Wednesday, January 17, 2007

MOTHERFUCK!


Okay, officially City hospital in Saskatoon is completely discriminatory towards persons with mental illnesses. I waited for hours in ER to see someone after fighting with an admitting nurse about why I was there because of a rash. Then I finally get in to see the doctor, Dr. Clifford T. Chase, who as soon as he found out I had bipolar disorder started talking down to me like I was an idiot. He seemed more interested in pontificating on bipolar disorder and telling me what it was than inquiring about my rash and the additional symptoms I would be presenting with. When I told him I was there specifically because Lamictal comes with a black box warning about fatal rashes he just dismissed me as someone "reading things on the internet." Uh, no, that's in the side effect profile that comes with the goddamn medication and fatal skin rashes with Lamictal are very well documented. He made some very general assumptions, like assuming I was manic for four years. He interrogated me on my psych history which was not the issue whatsoever, and then instead of giving me specific injections I may need to keep this from going into Steven-Johnson's Syndrome and making sure I had blood levels checked for a week, he gave me a referral to a psychiatrist.

WHAT. THE. FUCK!?

And the sad thing is I KNEW this was going to happen, I so knew it. As soon as I said bipolar I wasn't a person anymore, I was just some silly crazy person who was upset over a little rash. He didn't say anything like "No, that doesn't look like Steven-Johnson's Syndrome, you'll be fine." He gave me a fucking psych referral and some fucking benadryl. And he never even let me talk really, he just carried on feeling all smug and superior because he has a bipolar son so he knows all about nutters. Fucking ass. Anyway, on the epileptic message board I posted on where they told me to go to ER, someone said to make a complaint with administration. So I will.

What the fuck is wrong with front line health workers? And what the hell is wrong with doctors? I wonder if I should file a human rights complaint. At the very least I will say publicly here and now that Dr. Chase should not be practicing medicine if he can't put aside his prejudices and actually listen to his patient's concerns.

By the way, Steven-Johnson's syndrome starts out as a rash which then blisters and causes large pieces of skin to literally fall off of your body. It's fatal because then infections develop, and people with it often have to spend a month in the hospital in the most sterile place they have while also getting skin grafts. It is VERY serious and I'm sick of goddamn front line health workers not even knowing what a black box warning means. So tomorrow I will see my regular doctor, hopefully, and I will tell her what happened to me at City. And I will chew out City admin, and hopefully they won't also be discriminatory.

I'm also making an appointment with an old doctor I used to see long ago who practices alternative medicine. He's REALLY good, and hopefully he can give me something to get rid of this rash and also help me find an alternative to drugs.

I almost thought he was going to send me to the bin, he had that sickening smile that means "you need a psych evaluation." Motherfucker. I hope he loses his license.

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