I Hate Doctors

I spent today with mom. I was working on a dove costume for the children’s Christmas program at chuch tomorrow — my kids’ choir is singing “The Friendly Beasts,” with solos for the various animals, one of which is a dove, the only thing that the church didn’t have a costume for. I just decided to take it to mom’s because I had hardly seen her this week and I missed her. So we sat and sewed and talked … and then she helped me glue the feathers on the mask to make the dove’s face. And it was just a nice day.

But doctors make me so mad. She saw the doctor yesterday — not her regular doctor; he’s out of town until next Tuesday. This is some young snot who thinks its okay to patronise women and sneer at them. (BTW, I didn’t go with her, or I would have ripped this guy limb from limb and had him for lunch.)

Mom had stopped eating for three days because it would hurt so bad when food moved through her intestines that she would be screaming in agony — and my mom has a high pain threshold; she’s not one of those whiny, complaining, neurotic types. In fact, getting her to go to the doctor usually takes an act of Congress. She just doesn’t make a big deal of illness or pain — this is a woman who had a home birth with no drugs, at the age of 36. She’s no wuss.

So when she said she couldn’t take this anymore and needed a doctor, we all took it very seriously. It’s also significant that she had a polyp removed from her colon a few years ago, and was told that they could recur. Anyway, when she stopped eating and cleared everything out of her system, she had no more attacks of the excruciating pain — just the nagging, dull pain that has been a problem for the last few weeks. When it all first started, she thought it was just intestinal flu … but it’s been going on too long for that now.

So this snotty jerk who calls himself a doctor says, “Well, what do you think would happen if you eat?” And she told him that it would hurt when it passed through her intestines. And he just sneered and said, “Well, why don’t you just go home and eat something and see what happens. If it’s too bad, you just call and let me know.”

See, here’s the thing. My mother is a homemaker. Has been for about forty years. Apparently, choosing to stay home and take care of your own kids, educate them, and help them and your husband make their way through life, maintain the family home, etc., makes you just a step above a mental retard with an IQ of 3, and not worth the time it takes to make you well. Apparently, even if your family thinks you are the Queen of the World, you are just a worthless parasite who is not worth a doctor’s valuable time to help, and the Hippocratic Oath be damned. So my mom is back home, eating because she has no choice, and in excruciating pain again. Damn doctor.

See, a few years ago, she had this kind of pain and some other symptoms, and I convinced her to see my doctor, who had always been respectful and decent to me. (I forgot that at that time I was already divorced and had a job, so I was a “contributing member” of society. Like she wasn’t.) I was stunned and outraged when this guy told my mom that she pain she was having was just something she was going to have to live with. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. And the tone he was using with my mom, and the lack of seriousness with which he listened to what she said. We left in high dudgeon, and I have never returned — though I have seriously considered suing him for malpractise, because he could have caused my mother’s death with his cavalier attitude toward her pain.

Well, my dad found this other doctor a few weeks after that and had her examined again, and that is when they found the first polyp. Apparently, they found that one just in time, because the doctor then said something to the effect that it was large enough that it could have blocked her colon or become embedded and become malignant, or something.

So you see, that is what we are afraid has happened now. We are afraid that, with all the pain from the accident this summer, she didn’t notice the early symptoms of a recurrence of the polyp, and that it’s back with a vengeance. And she’s in such pain. She can’t go on not eating, but she can’t continue to suffer the excruciating pain that digesting her food causes, either.

So HEY, ALL YOU DOCTORS OUT THERE! LISTEN UP! My mother contributes more to society in one day than you do in one year!

• My mom raised three decent, God-fearing, law-abiding citizens who all have good jobs and support themselves without relying on public assistance.
• My mom, when she found out how I was being mistreated by my spouse, told me that if I would leave him, she would do anything necessary to help me, and she has done: she takes care of my children while I’m at work, helps me with their educations, prepares all of my family’s meals for us — all of them highly nutritious, and refuses to let me pay her for her time.
• When I lost my job, my mom made sure that the kids and I never went hungry or without clothes.
• The day the nasty pervert tried to pick me up when I walked home from school, my mom was there when I ran in the front door of our house, hysterical and panicked. My mom called the police, helped me and held me while I answered their questions and filed a police report, and comforted and reassured me for hours afterward. And picked me up after school for several weeks, until I felt safe walking home again. If she’d had a job outside the home, she would not have been home when I got there, and I would have faced two hours of fear by myself — not to mention that I’d have had to start walking home again the next day.

So, my mom may seem like a useless parasite to you, but to me she’s a saint and a hero. To me and my family, she’s worth more than a hundred of you white-coated Godplayers put together. So stop treating my mom like a worthless nobody and start acting like she matters, damn you!

Tags: doctors, Family Life, homemakers, medical issues, Mom, patronizing, prejudice, rant