Post
by gofanu » Sat Jun 23, 2012 6:34 am
Johnwen-
I am not arguing that such readings should be ignored, but that they should be rechecked. We are given one reading or incidence only. And Vickie gets more damned pills.
And "just another form of???" is a pretty cavalier assessment of the situation, typical of the world in general and Doctors in particular.
"White coat hypertension" = yes, but a small factor here
Terror at cancer possibility - by 60 we all start to know people with this, and to have seen the consequences = more all too often useless pills and Doctors. We do not know her "fear of cancer status" - and maybe she doesn't either.
When people first meet these terrors personally, there is a quick emergency response from "Well I might have cancer" to thinking as if "I HAVE CANCER" AND I HAVE to GO to the DOCTOR AND TAKE MORE PILLS and I'm GONNA DIE and It is gonna HURT AND I'M SAD and MAD as HELL and I want to RUN and I WANT to KILL somebody like MY DOCTOR who was supposed to prevent this".
The "rational mind" and the "grown up emotions" might hide this from everyone (especially) including the patient/victim, but the scared little kid inside is REALLY scared and (her) body reacts as such.
The possibility that the "cancer" might mean that the DIY Vitamin C etc cure didn't work for cancer so it might not work for the stroke problem either = here we go AGAIN!
As in "why do you think my bp came up so high after all the time i have been on the hearttech and other natural stuff and maybe it didnt clear my carodid arteries after all."
Which is now "confirmed" by this BP reading, so the whole thing becomes a self feeding monster.
"My body betrayed me, my Doctor failed me, my alt med failed me, I have cancer(gonna suffer and die), I'm gonna have another stroke or a heart attack have to deliver myself up to the DOCTORS again to the drug again to the hospital again "
To a Mechanic, when your car has a problem, it is "Just" this or that and we can fix it; to you it is screwing up your schedule and you'll be late to work and your boss will be mad. Both are valid and true.
A Doctor should consider your physical state the same way, except that the "car" or "broken thing" IS ALSO the patient. That means that the Doctor CANNOT use "just {a mechanical problem}" in his thought about the patient.
In fact, as a Mechanic, I always considered my customer's state of mind to be a significant factor in how I dealt with him/her while I fixed the car. Didn't get paid for that either, and it was sometimes costly to me personally, but I sleep well.
Any "support" person who uses the word "just" to describe this situation and level of stress is deluding himself. Worse yet, if he says it to the patient, he is now questioning the validity of the single remaining "certainty" in the patient's life, now that all else has collapsed in the tsunami of terror and doubt.
FRM