I can only imagine what my response might have been on Friday. But today is Monday and hopefully these past few days have given me some time to really come to terms with the words spoken by (I am sure) my well meaning GP.
However, I can't say that what he said didn't touch a nerve because it really did. I first of all want to say that if he somehow comes across this post and reads it - um, that will be very awkward the next time I see him. However I am sure a 25 year old mother to one who blogs about vegan food, being a mother and a wife isn't on most GP's reading lists so with this in my mind I can rest a little easier.The day started badly. It always does when you've had 4 hours of sleep. I was trapped in that 'I don't want to get up/but I have to get up' state. Take heed that the same state is usually part of the 'my husband keeps coming through to wake me up/I can't keep my eyes open' state.I've only been to the health center a clutch of times. I only go when it's needed - if something doesn't feel like it should or I have a horrible flesh eating skin disease. Health centres and hospitals make me nervous - and I don't know why. All I know is that if I go within a certain distance to them I freak out. But only when I have an appointment.My fear is that they will tell me I'm pregnant with triplets or that I have some horrible illness that will kill me within 24 hours. I am serious.That aside I was feeling pretty breezy on Friday morning - about my appointment, otherwise my general mood was utterly sour. B phoned for a taxi (a luxury we never splash cash on, but this was a necessity - a necessity that cost us £3.50 for a 3 minute journey, but a necessity nonetheless) while I got ready and Roman ran free; opening the letter box, messing around with door handles and bursting into my room about a bazillion times.I checked in for my appointment early and felt the nerves working their way through my body. I couldn't focus on their out of date magazines, stacked up shabbily on the table in front of me, nor could I tolerate the slightest squeak from Roman. My GP called out my name, I followed him through to his office and he asked me what he could do for me.Perhaps that question (statement?) should be re-phrased for future reference when I pay a visit again. Or perhaps I could start things off by saying; "which lecture should I expect today?"I condensed down my medical history into a 5 minute story - if even that - and he looked taken aback. "M.E, that's a big diagnosis."Um yeah.
I didn't think much of the remark and moved onto explain my debacle with my appointment at the Rheumatoid department. "So it's your fault you missed the appointment?""No. The hospital gave me the wrong date and time. In fact it was the wrong day. I checked with them three times and it wasn't until the third time they admitted they messed it up and my appointment was gone.""So you're saying it could have been the hospital, but it was most likely you who got it wrong."If ever there was a face palm moment it would have been then.Moving on he agreed to 'sort things out' with them and I was already wishing inside for my understanding Spanish GP. The one I didn't have to fight to explain myself with. The one who just 'got it.'My GP mentioned a horrible therapy for M.E patients; graded exercise therapy. If anyone knows about this or has read some of the horror stories of yore you'll know it doesn't work. Most GPs will 'strongly reccomend' it to their M.E patients because it's an old craze that hasn't died a horrible death.My GP said two words, over and over, on Friday that I still have ringing in my ears; "no harm, no harm, no harm."Everything he suggested will do me 'no harm.' He suggests me walking up to the end of the road, where the shop is (even though you'd have to take out a bank loan to buy anything there!) and then back again. Why? For what purpose? For getting out, right?Sure. But then he told me to take a bus to Asda (supermarket) every week and get a bus back - to 'get myself out, but not to over do it.' Yet the GET he suggests is over doing it. He also told me not to do 'too much' on the days I felt good. So with one hand he tells me to participate in GET, to stop this 'mindset' I have and with the other hand he tells me not to overdo things and have a few days in bed a week - contradiction, much?I get that B is worried for my long term health - I am worried for that. It's been a major concern for a long time. I don't want to develop other problems, but I am trying. I'm also doing. And when a GP doesn't recognize that, it's they who need to shake themselves out of their own mindset and stop tarring every M.E patient they have with the same brush."None of our M.E patients live like you do," said the GP, trying to guilt trip me into doing more. I find that hard to believe seeing as the NHS website says that in severe cases people live like I do - bed bound and house bound for months at a time. "You're out of touch with everything," he also said, as if he hadn't already added insult to injury.What the hell does he really know about me to make a statement like that? It's he whose out of touch. For me I'm far too nosey not to know what's going on around me. I keep up to date with which celebrity got divorced that week and which laws are being passed through the Houses of Parliament the next week - anyone following my updates on Lamebook will testify to that.I think I live an exciting and fairly fulfilling life, even with these challenges I have. And I find it an absolute mockery of my very best effort that anyone would think I am out of touch or in some kind of crazed mindset and determined not to get better. Utterly laughable, in fact.It's madness to me that those in authority get to speak to people the way they do.I didn't want an argument so I sat there, fighting back tears, nodding my head and telling him I agreed where I did agree and saying nothing where I didn't agree. Another point I'd like to address and that he made totally invalid by not listening to me was this: he said I'd picked up the wrong of what M.E 'is.' And then launched into a tirade about how I've read too many websites the wrong way and picked up what other people with M.E have told me.That's funny because I had exactly all these symptoms and problems before I read anything. I'd read a tiny section of an M.E Association website years ago to find out more about it because one of my good friends has M.E and I was worried for them but even then it didn't paint the full awful picture of M.E. So now I have Münchhausen's, too. Thanks, Doc.When it was all said and done his closing speech was priceless;"M.E is REAL. It's physical, it's NOT psychological...however, there's a mindset with M.E. Those who have it think about all the things they can't do and they spend their time on that rather than what they can do."This is horse manure. Absolutely and truly. For myself I think of all the things I can do for Roman - they may be very small, but it's something. I think of all the things I can do for my family. For myself. I constantly do the things I think I can't do and it burns me out. There's a lesson to be learned there. I've learned from the things that burn me out and I no longer do them, it's that simple. I'm not writing anything off, I am being sensible.And that's got me marked down as being in the business of grouped in with having some kind of mindset - what a sensible plan to manage my illness? If that's wrong, please tell me how else to 'be.' I was stunned coming away from my GP surgery on Friday. I honestly don't know if I can go back there after what happened. I hate these places at the best of times but after that it's really knocked my confidence to trust my GP will listen to me and treat me with the respect I deserve.I'm also terrified to see another GP within the practice because I don't want to come across as a nut case with a vendetta against them. And GPs talk. I'm going to try and go back to him, to tell him I have done what he suggested and whatever the outcome of his suggestions were, I will explain.