My Doctors Always Suck, otherwise entitled Why I Hate Kaiser

I've met people who like Kaiser Permanente. They're real people out there in the world and they don't hate their healthcare. Weird, I know.

Backstory. I have yet to have a great experience with a doctor.

Wait. That's a lie. I have had one great experience with an ear, nose, throat specialist who, after my 6th sinus infection in a row, told me I have a deviated septum and changed my life with a little invention called saline. He also told me to not let any doctor bully me into surgery and that it was my choice and surgery doesn't always fix things and to do my research first. And then I asked him to marry me.

And it goes without saying that I have had nothing but wonderful experiences with Planned Parenthood, though you only see a nurse, but that nurse and the staff are all welcoming, wonderful people who listen to your needs and see you as a human being.

And then there was that time in Marseille when I got horrific food poisoning and a doctor came to my hotel room, examined me nicely, gave me magic pills that made me better, and never charged me a thing. Go France!

Other than that, doctors have been not great pour moi. I have friends and family in the medical field and I have to assume they're nice and talented and treat their patients well, but that just hasn't been my personal experience with my own doctors. If I tell you all my stories, this post would be a tome, so I won't.

Suffice to say, I hate going to the doctor and do so reluctantly and only when necessary. I am all about health, but have figured out the hard way that the only way to be healthy is to be my own advocate and, often, to treat myself.

Cut to this morning. No, wait, I should back up. I have had chronic UTIs, otherwise knowns as bladder infections, for the last year. I try to treat naturally with water and cranberry juice and good hygiene, but I keep getting them. Last October, I got a vicious one and had to go to a Kaiser clinic because my primary doc is always booked up and they did urinalysis, confirmed the infection, and treated me with antibiotics.

So, yesterday I came down with another infection. Not wanting to fuck around and, after talking to a friend in the medical field and learning that sometimes chronic UTIs can be a sign of a kidney infection, I got an appoint for this morning, but with a new Kaiser doc because, again, my doc is always booked up.

I got there early, peed in the little cup, and waited to meet this new doctor and find out what's the deal. This doctor, she, well, she was awful. She went into the room with all these preconceived notions of who I am and how I take care of myself and didn't listen to a word I said. She looked at me like I was making up my symptoms, which is especially insulting because my mother is a true hypochondriac, and told me that it probably wasn't a real infection all these times and I probably just don't eat well.

And then she went on a rant about how Americans eat and I just can't eat all that processed food and that's why I'm overweight (!) and that the bad food inflamed my bladder and made me think I had an infection.

All the while, I'm trying to explain to her that, while I'm not perfect, I do try to eat well and I always read ingredients because of my food allergies, and I gained weight this year because my exercise changed, etc etc etc.

And she didn't hear one word I said. I tried asking her about my kidneys but she wouldn't hear it. She looked at me like I was this fat slob who overate and didn't watch what I ate and I deserved to be getting this symptoms and I'm pretty dumb to think it's a real infection. She also told me that the doctor I'd seen in October overreacted and I didn't have much (!) of an infection and I probably didn't need antibiotics.

I explained that if that were true, I'd be upset because I try to not take antibiotics if I don't need them and why would a doctor say I had an infection when I didn't?

She said I didn't have an infection this time and I was fine. I told her I drank a ton of cranberry juice yesterday and maybe the infection has cleared up already. Again, she wouldn't hear it, just kept telling me how passionate she is about eating well and health and told me she just cares about me and wants me to be healthy.

I finally talked her into at least doing a blood panel to look for food allergens, because I've been trying to get a Kaiser doctor to do that for a year as well and because it was the only reason she'd concede to be why I keep having these symptoms. And I won't get the results for a week. And then I was sent on my merry way, still having symptoms, and feeling the most judged and the most unheard and unseen I've felt in a long time.

First of all, even if food can cause those symptoms, it's an awfully large assumption to make without talking to me and letting me explain my eating habits. She just assumed I didn't know what I eat when the exact opposite is true. I do a ton of research on what I eat because eating is so perilous for me already. Yes, sometimes I eat bad foods and, yes, I eat too much even of good foods. But I am not unaware of what I eat.

Second, even if food is the cause of my symptoms, looking at me like I'm a horrible, stupid, and naive person is not her job. It's her job to help me figure out the problem and solve it. Instead she basically told me I was too fat and couldn't take care of myself.

Never mind that I'm not fat. I gained 25 pounds this year, sure, but before that I was a good weight and I've already lost five pounds and I'm working hard to find my exercise routine as an adult that doesn't have 5 dance classes a week. I'm not unaware of my weight gain and I've never struggled with my weight before now. I'm just older and figuring things out and a little compassion would be great. But she just assumed she knew who I am and how I live.

Third, what if it isn't food? She just refused to entertain any other options. What if it is a kidney infection and what if it continues untreated? I don't know what it is and it isn't really my job to find out because I didn't go to medical school. And it is her job! But I don't think she ever planned on exploring what was my issue. She is obviously on a crusade for health food, which isn't inherently a bad thing, but if I came in with cancer warning signs, would she send me on my way and tell me to eat more tomatoes? At some point, a doctor who works in traditional medicine has to actually practice tradition medicine!

Yes, wellness is important. Of course it is. Yes, I need to lose weight. I'm working on it. Yes, we all need to know what we're eating, but I do! If all I needed was a nutritionist, why am I paying insurance premiums to get shuffled between doctors and get told I'm a stupid, fat, American and not worth listening to? Why ever see a doctor at all?

That said, I'm at this very moment trying to get into my primary doctor. Because I think I should get a second opinion. Also, because I still feel sick and she didn't give me any guidance whatsoever on how to feel better! And I feel like I spent my entire morning and paid $20 to have a highly paid professional tell me how bad a person I am.

If I don't get in today, I am canceling my insurance. What good is it? What the hell am I paying for? If I just wanted to be berated, I'd befriend Jillian Michaels.

I guess, at the end of the day, I just wanted to be heard. I am my own advocate. I do take my health seriously. I do know how to listen to my body. And I just wanted my doctor to give me the chance to explain that.

I just wanted to not be treated like I'm my mother, a drug addict hypochondriac who, by the way, is always able to bully doctors into whatever pills she wants and whatever diagnosis she has in mind. Hell, maybe my mom is on to something there.

The Pee Strikes Back

Have you ever had a bladder infection? I guess it's technically a urinary tract infection. But I don't really care what they're called. No matter the name, they're utter misery.

I'm prone to them, who knows why. Maybe it's due to all those years in leotards and tights (did you know you can get them from non-breathable undergarments?), though I haven't had one in a while because I'm pretty diligent about preventing them. You know, peeing after sex, drinking lots of cranberry juice, wearing breathable undies, etc.

And I usually feel them coming on and can stop one before it gets evil. But today? Oh today. It came on like a neon light in Vegas after the apocalypse. Or maybe it was announcing the apocalypse. Either way? Pain. So much pain.

I lasted a couple hours at work, actually, though I don't know how much work I actually accomplished in between jogs to the restroom, where I'd get about 2 seconds of reprieve, glorious reprieve, then go back to my desk in pain. Then I threw in the towel and went home.

You can take antibiotics for a UTI, but I try not to pump full of the antis since my childhood was spent on too many and my immune system is doing its best to become the tough bastard I know it can be. But sometimes it's unavoidable. My plan leaving work was to go home, pump full of cranberry juice, and hope I can flush it out without having to see a doctor.

Plan is as yet still in effect.

The drive home? Utter misery. I pee before I leave the office, but then 8 floors down in an elevator, trying to escape the chatty front desk (whom I normally delight chatting with, but desperate times yo), walk to the parking lot, trying to get my key from the parking attendant, and the ensuing traffic all the way is. completely. torturous.

Fuck speed limits. The pain is so bad and all I want to do is just pee. Peeing sounds like heaven. Even though I know only a dribble will come, right then, peeing is better than anything I could or would ever do ever in the history of doing things. Ever. EVER. As I'm driving, I'm concocting plans that if I get pulled over, I'll just pee on the cop. That'll teach him to pull over a woman with a bladder infection. If it's a woman, she'll simply understand.

And I have to stop at the store to get my juice (happy, happy juice). But of course the parking lot is a clusterfuck (as always) and then (of course) this 157 year old woman in a landyacht hoopdy cuts me off to get into the parking lot before me (as if I'd still her handycapable spot anyway.) (not that I didn't consider it.) (but I do have SOME scruples.) and then slows down to a pace so slow that I'm pretty sure snails could beat. At this point, I'm in so much pain that if I don't pee, I'll yank granny from her boat and knock out every one of her fake teeth and pee on her face.

I finally park and run into the grocery store, suddenly developing the superhuman ability to locate the restroom purely on instinct. I could have closed my eyes and been able to find it, dodging the carts and screaming miniature humans and walkers. I could have leapt over the entire bank of cash registers if that had been necessary. You've heard of mothers pulling cars of their children? If the toilet had been crushed by a car, I would have lifted it off and tossed it onto a child. That's how bad I had to pee.

I finally pee, shoving aside a germaphobe mother with two kids who is deliberating which stall is the least teaming with potential plagues, because I would pee in a whole in the ground in Calcutta at this point. Fuck germs. What are they gonna do anyway? I already HAVE the infection! HAH! So there.

Tiny reprieve. Grab my juice. Remember to pay for my juice. Sprint back to my car. As I'm leaving the parking lot, I wait for the slowest jeep on the planet to pass all the while shouting from my car, "GOOOOOOOOOO!" and he slows down and stares at me as he passes, all serial killer-like, never losing eye contact, like those busts in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.

Normally, the serial killer uber creepy stare would freak me the fuck out, but I'm so manic at this point that I could peel his skin back from his creepy skull, pluck out his eyeballs, and pee on his face. Apparently peeing on people is my ultimate revenge today. However, he doesn't appear to be scared of me. His mistake.

The short drive from the store to my house is a blur. It's excruciatingly long yet I don't remember any of it. For all I know, I don't even have my car. I just floated home dreaming of pee and cranberry juice, clutching my burning abdomen for all its life.

Screwing my assigned spot and taking a visitor spot near the door, I sprint up the stairs to my apartment (in heels), making a mental note that if there is ever an Olympic event for heeled stair sprinting, I'd win the gold.

Rushing into the downstairs bathroom, I scare the shit out of my working-from-home roomie, pee the most glorious 5 seconds of my life, then prepare myself for a day of pain.

Which is where you'll most likely find me right now. Unless you're reading this several days from posting. If that's the case, and I'm still peeing like an old man with a prostate the size of Montana, just shoot me. 

Crazy Lady's tips for surviving a UTI:

• Get yourself a crapton of cranberry juice. Not juice cocktail. Not from concentrate. You need 100% cranberry juice. Just go straight to the organcic or health food section of your store. You'll die a little inside when you see the price, but when you think about how little juice you actually get in those juice cocktails, you'll see you're getting your money's worth. 
• Drink said cranberry juice. I like to cut the tart a little with club soda, though. But that means I just have to drink more. I like to keep the whole bottle of juice near me so I don't have to waste any time in between cup fills. 
•  Drinking tons of fluids is good. I know you don't want to pee anymore, but you want to have something to pee out right? Right. Plus, you're flushing that asshole infection out.
• If you can be home, awesome. You'll want to be close to the bathroom and have the freedom to bitch and moan without anyone around running in fear. Also: making happy moans while peeing makes it feel even that much better. 
• If you have to work, hope to hell your workspace is next to the bathroom. All I'm sayin'. 
• Another point for staying home is you won't want to fiddle with extraneous and silly things like locking doors and undoing zippers and/or buttons. Waste of time. 
• Write a snarky blog post full of hyperbole to make yourself feel better. Works every time.