This is hard stuff. It is hard to know what to do. It is really hard to know when to see a doc and when to listen to the doc and whether or not you will be making yourself better or worse by doing so or by not doing so.
My first appearance in this world was so fast and easy that I was born in the caul just as my mother arrived at the hospital. So, this was not a bit traumatic for me as I was protected by the lovely sac of amniotic fluid. However, the hospital had a process and the proceeded to do their thing. So, after I was already born, they shaved my mom, gave her an enema and administered Scopolomine. That was the nasty drug called Twilight Sleep. Mom said you could feel every pain but were in some kind of nightmare haze where you couldn't function. I remind you that all this was to help with childbirth usually necessitating the need for forceps because the mother couldn't push. I was already born when all this came to Mom. She got this treatment because it was standing orders.
I escaped all that. My next medical experience came when I was brought to Children's Hospital in Boston to have two tiny birthmarks removed. One was on my face, one on my left bicep. Wonder of wonders, they were removed by the radiation. I was left with a pit in my arm where the muscle never grew and a large circle of skin was discolored. Oops. When I was about 24, my parents got a call from Children's that they were tracking down the kids that had had my treatment because our group seemed to all be getting thyroid cancer. They wanted me to come in for x-rays to check my thyroid. I thought that sounded almost too stupid to contemplate. What if they made another 'oops'?
When I was 17 I had an awful tooth ache and my Mom was at work. I went to the family dentist and he pulled the tooth. After he pulled it out, he looked at it and said," Oh shucks, I could have saved that one."
But fortunately all this was little stuff. I was fortunate. I had great health and a good middle class family. I was taken care of.
"Saturday Night Live" used to have a segment called "Lower Expectations". That was sort of my trajectory financially. For most of my life I had no health insurance nor did my kids. Once, I lived in Marblehead, MA, I felt a small lump in my breast. I went to the walk-in clinic and had a breast x-ray (here we go again!). The doctor said, "I am going to get you in for a biopsy tomorrow morning and we'll decide things from there." I told him I had no health insurance. He said, "Well, keep an eye on it and if it is still bothering you, come by in a few months." My good luck, I had a friend who was a doc and he checked it out and I was fine. Lower expectations.
The thing is that I have been healthy and lucky. I, of course know hundreds of people who have had spectacular help from doctors. Of course. I have seen medical miracles. But my question is how do you know when something is a fad, a standing order, a completely off base, terrible diagnosis? How do you know when less is better? Is it luck? Karma? Getting your own medical education body part by body part?
Once I drove my shit box car to visit my friend and mentor, John Gardner. He looked at the fabric showing through my bald tires. As he bought me new tires, I said I thought they were looking better that morning when I set out. He said, "Julie, tires never get better." Point well taken. Maybe that has to be my medical measuring stick. If it gets better with or without the help of a doctor, well, yea. If it doesn't, change something in the program.
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