Unmet needs: why we're afraid to talk to our doctors

 

This is a Facebook comment that I want to turn into a blog post, because these are important issues, and I assume I am hardly the only one who is struggling. It's an unpopular view about which hardly anyone speaks, and I think this is due to guilt, shame and being intimidated by the labyrinthine nature of the medical system right now. It causes more stress than it solves, so I try to avoid it as much as I can, and avoiding medical issues and hoping they will go away is NOT a good strategy over the long haul - and I don't even think we're at the midpoint yet. I normally use a lot of images to break up text, but this is going down as is. 

I have one of those phoned-in "doctor's appointments" scheduled in a few minutes and am waiting by the phone with my stomach in knots, though I was told the call could come any time between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm. 

I am dreading it. After six months, I have so many unaddressed issues built up that I don't trust myself NOT to spill them, become angry and alienate the only source of help I have right now. She has a history of discounting and countering virtually everything I say. Medication is also a huge problem, and based on past experience I fear she will withhold some things in a way that "shouldn't bother me" because it didn't bother anyone else she has treated. 

I am being told, not WHAT to feel, but the only way TO feel, because, surprise surprise, there's a pandemic on and we're made to feel very guilty and even shamed for having medical needs that have gone unmet for half a year (and most of this stuff has been going on for 2 years or so while I have actively searched for a better doctor). 

In my case, it's psychiatric, so I virtually don't have a leg to stand on, and based on 50 years of dismal experience, this almost cannot go well. Everyone has their own bag of bricks to lug around, and each one is different, but I have been trying very hard to convince myself that this stuff isn't important, and I should just be a big girl and suck it up. That is the impression I get, anyway. 

I try to keep negative medical things off my Facebook page because it is NOT a popular view to criticize doctors, who have been lifted up to the status of selfless heroes when many of them are just not doing their regular jobs and are leaving people (not just me) with no safety net, which is considered some kind of indulgence, I think. My main hope is that she will have an anonymous intern handle it, which she has frequently done over the past two years. My encounters with her, though rare, are incredibly stressful and leave me feeling drained and discounted. And I can't "just get another doctor", so that door is closed to me. 

Wish me luck, please.

DAM! These trolls are creepy!

 

Carol McGiffin: "People still think someone is going to touch them and t...

Though I was never even remotely a right-winger in anything, I am beginning to see some truth in what that side is saying now. A lot of this is excruciatingly true and seems to conclude we WON'T get out of this thing if the issue is managed in the dysfunctional, dystopian way it seems to be now. 

We can't live on the edge of Armageddon! And it's not happening anyway. It won't, in spite of all the dire predictions. We can't have the Emmys on Zoom, cancel Christmas and basically give up the precious and crucial (to mental health and wholeness) rituals of civilization forever, which is what I see coming. 

Already young people have had to cancel ALL their rites of passage which are a crucial part of their identity as emerging adults. A big chunk will be missing forever. We're stopgapping our way along in ways which I see as bizarre and even grotesque (a choir practicing singing with masks on!).

People have cancelled their weddings, for God's sake, changing the entire course of their lives, and some relationships may not last through the anxiety and strain. And let's not talk about the small businesses that are crashing down like a great row of dominos. So what is the answer? Good sense may be a good start, something between Trump's idiotic, blustering denial and the rantings of the left, which are becoming more and more narrow and militant. 

You can't put a foot wrong or say one single "wrong" thing or the Twitterati will attack you en masse and in public, and meantime the narrow, intolerant rules and the lingo become more complicated and confusing all the time. If you're gay, you are now identified as LGBTQRST+2, whatever THAT particular equation means. But get it wrong, and you're suddenly "homophobic".

Meantime, the culture continues to sexually exploit little girls in a movie like Cuties. Sometimes I want to throw in the towel myself. 

Creepy classic: THE RAVEN by Edgar Allan Poe

Why is it you never hear a woman read this poem? I'll fix that right now.

Goodbye, white borders. . . (random png transparents)

 

Blogger recently updated its "interface", a word which scared the hell out of me at first. Suddenly ALL my images, all through my entire blog history, had glaring white borders, and png transparents appeared in a white box. After MUCH dithering around and finally finding a helpful support page with a real human being in charge, I figured it out. All is restored to harmony, though with the new interface, some of my older posts probably don't look quite right. Facebook and YouTube recently changed format, and no doubt I will soon lose Internet Explorer and my photo-editing program, which is old as the hills but which works beautifully and is simple to use. Sometimes things are just updated, and I can do all the same stuff. Why am I writing all this, when it probably doesn't interest you? It interests ME, and is pretty crucial to my continuing as a blogger, YouTuber, Facebooker, etc. I am slow to change, but how gratifying is it when I finally figure something out??? WOWEE.

Lenny, we always loved you!

I want to write a much more detailed post about Bernstein, as I'm on one of my "kicks" with him (I saw him conduct in 1967 to open a new Centennial Hall in London, Ontario and remember every detail of it, unlike all the other dull concerts my parents schlepped me to.) I've been digging into his life with biographies, and have found one absolute dud, one absolute gem, and a few in between. Reviews to come.

At this moment, to be honest, I'm experimenting a lot with the "new Blogger" format which, so far, has been. . . Let's just say I'm having to try a lot of new things. 

I hate change, and this is that, but I can also see where Blogger was becoming a dinosaur and would soon no longer function at all. I LOVE my new home page, the setup isn't too radically different, but why the damn white boxes around everything? 

I've had to get used to the New YouTube, the New Facebook, a new email system, etc. etc., and so far the changes have either been beneficial or not noteworthy. 

So if I end up posting some pretty strange stuff over the next days or weeks or months, that will be why. 

Duck playing the drums

This got over FOUR MILLION views on YouTube. I'm lucky if I break ten.

It IS, however, pretty cool. 

REALLY dumb article about Prince Harry.

Click below for:

REALLY dumb article about Prince Harry! 

(REALLY dumb.)😕

Grumpy Grandpa: get me out of here!

 

SMILE! You're on hidden camera

 

(Why surveillance and "secret" photography is NOT a new thing!)

Secret Street Photos in the 1890s Taken by a Student with a Hidden Camera

Dec 23, 2018 Steve Palace

Norwegian Carl Størmer became a force to be reckoned with in the fields of math and astrophysics. But he also had other interests.

Every great mind starts somewhere and it was the business of photography that caught his eye… quite literally.

While studying mathematics at the University of Oslo (formerly the Royal Frederick University, Kristiania) he found himself dabbling in the fine art of taking snaps.

Carl Størmer. Photo by Nasjonalbiblioteket CC BY 2.0

Yet these were no ordinary pictures. Burgeoning talent that he was, 19-year-old Størmer used the historical equivalent of the spy cam to capture city life at its most naturalistic.

QUESTION: OK, so was he a brilliant innovator or just a sneaky little bastard? And what ELSE did he photograph without the subject's knowledge or approval? I must have a suspicious mind. 

The Troll Doll Channel: Strangely beautiful! One-of-a-kind trolls

"It might be food" (part 486)

 

Indeed it might, but probably not. 

Why food needed to be encased in brownish jelly made from boiled-down hoofs and hides, we will never know. Nor will we know if people actually ate such things. Perhaps it was a way to hide rancid leftovers in a festive casing that disguised the fact these were actually WAR RATIONS merely designed to keep you alive.

Anyway! As Blogger changes over into something I cannot even recognize, and as I struggle to master a system which is in no way an improvement over the old one which I've happily used for ten years, I hereby present the actual recipes that match up to. . . well, none of these pictures actually. But they're so lyrically awful that they form a kind of bizarre poetry. Or I think they do. I don't know, tonight I feel as if maybe I DO have COVID after all and will soon die. If so, so long, it's been good to know you. And so long, Blogger, the way I knew you in those precious times of the ancient technological past.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bentley is my joy!

 

Lovely to look at: Victorian ladies in colour

WHEN???

ULTIMATE Creepy Clown Compilation!

With music.