So, I was going through old emails on my old email account which I don't use anymore, and came across this essay I wrote for my English teacher at the UAF in 2010. I took Academic Writing for Social/Natural Sciences. It sounded completely boring when I first signed up. Heck, I thought we'd be writing about nature and mountains and, like, clouds and stuff. Bleh.
Luckily, I had a bomb teacher (the same one I wrote about my dad for). I can't remember his reasoning behind why I wrote what I did for this one. Usually we had class discussion and then he came up with a topic and we had to write something that related to it, but he also didn't mind if, throughout the process of us writing, it changed completely from what we started from. And I liked the fact that he let us write in first person narratives, something I hadn't been used to for a while. I really liked that class.
My teacher was actually really impressed with this piece and during our essay conference (we had one after each essay assignment) he asked me if he could use it to present to the Board of English something somethings. Say what?! I can't remember what they were called but he happened to like it and wanted to show them that this class could be really diverse in what students write about, and that we don't have to just write about clouds science.. (okay I made that last part up, but he said something similar to that).
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So, here goes. PS: It's all a true story, even if I don't talk much about it. My problem has gotten better, but it's not completely gone. And it has a name - eosinophilicgastroenteritis. Nope, I did not make that up.
Compassion
through Affliction
Again.
I am at the doctor's again. This time it’s another office, a different doctor.
I’m trying to get a second opinion, or maybe it’s the third or fourth, I’ve
lost track. The barium swallow, two upper endoscopies, stomach emptying study,
an ultrasound, antibiotics for H. Pylori
bacteria, a HIDA scan on my gall
bladder, X-rays, blood tests, anti-inflammatory steroid inhaler. Test, after
test, after test and what do they find? Normal. All these tests, procedures,
and pills I have taken or have undergone and all return back with little to no
results indicating a problem or being able to find a solution.
For over a year and a half I have had a problem where I regurgitate my food. My stomach will cause me to randomly spit up mouthfuls of food at a time. Some called it sporadic vomiting, but nobody could tell me why. It can last up to all day long, at school or work or even driving. After many tests performed and a good amount of drugs swallowed, I was about ready to give up. It seemed as though nothing I tried worked. It wasn’t until almost ten months later that I found out I am allergic to milk, wheat, and egg-whites that cause an inflammatory response and trigger my stomach to randomly throw up food that contain those ingredients. To my dismay, when I was told I was allergic, the provider who handed me that information didn’t offer a plan of action, so it was to my sole ability to figure out what I was going to eat. A difficult task, when so many of those ingredients are in almost everything I buy.
Eventually I talked to a nutritionist that put me on an “intensive-cleanse” diet to help figure out what my stomach could and couldn’t handle and to see if sooner or later I could tolerate certain foods. I had high hopes in this diet, but unfortunately refraining from those foods didn’t matter. I was still throwing up. To this day, I still fight this problem. In many ways, I don’t have control over my own body.
For over a year and a half I have had a problem where I regurgitate my food. My stomach will cause me to randomly spit up mouthfuls of food at a time. Some called it sporadic vomiting, but nobody could tell me why. It can last up to all day long, at school or work or even driving. After many tests performed and a good amount of drugs swallowed, I was about ready to give up. It seemed as though nothing I tried worked. It wasn’t until almost ten months later that I found out I am allergic to milk, wheat, and egg-whites that cause an inflammatory response and trigger my stomach to randomly throw up food that contain those ingredients. To my dismay, when I was told I was allergic, the provider who handed me that information didn’t offer a plan of action, so it was to my sole ability to figure out what I was going to eat. A difficult task, when so many of those ingredients are in almost everything I buy.
Eventually I talked to a nutritionist that put me on an “intensive-cleanse” diet to help figure out what my stomach could and couldn’t handle and to see if sooner or later I could tolerate certain foods. I had high hopes in this diet, but unfortunately refraining from those foods didn’t matter. I was still throwing up. To this day, I still fight this problem. In many ways, I don’t have control over my own body.
To
get a clearer picture of where I first began, I suppose I would have to provide
a background of my office visits. I remember my first one clearly. She was a
female doctor, with the intent to diagnose and pass me on as any other eighteen
year-old girl who throws up to lose weight, with bulimia. By the end of the
second visit, I was thoroughly convinced I needed to see someone else. Someone
else who believed in my cause and truly wanted to help me, instead of jump to
false conclusions, even after an honest testimonial. I always wondered why she
could not just believe I was telling the truth. Was my health issue so far off
that it did not seem conceivable to her? Because of the way she treated me, I
felt like I could not trust her, nor did I feel like accepting any information
she had to offer. From then on I saw other doctors who provided me with their
opinions, referred me to gastroenterologists – doctors that specialize in the
digestive system - made appointments with more doctors for more opinions and
different tests. Needless to say, I did not enjoy the hop-around or the burning
hole in my wallet.
I personally did not know the history of any of the doctors I was treated by, however, I do believe that by going through health problems of their own, providers can relate better to their patients. This is important because a doctor can feel more empathy towards the people they’re caring for because they know the process, the pain, and the waiting. The person they treat is really Mrs. Jones – a person with a name, instead of “Room 4: broken leg.” They know what Mrs. Jones feels like, because they’ve been Mrs. Jones.
Although professional ethics say doctors should not disclose their personal health information to their patients, Dr. Annie Brewster, a Boston internist, confides with her patient who had just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, by telling her that she, too, has the same disease. When her patient received the news, her immediate words were, “I am so young. There was so much I wanted to do. I wanted to have a family.” Brewster, in efforts to try to console the woman, crossed the line between patient and doctor, telling her, “I have the same disease…I have four kids. I still ski, run, play lacrosse and work as a doctor. I am healthy and energetic. There is tremendous variability in how people do and some people do very well. It is the unknown that is scary.”
I personally did not know the history of any of the doctors I was treated by, however, I do believe that by going through health problems of their own, providers can relate better to their patients. This is important because a doctor can feel more empathy towards the people they’re caring for because they know the process, the pain, and the waiting. The person they treat is really Mrs. Jones – a person with a name, instead of “Room 4: broken leg.” They know what Mrs. Jones feels like, because they’ve been Mrs. Jones.
Although professional ethics say doctors should not disclose their personal health information to their patients, Dr. Annie Brewster, a Boston internist, confides with her patient who had just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, by telling her that she, too, has the same disease. When her patient received the news, her immediate words were, “I am so young. There was so much I wanted to do. I wanted to have a family.” Brewster, in efforts to try to console the woman, crossed the line between patient and doctor, telling her, “I have the same disease…I have four kids. I still ski, run, play lacrosse and work as a doctor. I am healthy and energetic. There is tremendous variability in how people do and some people do very well. It is the unknown that is scary.”
I
believe Dr. Brewster did a favor to the woman by telling her that she could
relate to her problem, and that there is still hope in the future for a good
life. If one person has succeeded, that provides encouragement and gives a
patient something to hang on to. As a patient many times myself, I have found
in my own mind the criticizing idea that the doctor has no idea what I’m going
through, that the person dressed in a white coat does not possess human
vulnerabilities and can feel what I feel. It is at those times, however, when
patients need to remember that doctors are human, just like the rest of us.
As I watch the Certified Medical Assistant at the UAF Health Center bring patients back and have a genuine concern for their welfare, I am reminded of her story which influences her life. She has been diagnosed with Graves’ disease, a thyroid disorder which often causes the thyroid gland to enlarge as well as the eyes to swell and the space between the eyelids to widen. She has told me of the countless times where her eye was in so much pain she once told the doctor to remove it completely to put an end to the sharp agony. Instead, they injected her eye with steroids every so often to temporarily relieve her pain. Her story, like mine, included doctor hopping and countless bills before a final diagnosis and proper treatment. The way I see her treat people indicates to me her experience with her past has enabled her to relate better with patients today.
My mother, like myself, has gone through many of her own illnesses and still battles them. When asked why it could be beneficial for a patient-doctor relationship if the doctor had undergone their own sicknesses before, my mother responded, “Not only is it nice to speak to someone who knows what they’re talking about, but it is also reassuring when a doctor is actually…compassionate. Compassionate because they’ve been down that road and if it’s specific to the problem their patient has it’s nice to hear what they did to treat it or what their options were.” It is comforting to me to know that a person in society who holds a high authoritative position still has feelings.
As a medical assistant in training, I find myself sharing my experiences with patients I come in to contact with as to things pertaining from urinary tract infections to muscular pains in the back and spine that I had corrected by a chiropractor. I feel that by expressing my personal history, a patient can feel relaxed and know that they’re not alone.
Trials are always humbling, and when a person has truly tasted pain and knows what it feels like to be hurting, the want of helping someone else not feel that pain is empowering. I myself, personally, have felt compassion towards others mainly because I’ve gone through this sickness for so long, which has helped me become a more effective medical assistant when dealing with the emotions of another. That connection between the healer and the afflicted is strong, and the easier it is to relate to the patient, the more positive the result.
As I watch the Certified Medical Assistant at the UAF Health Center bring patients back and have a genuine concern for their welfare, I am reminded of her story which influences her life. She has been diagnosed with Graves’ disease, a thyroid disorder which often causes the thyroid gland to enlarge as well as the eyes to swell and the space between the eyelids to widen. She has told me of the countless times where her eye was in so much pain she once told the doctor to remove it completely to put an end to the sharp agony. Instead, they injected her eye with steroids every so often to temporarily relieve her pain. Her story, like mine, included doctor hopping and countless bills before a final diagnosis and proper treatment. The way I see her treat people indicates to me her experience with her past has enabled her to relate better with patients today.
My mother, like myself, has gone through many of her own illnesses and still battles them. When asked why it could be beneficial for a patient-doctor relationship if the doctor had undergone their own sicknesses before, my mother responded, “Not only is it nice to speak to someone who knows what they’re talking about, but it is also reassuring when a doctor is actually…compassionate. Compassionate because they’ve been down that road and if it’s specific to the problem their patient has it’s nice to hear what they did to treat it or what their options were.” It is comforting to me to know that a person in society who holds a high authoritative position still has feelings.
As a medical assistant in training, I find myself sharing my experiences with patients I come in to contact with as to things pertaining from urinary tract infections to muscular pains in the back and spine that I had corrected by a chiropractor. I feel that by expressing my personal history, a patient can feel relaxed and know that they’re not alone.
Trials are always humbling, and when a person has truly tasted pain and knows what it feels like to be hurting, the want of helping someone else not feel that pain is empowering. I myself, personally, have felt compassion towards others mainly because I’ve gone through this sickness for so long, which has helped me become a more effective medical assistant when dealing with the emotions of another. That connection between the healer and the afflicted is strong, and the easier it is to relate to the patient, the more positive the result.
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