Dr. What's Her Face...

"Give her some Toradol in her I.V. and send her home. I think she's overreacting. DO NOT prescribe her any pain pills."

Those were the words spoken by the ER doctor in Milwaukee about 4 weeks before I found myself in complete crisis, which led me to drive home to Chicago and be admitted into the hospital for 31 days. It's amazing how the human psyche works. Those words have been etched in my mind for 15 years. It has only been in the last 5 or 6 years that I've been able to heal and get some real understanding behind the words she spoke on that day. This woman was mean, insensitive, crass, tactless, cold hearted and unprofessional. I understand that all of the words I just used to describe this ER doctor pretty much mean the same thing. The descriptive "over kill" is intentional. I wanted to punch her in the face...HARD. I used to know her name. For a long time, I remembered that woman's name. I'm glad that I've forgotten. It's part of the healing process. I'll get back to doctor "What's Her Face" in a minute...

About one week before my visit to the Milwaukee ER, the chest pain subtly started to happen. I was managing the pain as best as I could for about a week. Then all of a sudden, I was at work at my desk and my chest started hurting so badly. I was screaming out loud at my desk. I was heard all across the building. I honestly felt that I was having a heart attack. It felt like an elephant was standing on my chest. That day, I left my job in an ambulance headed to the emergency room. Yes, the young 23 year old intern was leaving in an ambulance. It was embarrassing to say the least. I became a spectacle. I mean, I was scared and in pain, so the ambulance ride was warranted, but no one wants to be made a spectacle of. I was having other issues before the pain erupted in my chest, most of them were arthritic, but the arthritic pain was fleeting. The immediate concern in that moment was the chest pain. When I was admitted to the emergency room, I was not asked any questions about any other issues that may have been going on with me. It did not occur to me to offer up any of my other issues I was having. In my mind, they were pretty much all mutually exclusive.

For a few months before the point of crisis when I was still in Florida at school that prior spring semester, I had trouble swallowing. It was as if I would have spasms in my throat. Food had a hard time going down, almost like it got stuck on the way down. Sometimes, swallowing was so bad, I would only eat soft food that went down easy. I never really cared for eggs. But I started eating eggs. Sometimes I would eat grits, oatmeal and noodles for any meal. Eating bread and meat and other solid foods proved to be a hardship. It got so bad, that I kinda just stopped eating regularly. I would skip entire meals. By the time I started my internship, I was probably down 10 pounds, which is a lot considering I only weighted 145 to begin with at 5'9" tall. I was down to a size 6 when I was normally a size 10. It hurt to swallow. I had a remedy for that; albeit a stupid remedy, but a remedy none-the less. I didn't eat! How 'bout that?

It is amazing to look back and realize that I started to fashion my life to suit an illness that I didn't even know that I had. It was happening that spring semester before I started my summer  internship in Milwaukee. I was doing it a little bit at a time and not even realizing it. I made excuses for the pain that just showed up in my joints and extremities be it my legs, arms, elbow, knee or whatever. I couldn't swallow and get food down without being in excruciating pain. Therefore, I stopped eating regularly. At times, the fatigue would be so bad, I started to miss my office hours on campus as a graduate teacher. I started making my students drop off their assignments at my townhouse. If they wanted a grade, it was in their best interest to bring their work to me. I missed attending a few of my own classes because I couldn't get out of bed.

One time while I was in school that spring semester, I was so tired, my mind couldn't process how to get off the couch and get to the bathroom. I was sitting in the living room of the townhouse. I was just sitting there. I can't even recall if the television was on. I don't think that it was. I do remember that I had been gone all day and when I got home, I plopped on the couch. Going up the stairs to my room wasn't an option at that moment in time. My room and bathroom were up a very long flight of stairs. My knee was swollen and the fatigue set in like rigor mortis. I actually contemplated urinating on myself because I could not find the strength to get up and off the couch. My roommate was not home. After sitting there for hours, I managed to crawl on my hands and knees to her bathroom on the first floor from the couch. I cried while doing it. Then, I crawled out of the bathroom to the bottom of the stairs attempting to make it up to my room. I could not "will" my body to make it up the stairs. I slept at the bottom of the stairs all night in my clothes. What was crazy about that experience was that when I woke up the next morning, my knee was no longer swollen and I could actually get up the stairs. It was as if what happened the night before never happened. That day was a good day. I still didn't know or understand that I was in trouble. How does something like that happen and I NOT know that I was in trouble?

Now back to doctor "What's Her Face", that lovely ER doctor in Milwaukee who was adamant about sending me away without any pain pills. Through my healing process, some years ago, I faced that experience head on. I gave that doctor a measure of grace that I would want given to me if I was operating out of ignorance unintentionally. Believe it or not, for the better part of 8 or 9 years, I was carrying around a lot of anger simply because of how a complete stranger, but a medical doctor no less, treated me in my time of crisis. Let me just say that I'm sure that doctor "What's Her Face" was an experienced doctor. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she was likely very competent. In all the adjectives that I used to describe her "not so shining" bedside manner in my opening paragraph, I never once said that she was incompetent. Hey, I watched the NBC television series 'ER' all the years it was on air. I get that in any emergency room in any city across the country, nurses, doctors and all health care providers see a lot of nonsense, deception, fraud and experience people who are hypochondriacs as well as people who are seeking drugs because they are addicts.

It is safe to say that doctor "What's Her Face" made a BAD BET on me. I was young. Young people don't just get sick and have indescribable chest pain...right? All of my vitals were okay at the time. My blood pressure wasn't high. If I am remembering correctly, they even took a chest X-ray. They definitely did an ECG. It all came back fine. The universal experience in most emergency rooms is if you are not shot, stabbed or bleeding profusely, then you are NOT a priority. Maybe that's the way it should be. As I reflect, doctor "What's Her Face" had her staff perform a fairly decent work up on me. However, because I was young; because I was having this acute pain in my chest that I could only really deal with by taking shallow breaths, which made it appear that I was hyperventilating; doctor "What's Her Face" decided that I was engaging in trickery...chicanery. Package that up with the fact that my vitals were fine; she decided I was a faker, a drug addict probably looking to get high. Oh, and by the way, my manager was there with me the whole time. I felt like a fool being treated the way I was treated. I was wondering what my manager thought of me; the "lemon" of an intern the company invested in. This investment was not panning out for them.

Because I was screaming in pain and could not breath normally, doctor "What's Her Face" told the nurse on staff to give me some IV pain meds. I'm sure that measure of mercy was more self serving to the staff in order to shut me up. Doctor "What's Her Face" decided that giving me the I.V. was ALL she was going to do for me. After all (in her mind), at least I was one of those "fakers" who had insurance. I was still on my dad's insurance plan as full time student at age 23. The least doctor "What's Her Face" felt that she could do was give me something to address my immediate need. The problem was this: A few hour later when IV meds wore off, I was right back to square one in pain alone in my apartment eating Alleve and Tylenol like M&M's. 

My experience in that emergency room was a grand example of faulty diagnosis for people presenting with symptoms of Lupus and possibly other similar autoimmune diseases. This is an example of indifference, supposition but mostly lack of empathy and a disinterest in looking beyond the surface. All that said, my experience on that day is all too common. I wasn't the first to have an experience like that. I won't be the last. If my readers have not figured out by now, THIS experience was the main reason why I chose to drive 2 hours home to the south suburbs of Chicago from downtown Milwaukee half dead before I would have EVER walked back into that emergency room or any other emergency room in Milwaukee feeling vulnerable and being alone. This was a grave "miss" on the part of doctor "What's Her Face".

Through God's grace and my own subsequent education about my condition, all is forgiven...