A Rocky Path

Health, living with disability, ME/CFS, nonfiction, poetry, , , 17 Comments

When health takes a hit, the road ahead becomes littered with unknowns. After months of waiting, I finally got in to see a neurologist. Actually, the call came on the very day I was about to tell my doctor to cancel the referral.

For ten years I have lived with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Diagnosed, that is. Once we figured out what it was, my doctor guessed that I’d probably had it for ten years, but nobody really knew what it was, or worse, believed it existed. Many doctors still don’t know. The good ones admit it. It’s the doctors that pretend to know that I try to avoid.

Would this neurologist be helpful or condescending? I had no way of knowing. I asked Ric to accompany me. Men, unfortunately, are still more respected in the doctor’s office.

“What’s important,” she said after taking my history, “is that we eliminate other possibilities, even if this is an extension of ME.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. A good doctor.

Now I wait for more tests.

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Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

17 thoughts on “A Rocky Path”

  6. I’m really glad that you have found a good doctor, VJ. I watched a video recently about a female doctor (she’s retired now) who went through medical school in a women’s college. I’m sorry, I don’t recall her name at the moment. Back then medicine was very much male-dominated, and she said the faculty sent her to a psychiatrist because she questioned the system and practices. She was “cleared as not crazy” (gee, thank you!) for her beliefs in holistic medicine, mind bod spirit, etc. She is now apparently 102, and when asked what she believes is the #1 contributor to health and longevity, she replied “a strong sense of purpose in your life”. I’m sending you a big hug, VJ.

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    1. I was just talking the other day about a woman doctor I went to see speak at a conference in the 90’s. She talked about how women are guinea pigs in the eyes of medicine. She railed against a male dominated system. Caroline something, I think her name was. I just remember crying through her talk. We are not taken seriously in my experience. Fortunately, I have a strong sense of purpose and I am sure that keeps me going.

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