STEAM ROOM FOR ANGER

bcincolorado

Lita hope you have fun planning trips and hopefully gives you something happy to look forward to instead of medical stuff.

DancingElizabeth

I think the way we will probably have to die - sucks in some many ways. Including all that needs to be done for it. Sign me up for the surprise heart-attack any-day. I know that's very selfish of me - not looking out for my loved ones after I'm gone. But, I feel like some of the people closest in my life - haven't exactly looked out for me....

And, honestly, I know that "Ma'am" is considered polite by some in the South. But, I used to live in the south and now on the West coast. I've yet - except on here - to meet a lady - young or old - who likes being called "Ma'am". The way *I* hear it is "frumpy-old-lady". Why not call a woman "Miss" instead???? Sorry but - ma'am - has got to go!

Sara536

Miss? You have to be kidding! How about a doctor saying, “So, you're 60 years young!" Now that I'm past 70, that doesn't happen so often. Maybe my face has settled into a permanent, “Don't mess with me." look. Do we all have to turn into our mothers? When I was teaching, I tried to have the students preface my name with Ms. ( Mizzz) They didn't get it- too young. I soon settled for Mrs. (although divorced)- they knew I had kids so they never called me Miss. What-ever... No need for TMI.

DancingElizabeth

Anything but "ma'am"...sorry but Ma'am sucks...

catlady44

I hate my oncologist. He's done exactly jack s--- to hep me post treatment. I've had to do everything myself. I have a friend who's a pediatric onc and although she recommended a different onc, the cancer center won't let me switch docs in the same facility. It's ridiculous because I'm the patient and I should decide who I see!!! I'm angry how so much of my famiy wasn't around during my treatment. At first, everyone said, "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you!", but when I asked for a visit, I was lucky to get even one. My own brother didn't come to visit my during my multiple hospitalizations. I get that he was afraid he would just break down if he saw me like that, but I'm the one with cancer so get over it! I'm angry at the way people stopped contacting me or supporting me once treatment ended. Post treatment has been the hardest part of the whole ordeal. I'm angry at the way things have gone after treatment. I had NO idea there would be this much collateral damage. Every time a new complication occurs. I get mad at myself for getting my hopes up that things will ever improve. I'm mad that I can't seem to get my s-- together. I'm angry that my reconstruction is so jacked up. I'm angry that I keep getting the opiod lecture despite the fact that the bottle I have is from a year and a half ago. I'm angry at all the docs who've been horrible to me. I'm angry at the ways breast cancer has been sexualized. It makes me feel like I"ll never been sexy again. and I won't. I hate the early forced menopause/ I hate these bald spots all over my head. I feel ugly.

This isn't cancer related, but with all the #MeToo movement going on, the memories of a college professor who sexually abused me and manipulated me, have reared their ugly head. There are other assaults as well. I don't want to even think about those memories and I hate those people for doing that to me. and wrecking a whole decade of my life. I'm angry at my husbands ex wife for being a total nightmare to deal with. She's one of the most cruel people I've ever met and even turned on her own kids. I had to hire security to keep her out of my wedding ceremony. I've been accused of all kinds of stupid things and even called a whore. I've never said one bad thing to her or her kids. Exwife got together with my bro in law's fam and somehow convinced them that my husband was a pervert (I won't go into detail) and now we are shunned. She's spread lies around to any and everybody she an think of. I hate bro in laws fam ecause for shunning us because we don't meet their Mennonite religious standards. They banned us from their kid's weddings. They never even ONCE reached out to me when I had cancer! What kind of a--h-- do that?! The thing that really pisses me off is that I can't defend myself to exwife because I don't want to jeopardize my relationship with my stepdaughters. They've defended me, but Id love to verbally tear into exwife myself.

I refuse to talk politics here, but every time I watch the news, I hate all of it. I want to throw a brick at the tv. I hate the division I'm seeing. I hate the accusations that are tossed around. I hate politicians in general.

I'm too angry to proof read this.

I'm not angry the majority of the time, but there are days where I feel like I hate everybody and everything.

Anonymous

Yes, one day at a time. My project was not completed by 5pm Sunday but I did get the obituary done, a lot of paperwork organized the envelopes and am filling in the blanks in my free time. It's kind of fun - god is THAT morbid or what - but as a writer / organizer / entrepreneur I really thrive on this type of project. Perhaps this is what oI could have done for a living.

When I was on the phone with people from the Southern states I was (by the men, usually farmers) called Miss Diane as their respectful salutation. So sweet. I in turn called them Mr. __ fill in last name here, not a curse word. And with Canadians, I was always called Mrs. _________ and they were Mr. or Mrs or Miss. Depends on where you are and where they are or are from. But I do prefer to not be a ma'am.

When at the hospice appointment last week the director gave this speal about how we are all in the same boat, not knowing when or where or how. I used Runor's fine example without any hesitation, "Steve, I am already in the middle of the road with tire tracks on my back." He laughed loudly and I certainly hope he thinks again before the same boat example.

Catlady - that is a fine list you have there. A fine list. We all know what you are saying in so many ways. I have a file entitled A**H#LES and for every one that has done wrong, I have their name and a briefing and some paperwork that would be needed to go after them or their bull, in the file it goes and then I don't need to think about it again. But when I do and I dodo, really I do, I come on here and talk it out with people who are willing to listen. It helps.

ddfair

Sorry to disagree with you Elizabeth. I much prefer being called ma'am. Miss sounds like an unmarried teenager to me. I've lived my whole life around the military so that's the proper address for women. I'm from the deep south. Any further south and you're in TJ Mexico.

kathindc

I’m chuckling over the ma’am discussion. When I was younger, I’d use the phrase for a woman older than myself. Then in my forties, I got my first ma’am and I thought, I’m not that old,how dare they. After hearing it a few times I got use to it and thought nothing of it because I was raised to say it. My dad was from the north and my mom was from the mid-Atlantic region. I’m in my late sixties and still say it to any woman I encounter if I don’t know her name as a matter of respect.

chronicpain

Nothing wrong with ma’am, it is respectful. Better than being first-named by baby-faced clerks, receptionists and nursing assistants with a fraction of my education and experience

jaycee49

catlady, I just changed oncologists in the same practice. I know it is not always possible to do that because I have tried with some other kinds of doctors and told it was not possible. I suggest you go over the head of whoever told you that you could not change. I would not rattle too many cages because you could be thrown out of the practice all together. I definitely feared that happening. I really wanted to stay in this practice. It was not only allowed but relatively easy in my practice. If you wouldn't mind changing to another practice, then rattle away. But if you want to stay in this practice, do a few discrete inquiries about how you can change. I started with my oncology nurse. The nurses understand what jerks the doctors can be. I see my new MO tomorrow for the first time. I have felt so much better since the change but now I am a little nervous. What if I don't like the new one? Then it is on me.

DancingElizabeth

"Ma'am" - is a way for a perfect stranger - to let us know - how old they think we are.

I thought this was supposed to be the Steam Room for Anger...not a debate on how someone's supposed to feel...

indahood

Thanks for all the useful info MEOW. I didn't get a notification that someone had responded so now I am reading it. Looks like you are a researcher like me. I have been reading everything I can get my hands on although I have to admit, that last link was clearly over my head. Cheers and again thanks for being there.

Micmel

The flu this year is horrid. I hope none of you get it. It sucks the what little Life you even thought you had away for an undetermined time frame. I am going on one week and one day of feeling like absolute crap. Sleep is my only savior. Even that can be uncomfortable, when all you do is sleep and your body parts hurt because....all you do is sleep... so then your mind starts to torture you and says things like “hmmmm that is a new pain, or hey you’re dizzy, what does that mean?, or the lower bottom Of my spine feels like something kicked it. Didn’t feel that way before the flu?” Mind tricks and scan anxiety. So freaking unfair::::: you feel like you should be able to breathe because you’re told you’re in remission and no measurable disease, so you figure you should feel happy and somewhat secure. No blood work no onc meeting for three months, but then you sit and think and wonder where your blood work stands and you’re wondering what is going on anyway! (that logic would say it’s from being in bed a lot and the muscle aches and pains that medicines bring on and also the flu itself.) we strive to get away from the doctors, but when we are away too long, like I find myself two weeks out for the next blood work and XGeva shot... after three months. Three months seems so long, until the damn flip of the calendar happens way to quickly. Then the panic swells up inside all over again.... so lame... so wrong... so destructive to life. And living! How is someone supposed to mentally survive? So sick of it! It’s like whack a freaking mole! Enough!!

Dianarose

With my bald head I had a casino attendant call me sir. I’ll take mam over that lo

xxyzed

I got called Sir with my bald head too. The poor overworked guy was horrified when he realised what he had done. I thought it was pretty funny.

jaycee49

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/when-the-patient-is-noncompliant/

I've been thinking about the words "compliant" and "non-compliant" lately. I found the above article on the topic, especially as it refers to patients. I saw my new MO today and wondered how many times she had seen the word non-compliant used in reference to me. Probably plenty. I have never been accused of being compliant. When you look up synonyms, you see words like docile and submissive. Definitions say things like doing what you are told to do. Implying too easily. Dictionary.com says " obeying, obliging, or yielding, especially in a submissive way." Nope, that's not me.

runor

Jaycee, I find it offensive that any doctor should get to judge your reaction with any defining adjective! Unless of course we get to go around writing reviews about our doctors calling them competent or incompetent, based on airy-fairy, vague ideas of what we consider competent or drooling lunacy. Fair's fair.

I once read a report that a psychiatrist wrote about me. Holy crackers! He said "patient exhibits an excessive use of humour". God, some people make a living off an excessive use of humour! But this guy was a dull drip in his beige clothes in his beige office.

I think if doctors want compliant patients they should become vets and treat sheep. Who, by the way, are a lot less compliant than you think.

I also have been accused of being non-compliant. To which I respond, yeah, what's your point ? But usually I announce it at the outset. 'I am here to hear your opinion and guidance, but don't for one minute think you're the boss of me, are we clear on that? You work for me, not the other way around'. I applaud you for standing up to the medical system. Non-compliant? Print it on a t-shirt and wear it to all appointments!

pingpong1953

How do you get through all the trials in life without a sense of humour?

Lula73

technically in medical terms the phrase non-compliant should be used when a patient chooses (usually on their own) to not take their meds, go to/do their PT, etc because they didn’t want to do the prescribed treatment. In instances where a patient stops their med, doesn’t do their PT, etc because of unbearable side effects (from the patient perspective not the doc’s), life events, they’re too weak, etc. it should be written in the chart that patient discontinued because of this reason. The term non-compliant should never appear in this instance. There’s another term that drives a lot of people crazy too: denies as in patient denies pain, patient denies feeling depressed, etc. this is important because if the doc asks about say joint pain and you are having some mild pain as a side effect of the AI you’re taking you need to say yes. If you downplay it and say not really or maybe now and again but nothing i can’t handle, it will appear in the chart as patient denies joint pain.

WorriedMe77

I fucking hate cancer. I hate all the fucking unknowns I hate hate hate everything about this. I hate fucking worried all the time I hate fucking cry all the time .... I don’t even know whpnto be angry at its been almost 60 days since my breast surgery and because these damn scans keep showing stuff my chemos delayed lucky me just found out that I’m having a lung biopsy next week and chemo is once again delayed 😳😳😳😳😳🤬🤬🤬🤬 ummmm hello can’t startimg chemo more than 60 days after surgery affect my overall outcome????? I live in Louisiana a state with the highest fucking mortality rate in the country when it comes to cancer and I feel like omg wtf is going on???? I’m fucking devastated that we can’t have a baby he loves me but I also know how bad he wants children and cancers robbed me of being able to give hIm a child...

runor

Non-compliant should never be used. It suggests that our job is to comply. Says who? Instead I would prefer non-conforming, taking an alternative route, declined suggested treatment and instead will smoke dope and eat frozen pizza while its' still frozen. But non-compliance has a judgement attached to it and the entitled idea that doctors are little gods and we need to follow their little rules chiseled on little stone tablets. Screw that. We are all just hanging our lives and hopes on the best work that science has done so far. It is by no means a guarantee and we are by no means obligated to play along and declining the offered treatment does not make us non-compliant! It just makes us a challenge for doctors who are not used to being challenged! Non-compliant, pffft.

Sara536

I was googling around and found myself eavesdropping on a conversation between young doctors about the use of the words “noncompliant" and “denies" in medical records. Many of them seem to be uncomfortable using them but it seems to be a “standard language" they are learning and discussing amonst themselves what these words mean. Apparently, “denies" is a way of covering your butt in case someone decides to sue you in the future. It shows that the doctor actually asked if the patient had particular symptoms and the patient said, “No" which is different than the doctor writing that the patient did not have those symptoms. These doctors also thought that using the word, “denies" sounds like they are accusing their patients of lying. I think they need new words.

Anonymous

Janet - not me either. I am non-standard, fly by the seat of my pants and probably high maintenance due to extreme sensitivities, shoot from the hip outspoken. I wonder what words have been used in code and in plain doc-speak to describe me or warn the next doctor about me. Oh well, too late to change even if I wanted to.

Janet - I wonder if you had a decent first appointment with your new MO. It was quite the deliberation for you to make the move and I am so glad you got this far.

Runor - the t-shirt idea is a a winner. Or a carry-all bag reading non-compliant patient.

When I read my own chart and doctor's notes about me and see all the mistakes made in gathering my info and history and allergies it is a steam room post. But I won't go there now or again right now since I have already done that post at least once.

My steam room right now is this flu going around. I am sitting here, one foot almost into hospice the other firmly in palliative. I have a center lobe and bronchi completely collapsed on the right lung AGAIN. Last time it was top lobe down for 9 mo or more. There are three honking liver lesions and they are causing me distress either because there is die off or growth, don't know but I do care. There is a regrowth of the lymph masses in supraclavical that tried to suffocate me last fall to spring, blacking out when I coughed 10x a day easy, in wheelchair and finally had radiation to back them down and I THOUGHT THEY WERE GONE FOR GOOD! There is now a cancer lymph node in the right neck abutted the carotid artery and between that and the vocal chord nerve that runs alongside which is scaring me to death. I could have such growth there that I end up with a stroke. So all that could lead to stroke, suffocating in my sleep, choking, pneumonia. coughing and blacking out and hitting my head and dying from that - OH MY. And now I get to wonder if the flu will get me instead because it doesn't go well with a healthy person let alone stage 4 MBC with all these compromising issues to boot.

And so could we all have to deal with this. Be safe out there ladies and gentlemen. Be careful and safe and protect your inner environment too. Such as, for me, can I watch my DGD when she is home ill. No, not any more, not now. And I hate that. I need to sanitize the plates and cups that come to my restaurant table if I even want to chance going anywhere too. Talking to my DBIL last week, he was standing at the window of our vehicle by me and that is too close for comfort. I didn't think of it then, I was thinking that the weather was too chilly for me to be breathing it and maybe he could sit in the truck. But then I thought I did not want to be in close quarters with windows up especially, germs. And wth was that then, he was right there near my face. Darn. And now I wonder and go omg I hope his grandkids (3 plus their mom living w him for a month) and his kids are not sick.

Olesya

i had an emotional break down today. had very little sleep the night before, and my 2y.o. was very very oppositional about everything. her whining just wore me down.

I have a great support system: my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are very very helpful. however today happened to be the day when i needed their help the most, they couldn't offer it: MIL is sick with this terrible cold, SIL is having a company over, and my dear hubby (who is also sick but on his 6th grave shift) is sleeping. and this toddler is screaming her head off!...

anyways i managed to ship my little one off for the night to my SIL, and tomorrow she is in daycare. so i have a day to recoup.

I just hate this feeling of being unable to control my life.l used to depend on myself for many many years, and its very hard for me to ask for help. My relatives are full of good intentions, stayed with me a lot after my first chemo. and i was grateful for their support. but i realized that i need to let them know WHEN i need their presence, because when i feel good i move around the house very fast and accomplish many things, but when there are other people, i get destructed and it slows me down.

also with this precaution about not getting germs with low blood count, i avoid public places. I love public places! i love grocery shopping, i love going to the early years group with my child,ect. and now i have to rely on other people to do it for me. and i hate it! i hate to have no control over my life! that is probably why i was moving furniture around the house the other day. because i COULD control that!

Rant over.

Meow13

I better never see the word non-compliance in any of my records. I hate doctors and their arrogant behavior, they have no clue who you are and make judgements about you.

They wonder why you don't want to see them. They think you over-react to side effects when you speak up then when you don't say anything they get mad.

Anonymous

http://www.womens-fiction.com/dense-observations/a...

I did not write this one. But I know we can all identify with the sentiment. AIs and BC and all. I especially love the second to last paragraph, one that reads in part, "Put down the hammer."

Anonymous

And soooooo on Thursday I get to go to the videotaping of my second deposition in a year in prep for court in August in case I am incapable to testify or dead.

Yup.

Prepping for a week like I have nothing better to do, right?

And soooooooooo today the attorney went through all my medical records with Hubby and I. We got to yank off the scabs of long ago doctor's comments about my state of being and health and digression into what I thought of the last doctor I left behind. I admit, I am quick to move on w doctors, impatient and as noncompliant as the best of them. But for this dep, I have to be mild and careful, never paint a crank picture of the behavior or lack of proper treatment. Oh like the first orthopedic doctor who let me come in w bloody fingers and a lousy ER cast for some breaks in my wrist and fingers and did not even look at me but treated me. But I cannot say what happened, I have to smile and be nice about them. And the others, cannot even go there. The list is long enough and the eventual conclusion was CRPS and no surgery was going to help, only make it worse at that time. Probably still true. But today I got to hear the comments. It pisses me off to no end. Their notes to themselves that end up being shared w other doctors and with the legal system when called for. Ack!

Thursday it will be over, hopefully for good. Except the medical exam I have to go through on 22nd. Or if I end up in court in August, alive and well. But I want this settled now. The accident disrupted my financial situation just when Hubby retired early so we could go out there and live my life and be together before the trampling red boot of cancer might get the best of me. Feb 2015 I was decent. Then accident, recovery sort of, still not fully, and then the cancer was off and running the end of 15 though the PET CT in Nov 15 and Apr 16 were non conclusive of the seeds just germinating. Unremarkable enough to not need reported to the MO or to me. Oh how I hate the word unremarkable. A lot is hidden behind that word.

Silver lining, not all doctors are bad. And I have found some great ones along the way.

I just cannot wrap my head around it.

What auto insurance company in their right mind would end up in court with their OWN insured patron because they won't pay the uninsured / underinsured benefit that is due them since the other two drivers who were at fault were not insured more than $25K a person and no more than $50K total. Driver 2 was even less insured. And why would said insurance company want to go in there with a 60-yr-old breast cancer patient who is now signed up for palliative care w D____ Hospice? After making them wait nearly 3 yrs already? We would have worked w them but they did not return calls, guide us or step up and so we had no choice but to get help, it seemed we had to go up against our insurance company. Since they never tried to help.

eeeesh. thank you for listening. I have to stuff it back now and prep nicely, sweet little old lady style. My voice being like this really helps, hardly any intonation and is fragile sounding. If I smile they will never guess I feel like a bitch.

Artista964

wow bluebird, how cruel. After its all over i would go to the news station and ream that insurance co. Your story needs to be shared beyond here. Praying all goes smooth and its over soon.

Anonymous

Yup - I am writing reviews for posting online far and wide once this is over. If I have died first, my DD and DS know how to do it. This ins co has gone into my asshole file long ago.

Anonymous

OMG

just one more whine please.

Prose style

So ludicrous

Prepping for a deposition

I should not have to do

Days more of my life taken

Cannot wait to get it done

so I can have

MORE FUN

designing

my funeral invitations.