to prevent them.

So now thanks to computers, and HIPPA reforms, we're all druggies as soon as we walk through the ER doors. I mean we must be, who else but a druggy would be willing to wait 2-4 hours to see a doctor in the middle of the night? And only drug withdrawl causes profuse sweating, pale cold and clammy skin, an accelerated heart rate, low blood pressure, and uneven resperations.... My GOD that sounds just like the symptoms of SHOCK, the kind that comes from being in intense amounts of pain.

I think I have officially crossed the bridge from feeling completely humiliated, to angry now. Thanks guys for helping me get my fight back. I spent most of the day just kind of hiding out in the bedroom. I got up for a few short walks but just wanted to bury my head under the covers. But yeah. Come Monday that hospital is going to get an earful about the doctor. That much is for sure. Too bad it's not a tiny county hospital but a sister hospital to a rather large branch down here. So I might not make much of a splash, but even a single drop of rain will make large ripples.