Boxed and Categorized

aging, art, Chronic Illnes, Health, ME/CFS, , , , 20 Comments

“Let’s just talk about what is relevant here.”

I nod as the doctor peruses my list of diagnoses and symptoms. It’s lengthy, I admit, but how am I to know what relates and what doesn’t? Isn’t it all a part of the whole?

I’ve waited almost two years for this appointment, although he tells me he got the referral in March. It doesn’t make sense. The doctor he is saying referred me has been gone longer than that, but I don’t argue. I’m in the office.

“I don’t really see anything to be concerned about here,” he goes on to say.

“I like to paint,” I say. “I haven’t been in my art room for a couple of months, for various reasons, and when I sat down to paint yesterday, I couldn’t see what I was doing.” I try to keep the tremble out of my voice.

“She’s been having terrible headaches, too.” My husband attempts to support me. Like me, he feels the tenuousness of the situation.

“Headaches can have many causes.”

“It’s just that every doctor I’ve seen says that you’ll have the answers.” It’s true, although I feel as if I’m grasping at straws. He is the top specialist. A neurologist as well as an eye doctor. The regular neurologist who I saw just last week said she is interested in his take, adding: “I think it’s all related to what’s happening with your eyes.”

He looks at my eyes through his machine and admits that there has been considerable loss of vision in one eye. “Maybe a cataract,” he murmurs.

“If it’s only a cataract, wouldn’t the other eye doctors have noticed?”

“Well it’s just the beginning. The referral actually references the left eye more than the right.”

“Yes. I had bleeding in that eye.” Three years ago! I refrain from blurting. “A lot has happened since.”

He agrees with that point. “I think we have two different things going on.” I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or himself. He’s facing the computer.

My doctors have been good at ordering all the tests ahead of time, intuiting what he’ll need: MRIs, CT scans, blood tests.

He writes something down on my file. “I’m going to order three more tests,” he says and ushers us out to his assistant.

It isn’t the doctor’s fault, really. He is cordial, straightforward, and professional. It is the angst I’ve been feeling these last few years with health declining and limited answers.

Tomorrow, I will put the issue of eyes in a separate box and prepare to revisit the infection in my digestive tract. The next day, I will see my general practitioner and talk to her about symptoms not covered in other appointments, and hopefully she’ll help me weed through those boxes.

Friday, the consult is for dental surgery.

I feel like those little frogs we used to dissect in Biology class – body parts and symptoms isolated from the whole. Each issue pinned separately or packaged for storage and labelled.

“Why don’t they admit you to hospital until they have it all figured out?” Ric asks and I shrug. Did that every really happen?

(The image is one of the last things I painted. My husband’s reaction is that there are too many things going on. No kidding!)

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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.

20 thoughts on “Boxed and Categorized”

  1. My husband and I experience the same issue with his health battles. Doctors don’t fully listen to the patient and separate out symptoms. I love how you said they don’t look at symptoms as part of the whole! That’s so accurate. Our body systems work together.

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  2. Oh, where is the doctor that is brilliant and even if he/she has a terrible bedside manner, won’t stop until they have the big picture figured out? Your description is so good – you can feel your whole but everyone else is playing with pieces. I hope somehow they all come together! Sending great thoughts!

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    1. Thanks Wynne. My family doctor is quite good. She books 1/2 hour appointments with me and we wade through all the information – her informed mind helping quell my fears. She does admit that I’m an enigma.

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  3. VJ, this sounds terribly frustrating and your patience has been phenomenal! Where are the wholistic healers? Too much looking at isolated symptoms and not enough focus on the person experiencing them. Sigh. I hope you do get answers.

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  4. That painting is beautiful in every way.
    I hate that all the specialists just see through their narrow lenses and no one ever seems to look at the big picture to try to connect the dots. I’m sorry VJ. No one should have to go through this. and you should never have to apologize to a doctor for telling them what bothers you and asking for their help. (K)

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  6. Oh my…the poignancy of Ric’s reaction to your gorgeous painting and what you’re experiencing health wise…too many things, indeed. Some beautiful, some bothersome. I see your point. Sending good energy your way, VJ. And I hear you. Wouldn’t it be great to be admitted and have all things tended to at once – or as many things as possible. I hope you get answers. I sure do. Much love! 💕

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