wordless Wednesday (a little later)

(I know, it's Thursday Friday but it is in the spirit...)

Update: it's Friday :) just didn't realise it was after midnight when I posted it.....

When a doctor goes to the doctor

(or rather “when this PhD goes to see an MD”)

It’s always interesting to me that I might be one of those patients. When I say “might” I honestly mean “am”. And "those patients", well you know what I mean... Luckily for me my general physician is a very nice woman, whom I’ve met in my professional occupation too so she knows what I do/did for a living and my area of expertise. This might help a little when it comes to my behaviour in her office, or so I certainly hope anyway.

First time she saw me I had a swollen throat and hadn’t been able to eat for two days… I also had a fever that made her wonder how I drove there (probably shouldn’t have done that though but at the time I wasn't thinking too clearly, duh) and when I explained that I wasn’t sure it was a bacterial infection and therefore didn’t see the reason of going to the doctor she just laughed and called me stubborn. (Well, that’s not a news flash really.) Then she gave me a wonder shot (aka cocktail) that I would’ve never gotten back in home country (“just go home and wait it out”) and sent me to bed for a few days. I got well and could eat the day after the shot. Sometimes I love steroids.

Anyhow, we’ve ‘known’ each other for a few years now and she knows that I am not a fan of going to the doctor; not even for regular check-ups when nothing indicates wrongness, even if she is really nice. This last time I went though, made me cringe on how bad a patient I am, and that she really is very good with stubborn, self-diagnosed people who are aware that something’s off and that they probably should’ve gone in to say hi awhile back yet still avoid the whole thing playing ostrich…

I tried to avoid it by hashing out some minor thoughts and concerns to a friend of mine who happens to be an MD, and she’d given me some ideas and suggestions for alternative things to take, e.g. drug X might not get me as many side effects as the generic drug C I had tried for a bit. Ok, I remembered her suggestions when I was at the grocery store the other month and walked up to the pharmacy section to look for my drug X in the rows of drugs… no luck. Hm, I thought, "maybe it is like those other drugs that you can buy [without a prescription] over the counter but you have to ask the pharmacist about them since you can make meth of them?" Said and done. Me walking up to the counter, looking at the three sweet young women behind it.

Me: “Hi, I was wondering if you have Drug X?”

Pharmacist 1: Yes, we do.

Me: “ok, I’d like the smallest box of them then please”

Pharmacist 1 looks at P2 and 3, slightly odd look on her face.

Me thinking "why isn’t she just giving me the drug? Smallest dose can't hurt, right?"

P2: Well maam, do you have a prescription?

Me: What? Eh no, the doctor told me to try drug x since I feel very strange on drug c. [Somewhere here I should've realised that I was going in the wrong direction... and I didn’t feel comfortable telling that it wasn’t “my” doctor but a doctor – since I started to sense something was off with the whole idea.]

P2: You’ve gone to the doctor but she didn’t write you a prescription?

Me: ehh... No. She told me that maybe drug X would work better for me and that I should try that.

P3: You need a prescription for that.

Me: (thinking out loud about the conversation I had with my friend) But she didn’t tell me that…. [thinking about my friend and wondering why she would suggest a drug that she knows is a prescription drug…]

By this time, I noted that all three of them are looking at me like I am was trying to sell them a story that was very unbelievable. If I wasn’t me, I’d probably think that I was either a bit slow, or just plain desperate for the stuff. All of a sudden I realized that they thought I was trying to score this drug… and that it is indeed probably one of the common ones to abuse as a prescription drug. Enter slight panicky mode for this particular PhD.

Me: never mind, I’m sorry to bother. (quick exit and walked away..)

I know that they stared at me all the way to the check out with my groceries. And I know that it was partly because I stated blushing once I realized that I must have looked like someone trying to find their dope. Needless to say, I did tell my friend that next time she suggests treatments/drugs I would be happy if she’d let me know if it is a over the counter one or a prescription one so we can avoid me looking like a dope head. Duh.

So, I had to go to the real physician…

I started explaining what I would call “symptoms” and described some occurrences the last couple of months (it “should’ve solved itself”) and the more I told, the more I realized how silly I’ve been. Ended with a sheepish smile and nervous laugh while she looked and said “so, you think it is what?”. And after I mentioned what I thought she leaned forward and looked at me “I agree with your self-diagnose and have these options for you. Which do you think is better?”. Needless to say, I had already done some research, knew a few of the drawbacks of some of the things and mostly (being the “it will heal itself soon enough/sticking the head in the sand” kind of person that I am) knowing the side effects (even the very odd and few ones)….

So, I wasn’t thrilled with noting that my body said “side effect” the first few days of my treatment. I am however, bright enough to know that it might be me being over sensitive to my reactions and not really the drug.  Me? Hypochondriac? Not liking to take drugs? Nahhhh. Then again, I have a hard time forgetting her sweet smile and face when she said ”you know, sleep deprivation is a form of torture so it’s not uncommon to feel insane after a long period of sleeplessness”. Did I mention that I like her a lot?!

one great keynote speech

Ever since I encountered the peas and Mendel, genetics have (has?) fascinated me. And then I took a class in psychology and got even more interested. The whole idea of genetics, penetration of inheritance and dominant alleles seemed so logical at the first glance. I like logic. I like to calculate prediction. It all seemed so easy with the green and yellow peas.

Then I took psych 201, and genetics 401... and then the waters got muddled. Why? Well, mainly since there are many alleles that work together (I know, so odd... duh). And the notion that penetrance is very variable (in many cases). The fact that many diseases, or illnesses or syndromes (which ever word to choose) are multi-factorial reared its head made things less black and white and more grey.

It's one of the reasons I guess I like the Glenn Close infomercial as much as I do. I know, it's not really a "Glenn Close infomercial". It's the "Bring change 2 mind infomercial". About diagnosable mental illnesses. And the stigma associated with this type of illness. Mainly (?) due to all the wonderful movies and books about serial killers and other heinous criminals who usually suffer from a mental illness and therefore makes it easy to easily think that "the person diagnosed with either illness is therefore unfit and dangerous to either society or people around them". Not that this is necessarily untrue in certain cases. However, looking at the statistics the person mostly likely to come to harm is the person affected by the illness... and the family by proxy (mainly due to stigma as well as being the responsible one for the care taking... and therefore also affected by stigma).

I admire Glenn Close (she also was Keynote speaker at the Conference of Neuroscience 2010 in San Diego in November 2010). (in the last link, you can click and hear the speech, which is one of the best ones I've heard....If you have time, I really recommend it. Especially since her sister and nephew are speaking too - very powerful. And the principals in the end - about 1 hour in the video, just in the end of the speech. The doctors in the discussion part of the opening also mentions the fact that the number of suicides in the US today is still very high - and wonder what would happen if it wasn't as much of a stigma associated with mental illness... and, as I previously mentioned above, that most people affected by these type of illnesses do harm to themselves primarily, not others.) In fact, I admire all of the people in the infomercial who wore the t-shirt either saying "Name of the illness" or "relative of illness". And all this in the middle of Grand Central Station in New York, and being filmed to put on country wide tv spots.

Main problem, imho, would be that people "know" that mental illness is genetic, and inherited, and therefore if you tell someone that someone in your family is affected... it means you may be affected too... and that makes you a loony... (or, as some of us would like to call it - an affected individual). And who wants to be with a non-perfect person who is genetically at risk for being ill? Never mind the little thing that a) it can be medicated and treated b) penetrance is usually not 100% so you don't know if you are the person affected... or might never be... if this makes a difference?

This may be one of the reasons why it's so hard for people who go through things like this to tell friends (or others). "Out themselves and others". It's so much more than only telling of "my father had a heart attack" (don't many people get that?) or "my mother has high blood pressure" (that's affected by weight and stress, right?)... not to mention that telling about your family means you're telling "someone elses secret while explaining what you go through". Not an easy thing to deal with.

Numbers mentioned in the speech are that 1 in 4 is affected by mental illness, when you consider families. Interesting. It's like that everyone has a drunk uncle/aunt at the wedding party.... right?

(note; I know this is a few months late, I just forgot about writing a post about it back in November)

Hockey pool week 20

(In my Inbox earlier tonight.... " *cough* hockey pool update *cough* ") ... Thanks for the reminder Cath!! :)

So, the abysmal (hrm) I mean Wonderful week of 20 in this hockey pool sees us with Bob being the winner of the week; Woho! Lavaland coming in on a second place, Cath and Thomas sharing third (very close with 26 points), Ricardipus fifth, ScientistMother and myself barely not sharing last place with Gerty (only one point difference so.... not too far at all there).

Overall the slopes are looking better than last week.... Lavaland in a certain lead, Bob getting into second place (Ricardipus moving back a place to third). A gaggle of geese in the middle (trying out when I can use this wonderful phrase) and Thomas picking up the best slope for the week (if you look at the picture imho). Gerty and I are feeling the pressure (well, I am at least... dropping from my nice slopes in the beginning and all... hmmm.)

(and I am really terrible at making graphs in numbers.... sorry about this non-fancy one).

dress rehearsal of the call...

I found out a while back that the mother of one of my friends was released from the hospital since "there was nothing more they could do, the chemo didn't work". My friend doesn't know when to leave her current location - she doesn't live in the same city - and to go back to her parents and be with them. It's not across the ocean but the dilemma is the same... when do you leave all you have to go back to family? When to take out that saved vacation, the unpaid leave, or simply leaving the job behind to your co-workers?

(rest gone to poof due to too private stuff. but it¨s why I haven't been posting for a while. need to figure out things.)