It’s been exceptionally challenging to find a solid care team since we moved back to Oregon in 2021. I never had decent insurance (or any insurance at all a lot of the time) until after I joined the Union in 2014. After my first ER visit caused by a gnarly cyst that was larger than a golf ball in my right armpit, my attitude towards seeking medical care changed significantly.
It is completely like night and day between the insured and the uninsured, it’s disgusting when I really take the time to think about it because affordable healthcare should be a basic human right, but I’m not hopping on that soap box today.
I have always been very in tune with my body for as long as I can remember and when I feel something wrong inside, I’ve always been accurate. My tonsils caused me severe issues for years until my tonsillectomy at 16. Even though it was painfully obvious they were too large for my throat, every doctor we saw wanted to do every expensive test possible before considering surgery. I’m so used to having smoke blown up my ass that when I finally find a doctor or surgeon on board willing to help, it takes a moment for everything to sink in.
The Heimlich Maneuver was a common, everyday practice for over 10 years…I even got good at doing it to myself over a chair until I had my tonsils removed. My hysterectomy took 20 years to finally get because I had no children and even though pregnancy was a 99% chance of a death sentence, no one would do it. I’d been having issues since I started bleeding at 12. When I became sexually active at 17, it grew increasingly worse. I didn’t have sex 100% pain free without the numbing agent of alcohol until after healing from my hysterectomy about 3 years ago. Lo and behold, there was a giant fibroid that had latched itself onto the back of my uterus that went completely undetected until it was discovered upon removal.
Last year, I finally got the blockage in my nostril fixed…an issue since breaking my nose when I was learning how to walk.
The bottom line, I know my body and I know it well. I know when things feel off or foggy, and I know when there should be cause for concern. I know how long things have been bothering me and I know why I chose to ignore certain things. Finding anyone who will actually listen to me often proves to be very difficult.
The really shitty part is I also have all the mental health shit I deal with and the balancing act that comes with using my tools to cope as I constantly navigate trauma triggers, anxiety, panic attack prevention, depression, and PTSD. It can be a real bitch some days. So navigating the medical system can be a source of apprehension all on its own. Is this next doctor going to listen? Will the care? Will they grant me the support I need? Can I trust them?
Going to the Modern Nose Clinic when I got my nostril blockage fixed last year was a real game changer. The way he treats his patients is nothing short of amazing, explaining everything delicately, and making sure you understand…it was great…but again, not the point of this post.
In 2021, my marriage almost turned into a divorce. It was hell and my mental health was in complete shambles. I was clinging to my button shoppe like a drowning victim to a lifesaver as I found myself living out of my truck and couch/floor surfing for months. I was so fucked up mentally and emotionally that I didn’t even realize I was homeless. I had all kinds of reasons for why I needed to be at my shoppe until 7 or 8 in the morning, working. It was actually one of my houseless friends that pointed it out to me, and when I saw it, I couldn’t un-see it.
I found this women’s clinic that presented itself as a wholeness clinic that saw you as a whole person. They provide a primary care professional, mental health counseling, and look at all aspects of your life to help you achieve 360 wellness. I went to my first intake in November 2021. I immediately loved my nurse practitioner and felt relieved that I was going to be able to continue the care journey I started in Washington State. I was also desperate and unaware of how deeply toxic my marriage had become and my mental health was anything but okay. I was constantly fighting thoughts of suicide and my only saving grace was the people who came to visit my button shoppe during that time. My button buddies became my lifeline, the constant reminder that my existence really did matter.
During my first intake, I talked about the extensive EMDR therapy I had undergone weekly for most of 2020 and that I was seeking help to navigate my trauma. I explained that I had no interest in medication because I had found that working with EMDR and CBT, I was able to successfully navigate my issues without the aid of pills. The very first person she set me up with tried to prescribe a seizure medication that was also a receptive blocker. Something I specifically said I did not want. The woman didn’t listen to me and I caught her surfing the internet through the reflection on her glasses while we spoke, and only closed windows to pull mine back up when there was a long period of silence and she realized I was waiting for her to respond. She tried to convince me that the medication was known to help with depression. I researched the medication and found that not only was it a receptive blocker, it could take months before it proved to work and if you stopped taking it, there was a strong chance it would induce seizures.
When I told my primary about all of this on our follow-up, she thanked me for the info and told me the woman had been let go because of similar situations. I felt relieved and that she really did have my best interest in mind. When February came around, she had a new therapist who didn’t have a caseload yet that she wanted me to meet, whom she felt might prove to be a good fit for me…and she was. 12+ years of social work, a trauma expert, and one of the kindest, most caring individuals I’ve ever had for a mental health professional. I was ecstatic…I started seeing her in February 2022 and just recently had my exit session with her a couple of months ago. She helped me navigate the darkest waters I’ve ever had to tread on my mental health journey…but in July of 2021, 2 weeks after I’d returned from the Meadows in Wickenburg, AZ, from a childhood trauma workshop, my primary fired her without warning, and then I got the coldest voicemail message that I was to call the facility to be paired with someone else in their network. I was in the midst of deep trauma therapy, my primary knew this because she had access to all of my records and files. Therapy works best when you find someone you can establish trust with, plug-and-play does not work.
Something felt off, and I immediately hit the internet looking for my therapist and found her. Two days after my therapist had been fired, I had a follow-up appointment scheduled for some blood work. I called, stating that I would be about 10 minutes late, and was told that I was not ‘allowed’ to be late. I asked if I could do Teladoc, as that had been offered to me when I first set up the appointment and was informed that Teladoc was not available and that if I didn’t show up on time, my appointment would be canceled. It felt very cold and heartless. I didn’t show up to my appointment and I never went back. This was in July of last year.
Fast forward to November 2023. I have still been struggling with finding a reliable primary care professional and I just did an intake with a new doctor on the 20th of this month. I also finally got to see the results of my blood work that was done in May of last year. When going over the lab results with her, I noticed labwork was done for Carbamazepine and it said my levels were under range. I asked her what that was and she told me it was a seizure medication. I instantly remembered that it was the medication the clinic I attended in 2021 had tried to put me on for depression. It was never prescribed to me because I said “no”. My new primary said it’s odd that a lab test was requested for it because it’s an expensive test and I’m lucky that my insurance covered it.
I then shared with my new primary the whole situation that had transpired back in 2021 and 2022 with the primary I had who ordered the bloodwork to begin with. She immediately informed me of my rights as a patient, what types of appointments I’m allowed to schedule for myself without a referral, and informed me of how things worked at her practice. She never bashed the primary from before, but I think there’s something very wrong with the whole situation and the way she runs her practice. Why would you test someone for a medication they aren’t taking that someone whom they previously fired tried to prescribe to me? And I’m so fucking grateful that I do trust my gut even when I’m duped in other ways at first. Like what if I had agreed to take the seizure medication for my depression and became reliant on it regardless if it worked or not to prevent seizures that I’d never had an issue with before?
I think it’s an important thing to ponder. Why did she fire a woman who was helping me with no warning? What if I hadn’t taken it upon myself to find my therapist after she was fired? What if I had trusted my primary and kept going because that’s what I’m supposed to do as a good patient? Like these people are in a position of trust, but they are still just people, some with good intent an some with less than good. I was so weak when I first came to her office, but I wasn’t so weak that I would just roll over at the first offer of medication. It is my opinion that she knew exactly what she was doing and I was just strong enough to not fall into the trap…but I think of so many others who are not so fortunate and it really breaks my heart that there are people out there preying on people struggling for a way out of their mental health cages and finding people who slyly find ways to keep them caged for a buck. It’s not helping. We are human beings who deserve real help, especially when we’re actively seeking it out.