You see, when you have military insurance (Tricare) and live on a military base with a teaching hospital, you kind of have to use the hospital. To use a regular off base Dr. you end up jumping through hoops. Those hoops were my choice to jump through or not, I realize that, but at the time it didn't seem worth the trouble. I dealt with the ever changing PCM Dr.'s as they graduated the teaching hospital and moved on. I dealt with barely seeing the same Dr. more then twice. While "they" said my Dr. should have only changed twice at the most while I was there, I can count at least 4 in the 2.5 years they serviced us. This last doctor, she sure was a doozy. I am 100% throwing her under the bus, and I'm ok with that. Whether it's wrong or right, there is a reason for this post. Just let me get to it.
Since when can a Dr. lie in their write ups, mistreat and talk down to their patients and have any left at the end of the day? Oh, I know, when they are a military doctor and their patients aren't really "customers" but at the will of the system.
See the NORMAL PCM who either works for, or owns, their own practice has to have some version of customer service skills or their patients will go elsewhere. This doctor didn't have to worry about that. From the day I met her she was rude to me, but I tolerated her. I even went to the Dr. as minimally as possible to avoid her.
Since having our healthcare end, (thank you for the 5 months of misinformation prior service my husband was enlisted in), I had been reviewing my medical records. Today I needed to go to an urgent care facility to get medication that is necessary for my thyroid to function. I have an under active thyroid and with that comes a slew of health "issues" and symptoms. I was looking for my last blood work since I was being told the urgent care facility would have to run NEW blood work on me. Something I didn't look forward to paying out of pocket for, but I was going to do what I had to do. That's when I came across this little gem of a write up and my blood started to boil:
After reading her write up, you can clearly see I went to her for a REASON. Because I was in physical pain. My body was freaking out and I clearly was trying to get help to find out what was wrong. Here is where I get mad (I'm trying to use nice words)…
"They are moving themselves and she has been packing. She does not exercise nor do much of anything. Her children keep her very busy and states that she has unexplained weight gain but has not changed her diet and again does not exercise."
IS SHE KIDDING ME? I do not do much of anything? Excuse me, you horrid doctor who doesn't deserve a license, I had been working out for over a year. I had dramatically changed my diet. I had lost 50 pounds and if 10 pounds coming back over night was nothing to worry about, maybe the LIST of other symptoms should have been? All signs that my thyroid was out of balance, every last one of them!
She looked at me. She looked at my size. She looked at the number on the scale and made the assumption that I was lazy and did nothing and didn't take my nutrition seriously. Well Dr. C, I spent 5 years learning about nutrition to help my child, what did you spend? Six weeks in med school learning? Yeah, good luck with that.
You judge a book by it's cover and you judged wrong. Had this Dr. been a well trained Dr. in regards to my medical issues, she would have understood that my thyroid was having problems. She would have understood that loosing weight is exponentially harder for someone with either of my conditions and that stress and weight gain are signs that there is an imbalance in the every important thyroid.
For the record, we packed our entire house and filled two PODS with all of our house hold goods OURSELVES (accept one night my friends helped). But, the larger furniture, WE MOVED. Some of it I moved alone while my husband was at work and I minded BOTH of my small children. That was not easy and was surely a workout.
As for the "she doesn't want to take medication for this condition" in regards to my Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome(PCOS), she again LIES. This Dr. had tried to force me on birth control from the day she met me without having ONCE ran my blood work to get the baseline for my hormone levels. Which by the way have a long history of being very, very out of control and not level at all. THAT, Dr. C ,is irresponsible to do. So I said I would not take the pills, until she ran the blood work. She refused. Funny, it doesn't say that in my records. When I asked for the referral to the Endocrinologist, who is the specialist who would truly understand my medical conditions, she told me no. She also told me that SHE was moving in a week, so there was no reason for her to run my blood work because she wouldn't be there to read the results. Thanks, but I can read them myself.
What's my point here? GET COPIES OF YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS, annually if you can. Even better, ask for a copy of the Dr's notes after each appointment. This "entry" in my records will never change, it will never be deleted. How many other entries did this Dr. make that were blatant lies? I don't know, I had to stop reading. All I can hope is that this Dr. C ends up at a base where she treats her patients with respect and understanding, not rudeness and disregard.
In the mean time, I will be doing what I do best: reading everything I can and learning everything and anything to find relief and help for my thyroid issue because knowledge truly is power.
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