Blustery Friday

[Cudedog]

Oh, my, BJ. My mouth is actually hanging open in astonishment reading what you wrote. That is FAR worse than anything I have ever experienced. I just don't know what to say - except that I am totally outraged on your behalf. What that woman said to you is totally and completely abhorrent and abominable. I'm left shaking my head, and I find myself angry on your behalf.

I think that you are probably right - I would not be at all surprised if I were tagged as a "non-compliant".

My outlook is this: I hire, and pay for, a physician to look at me, and to ask questions about me, on my behalf. I pay for my doctor's opinion. A doctor is a person that I pay to work for me. As such, I expect a modicum of respect from the person I am paying to be my employee. I am not a medical person, but I can read, and I can understand "big words".

I have found during my life that doctors are not always right. I have found that what doctors sometimes insist that I must do is sometimes wrong. This has happened to me more than once.

Case in point: I had a hysterectomy in my early forties. I was told that I would need to take hormone replacement drugs starting now, if I didn't I would be dead in fifteen years of a heart attack. I took the drugs for about four months, they made me feel dreadful, so after four months I stopped taking them. Several decades later, I am still kicking and my heart is fine.

On the other hand. . . about fifteen years after my surgery, it became known that taking these same hormone replacement drugs is directly linked as a cause of breast cancer. Had I taken the meds as directed, good possibility I would already be dead.

The brand-name med I want is available at several local pharmacies. I have checked. I would have to pay for it. I will pay for it. My doctor said he would prescribe the brand-name meds. And then he didn't submit the prescription. And I can't get in contact with him. And I don't know why.

I'm stopping now. There is quite a bit more to this story that I won't be sharing in an open forum like this one.

BJ, you have my total and complete sympathy. No one - NO ONE - should ever be treated like you were.

Thank you for sharing your story. I feel absolutely humbled by it. I'm so very sorry.

Anne