Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2009. Mattie was in the HEM/ONC clinic and sitting between Brandon and Jocelyn, his two cancer buddies. Brandon and Jocelyn were really the only two people Mattie related to who were patients, which was ironic considering their age differences. But it did not matter, their friendship transcended any differences. What was going on at the art table was a whole Sponge Bob theme, as Brandon and Jocelyn knew how much Mattie loved Sponge Bob. Now I am not sure Mattie actually loved Sponge Bob, or he simply knew I disliked him and therefore enjoyed watching my reaction to hearing about the conversation!
Quote of the day: Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? ~ John Keats
I started the day feeling good. I went to my zumba class and went about my day. But by 5pm, the bladder pain started all over again, and I am now feeling as awful as I was yesterday morning when I woke up. So fortunately I saw my doctor yesterday and have started the medication she prescribed me. While I was commuting to her office yesterday, I was listening to this horrible story on the news about a man who went for a colonoscopy procedure in Northern Virginia. While sedated, he happened to leave his cell phone on the record mode and was recording everything that was being said about him during the procedure. Unfortunately the commentary was very defamatory, in which the doctors joked that the patient could have ebola or syphilis. None of which was true, and worse because they were annoyed with the patient, they added a false diagnosis to his medical record. I included a Washington Post article about this terrible court case below, in which the jury apparently awarded the patient, $500,000.
I am not sure what is more upsetting about this story! But I have to say the dialogue, which you can hear for yourself, that I find most upsetting is in which one doctor says..."They (patients) need to have medical problems" and the other who says, "I call it the Northern Virginia syndrome" is disturbing on many levels! What they are implying is that patients come to them looking to be ill. I am sure there is a segment of the population for whom this is true, and there is a mental health condition to identify this! But to label all of us as either hypochondriacal or a malinger is unacceptable and highly insulting. Especially when we are coming to doctors in many cases in need of answers to symptoms we are having! I will let you read it for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
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