This is a column about health care, but it has nothing to do with health reform. The events detailed could have happened at any time, pre- or post-reform.
More and more we, the public, are being told by “experts” that not only are we better educated health consumers than previous generations, but also that we know our bodies best and we must be team players with our “health-care professionals” in our medical care.
This is especially important for someone with a serious or chronic condition.
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Being one of those who suffers from a chronic condition which flares up from time to time, I have become quite comfortable with the illness and with having, from time to time, to ask for the help and care I need.
When I woke up recently in a Regina hotel room with an intestinal blockage, I knew that I needed pain-killer and that, if I had it promptly, the condtion would relax and I would be able to go about my business.
Therefore, about 6:30 on a Friday morning, I went to a hospital, which I expected to be out of in time for breakfast.
When the doctor came, I told him what was wrong, who my specialist is, and what the usual treatment is.
In his wisdom, he decided to give me a larger dose of pain killer than usual. To make a long story short, I not only didn’t make it out of the hospital for breakfast, I didn’t make it out for another two days.
The story ends well but the whole experience has left me shaken. More than shaken, it has left me with a real sense of my own mortality and an appreciation about how little control I have over my care, even though I may be lucid and well able to communicate my needs.
Doctors are trained to observe and to prescribe and to treat. They apparently don’t like being told their job, even when the person doing the telling has lived with a condition for years and knows very well what treatment has worked in the past.
I offer this experience not in self-pity or self-interest, but as a warning to others about what can happen when faced with illness away from home and with medical personnel to whom you are just a name on a chart.
The talk about knowing your body and being a partner in your own health care is very brave talk indeed.
It should not lull one into a false sense of security, however, since it only works when both sides have bought into the concept.
