I got a call yesterday from the records office of the clinic I've been trying to get into for over a month now. It's in a town about 20 minutes away but none of the doctors offices in town are accepting new patients so this was my next best option. Unfortunately I missed the call as I was napping (I wasn't feeling very well yesterday and after getting up that morning found my way back to bed a few hours later and slept until 13:00). I listened to the message all the while knowing full well what I was going to hear. It was almost funny, the message reminded me of the 'thanks but no thanks' letters I've gotten while applying for work. Anyway it took me back to the letter I first got from them telling me they needed my file before they could say yea or nay to accepting me as a patient. The letter was worded something like "... accept or decline you as a patient". That's where the word 'Rejected' in my title came from. I remember thinking that the sentence was worded incorrectly, that it didn't flow right "accept or decline". It just struck me as more of a rejection. I suppose I thought of it this way: you can choose to accept or decline something that is being given to you, like a gift. You accept or reject something that is asked of you. I was not declined as a patient, I was rejected as a patient.
I was not really surprised to hear that I was not "accepted". I knew they had many files to go through and, after all, it would make much more sense to take on patients that are less of a "problem", a patient who did not have anything more than "regular everyday issues"; the cold, the flu, high blood pressure, etc. To take on a patient with my history would take more effort on the part of the clinician. There's more to worry about, more to ask after, more liability. But damn it how can you really make such a decision without talking to me? I've read my medical files, believe me, they are at times rather misrepresentative of who I actually am, what I am capable of handling, etc. And I'd like to ask what they think I am supposed to do. I'm going to run out of my medications. I've got two months left of one and four more of the other. I've got no one to tell that I've been inexplicably anxious recently, no one to tell me how much longer I'm going to have to put up with this anemia I brought upon myself, no one to tell me if I should be doing better at this point than I am (It's been a month since I last bled excessively, a month since I went to the ER to make sure I hadn't done something that needed more than just rest and frankly I am tired of waiting for the day when my heart rate doesn't go up 40 or 50 beats per minute after getting up and walking to the DVD player and back to the couch or when I get up in the morning and walk from my bed to the kitchen to feed the cat). Is it really too much to ask? Sure, the patient who is no more problem than a cold once in a while would be easier but which one of us can go without a doctor the longest?
Excuse me, I'm sorry. I'm so tired, so very tired. And it seems the only answer I get to anything lately is "too bad, so sad" or "thanks but no thanks". So I'm venting here, and sounding much less than my 25 years, I am sorry.
