Same as It Ever Was
Today was long and so frustrating, and I kind of want to strangle the entire medical profession. I woke up at 6 a.m. to get ready and get to the MRI place in Long Island by 7:30 a.m. to fill out paperwork in advance of getting the MRI at 8. I get there and get told that The Chiari Institute didn't send a prescription over, and since they only made the appointment just yesterday and only because I called to ask WTF was up I didn't have a prescription either. So TCI fails. The MRI place also demanded a "UTI" number to apply my secondary insurance, Medicaid, which I didn't have and TCI didn't send them, so if I did have the prescription they'd try to charge me 20% for what Medicare didn't cover, which was also unacceptable. I only went to this new place this early in the morning because they're one of the few places left that accept my Medicaid as well as my Medicare.
The Chiari Institute opens at 9 a.m., so I'd have to chill until then. By the way, since the 8 a.m. appointment was a wash, I now had to accept the next appointment, which was 11 a.m., the same time as my neurosurgeon appointment. I called TCI again, and they said to come in once I get out of the MRI.
As I walk in one of the doctors asks me for a report on the last MRI I took. Keep in mind, I've been sitting in their waiting room for three and a half hours so they had ample time to ask me for it, find out I didn't have it, and get it from someone else. At this point I just wanted to get it all over with. Once I get out of the MRI they tell me my neurosurgeon will get the results in 24 hours. I tell them I'm seeing my doctor within the next half hour, so they'll have to do better than that. They finally say that they can give me the CD now but the report on the results will take 24 hours. I call TCI and they tell me just a CD is fine.
I spend an hour and a half waiting at TCI before my neurosurgeon calls me in. He seems distracted the whole time and utterly unimpressed by any of the symptoms I tell him about: increased and more often pressure headaches, a major heaviness at the base of my skull almost daily that forces me to sleep a few hours, and a tendency to spend the first hour after I try to sleep at night twitching or shaking. He's very Whatever about all of that.
Once we get the CD to work, he looks over a more limited range of MRI results than we usually get. He notes that my cerebro-spinal fluid flow is very good, one of the tonsils at the back is lying a little lower than optimal but isn't much of a concern, and that the unkinking of my brainstem is holding up. He asks me when I had the surgery, then says that five years seems like a long time. (He's a Chiari expert and thus should know better than this.) Am I still really needing pain management? Am I actually disabled?
Are my muscles really choke-me stiff (even when I'm on an emotional even keel) because of Chiari or...?
He says he thinks these new headaches are tension headaches.
My life is a frickin' Ouroboros.
Anybody would be stressed out after the experience at the MRI place! Let's just ignore that you came to me for symptoms that have been going on way before this morning!
To further underline his utter uselessness, the neurosurgeon tells me he doesn't know what kind of doctor he thinks I should consult about my "tension headaches." Since I doubted I could say anything that would change the situation--nothing I'd said so far had made a dent--I thanked him for his time and left, having spent nearly eight hours in one medical office or another.
Hopefully, if someone governmental queries my doctors about my condition, they'll regard the word of the pain management doctor I see monthly higher over whatever TCI, that sees me about every six to nine months, has to say.
Then I bought myself lunch out because I was starved and went home to sleep for five hours.
The Chiari Institute opens at 9 a.m., so I'd have to chill until then. By the way, since the 8 a.m. appointment was a wash, I now had to accept the next appointment, which was 11 a.m., the same time as my neurosurgeon appointment. I called TCI again, and they said to come in once I get out of the MRI.
As I walk in one of the doctors asks me for a report on the last MRI I took. Keep in mind, I've been sitting in their waiting room for three and a half hours so they had ample time to ask me for it, find out I didn't have it, and get it from someone else. At this point I just wanted to get it all over with. Once I get out of the MRI they tell me my neurosurgeon will get the results in 24 hours. I tell them I'm seeing my doctor within the next half hour, so they'll have to do better than that. They finally say that they can give me the CD now but the report on the results will take 24 hours. I call TCI and they tell me just a CD is fine.
I spend an hour and a half waiting at TCI before my neurosurgeon calls me in. He seems distracted the whole time and utterly unimpressed by any of the symptoms I tell him about: increased and more often pressure headaches, a major heaviness at the base of my skull almost daily that forces me to sleep a few hours, and a tendency to spend the first hour after I try to sleep at night twitching or shaking. He's very Whatever about all of that.
Once we get the CD to work, he looks over a more limited range of MRI results than we usually get. He notes that my cerebro-spinal fluid flow is very good, one of the tonsils at the back is lying a little lower than optimal but isn't much of a concern, and that the unkinking of my brainstem is holding up. He asks me when I had the surgery, then says that five years seems like a long time. (He's a Chiari expert and thus should know better than this.) Am I still really needing pain management? Am I actually disabled?
Are my muscles really choke-me stiff (even when I'm on an emotional even keel) because of Chiari or...?
He says he thinks these new headaches are tension headaches.
My life is a frickin' Ouroboros.
Anybody would be stressed out after the experience at the MRI place! Let's just ignore that you came to me for symptoms that have been going on way before this morning!
To further underline his utter uselessness, the neurosurgeon tells me he doesn't know what kind of doctor he thinks I should consult about my "tension headaches." Since I doubted I could say anything that would change the situation--nothing I'd said so far had made a dent--I thanked him for his time and left, having spent nearly eight hours in one medical office or another.
Hopefully, if someone governmental queries my doctors about my condition, they'll regard the word of the pain management doctor I see monthly higher over whatever TCI, that sees me about every six to nine months, has to say.
Then I bought myself lunch out because I was starved and went home to sleep for five hours.