Kellogg
I have an appointment on Monday at the Kellogg Eye Center in Michigan with an ophthalmologist specializing in retina problems and I don't really know why.
Well, no - I do know why, and it's the obvious reason: I have the appointment because I made the appointment, around this time last year. At the time, I was thinking that I really ought to see someone every six months, rather than twelve, but let it go, figuring that I'd probably be in to see an optometrist in the meanwhile. I haven't, of course, but that's my own fault.
What I'm really wondering about is why I continue to see the retina guy. The hospital assigned me to him a couple of years ago, basically because he didn't have too many other patients. Those he does have, though, have problems like macular degeneration, age-related glaucoma, and lupus. Very few of them can move around independently, typically due to systemic failure on the part of one organ system or another. The mean age is probably about fifty-five and the air in the waiting-room tastes of medicine from their coughing. I'm just a kid with wacky IOP values who has had too many surgeries - I don't need to see him. Even his interns get bored with me and my persistent healthiness, and bored doctors are not good doctors.
The trouble is, though, I don't really need anyone there, specifically, but do need to see an ophthalmologist on a reasonably regular basis. It'd be good to go to my old doctor, who specializes in pediatric ophthalmology, but I haven't been able to get appointments with him since I was twelve or so. I'd stick out in that waiting room as well, given that it's full of brightly coloured toys and children in eye patches, but at least I'd have a good reason to be there. I doubt that that will fly very well with the hospital administration, but I suppose I could still ask to talk to him and see if he has any better ideas than Retina Guy.
Y'know, lots of people laugh at folks who cling to hospitals and/or doctors as if no one else in the world were competent, but that's exactly what I'm doing. However, I can count on one hand the times the people at Kellogg have made me cry. That may seem like a silly unit of measurement, but, considering what they were doing and how young I was at the time, it's warranted. That sort of thing breeds loyalty. All of my good eye-centric horror stories come from when I had to go elsewhere. Creepy guy who strapped my head to the laser stitch-cutting machine and told me I'd pop my eye out if I flinched*? Right here in WI. Doctor who prescribed beta-blockers to a six-year-old without heart problems? Again, not at Kellogg. Team whose mishaps had to be surgically corrected four years later? Yay, Phillips Eye Institute. Evil prescriptors of Prednisone, the drug of choice for those wanting to experience swelling, nausea, and general psychosis**, at six times its recommended dosage? Again, Phillips Eye. (No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?)
So. As I was getting to, back before the discourse on being a xenophobic patient, I'll be gone for a while, and, when I return, will probably babble incoherently about long car rides with children as we're bringing my sister and meeting up with some of her friends along the way. Oh, joy.
And, yeah - that's about enough of that.
* in all fairness, this was not entirely untrue, but it was not the thing to say to a screaming child
**and, um, some benefits. Like reduced scarring, and a lowered rate of organ rejection in kidney donor patients. Unless it makes you hallucinate about things crawling all over you and you end up tearing up your skin and thus begging for an infection, that is. And, again, to be fair, actual psychosis seems to be a fairly rare side-effect - except at high doses.
Well, no - I do know why, and it's the obvious reason: I have the appointment because I made the appointment, around this time last year. At the time, I was thinking that I really ought to see someone every six months, rather than twelve, but let it go, figuring that I'd probably be in to see an optometrist in the meanwhile. I haven't, of course, but that's my own fault.
What I'm really wondering about is why I continue to see the retina guy. The hospital assigned me to him a couple of years ago, basically because he didn't have too many other patients. Those he does have, though, have problems like macular degeneration, age-related glaucoma, and lupus. Very few of them can move around independently, typically due to systemic failure on the part of one organ system or another. The mean age is probably about fifty-five and the air in the waiting-room tastes of medicine from their coughing. I'm just a kid with wacky IOP values who has had too many surgeries - I don't need to see him. Even his interns get bored with me and my persistent healthiness, and bored doctors are not good doctors.
The trouble is, though, I don't really need anyone there, specifically, but do need to see an ophthalmologist on a reasonably regular basis. It'd be good to go to my old doctor, who specializes in pediatric ophthalmology, but I haven't been able to get appointments with him since I was twelve or so. I'd stick out in that waiting room as well, given that it's full of brightly coloured toys and children in eye patches, but at least I'd have a good reason to be there. I doubt that that will fly very well with the hospital administration, but I suppose I could still ask to talk to him and see if he has any better ideas than Retina Guy.
Y'know, lots of people laugh at folks who cling to hospitals and/or doctors as if no one else in the world were competent, but that's exactly what I'm doing. However, I can count on one hand the times the people at Kellogg have made me cry. That may seem like a silly unit of measurement, but, considering what they were doing and how young I was at the time, it's warranted. That sort of thing breeds loyalty. All of my good eye-centric horror stories come from when I had to go elsewhere. Creepy guy who strapped my head to the laser stitch-cutting machine and told me I'd pop my eye out if I flinched*? Right here in WI. Doctor who prescribed beta-blockers to a six-year-old without heart problems? Again, not at Kellogg. Team whose mishaps had to be surgically corrected four years later? Yay, Phillips Eye Institute. Evil prescriptors of Prednisone, the drug of choice for those wanting to experience swelling, nausea, and general psychosis**, at six times its recommended dosage? Again, Phillips Eye. (No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?)
So. As I was getting to, back before the discourse on being a xenophobic patient, I'll be gone for a while, and, when I return, will probably babble incoherently about long car rides with children as we're bringing my sister and meeting up with some of her friends along the way. Oh, joy.
And, yeah - that's about enough of that.
* in all fairness, this was not entirely untrue, but it was not the thing to say to a screaming child
**and, um, some benefits. Like reduced scarring, and a lowered rate of organ rejection in kidney donor patients. Unless it makes you hallucinate about things crawling all over you and you end up tearing up your skin and thus begging for an infection, that is. And, again, to be fair, actual psychosis seems to be a fairly rare side-effect - except at high doses.