Why I’m driven!
I agree that the patient needs to work on their overall attitude towards their demise, to keep from losing their inner spirit, their fighting stance, their education and understanding of what goes with their disease, and I believe it’s my goal and my “job” to do this, but the truth is, if my daughter were to be diagnosed tomorrow, I would start making plans to move to Canada. There would still be no guarantees of course and this move would bring about immediate and long lasting sadness and guilt, yet there would be a better chance of success towards the goal than counting on the medical system in the US to help her. And I have a lot of knowledge and experience of the medical system here!
Look it up. There are actual doctors, nurses and insurance professionals who have suffered at the hands of their own systems! There’s a group of doctors and pharmacists, and patients of course, who know firsthand what it feels like when the people whose job it is to protect them from evil, namely the DEA and the justice system, turn on them, making them perpetrators instead of victims or people just trying to do their jobs. What does this tell you? A system so bad that even the professionals who create and function within these diabolical schemes, can still fall prey to it. Everything I’m pointing out here, as dramatic and absurd as it sounds, happened to me personally, and when I talked to literally thousands of people in chronic pain, their stories were equal or worse than mine, in every case!! So I promise to dedicate my life and the mission of my team to the wellbeing of everyone in pain whom we come in contact with. Now, can each person in the other fields of the US medical structure promise the same? If you do, maybe then, we can talk about combining all of the medical disciplines, western and alternative, coming together under the blessing of the insurance industry and under one roof, the roof of a building called a “Pain Center.” These facilities can be modeled after a few existing practices, run by people who have apparently figured out how to apply the future to the present. Mass General Hospital in Boston, where I found my salvation, is one. There’s one in St. Louis, MO and another in Phoenix, AZ. I saw them in person. This tells me there’s more out there. What about the doctors I met who could be counted on to understand and treat pain patients properly, with caring and sensitivity? I want you to know, I’m not trying to single out any person or group. I know for a fact the patient’s role in their own downfall, I am one of them and I can see where I went astray; but why I went astray is directly attributed to some very corrupt factions in the system. You must now believe me when I say, “There’s a big difference between being negative… and facing reality.” |
When I ponder the state of the medical system in the US, having fully accepted my fate and my role in this debacle, I get the thought, or fear, of my daughter inheriting my disease, which is entirely possible. I can help her to seek the positive. I can guide her through the maze we call “the negative side of the Pain Cycle. “ I can motivate her to build up the parts of her body that still work and to avoid damaging pain. I can show her where to find the education she will need to understand the disease. Yet, with all the knowledge and experience I have in this chaos and confusion we call the Medical system, I cannot protect her from the pitfalls awaiting her once, and if, she gets her diagnosis.
When and if her doctors, insurance company and her employer all turn on her, what will she do? How do I even know who and when they decide she is a liability to their bottom line, deem her a “malingerer” or a drug addict looking for a free fix, string her along for a few years, and then cut her from their roles leaving her bankrupt and destitute? I really believe that this is the point of everything I do and stand for. One day, if we accomplish our goals, my daughter will be privilege to a medical community that cares for her, that wants her to be happy and productive, that will help her fight her disease and use their expertise to guide her through the system with her good health in mind. If there’s a point to all of this; to the education and awareness of chronic pain issues, to the personal fight for quality of life, to the professional fight for treatments and cures, it is at the very least to keep the next generation, the millions of prospective patients, from going through what we had to try and survive. The medical system is made up of five basic entities, the doctors, the lawyers, the insurance companies, the employers and, I believe we include the patient. I believe it begins here, with the acknowledgement and acceptance of the patient as a member of the crew, the team, the experts. After all, there is no better expert in a patient’s illness and how it affects them than the patient themselves. Once this happens, we can begin to start fixing the otter problems. I think it’s very important to teach and train a patient how to become proactive in their own treatments, how to educate themselves to the complexities of their disease and how to properly assess and record their pain and other feelings causing them loss of productivity and happiness. They can and should play an important role in their diagnosis and treatment plans. If they are welcomed in to the medical system, they can be shown the complexities of this system, what’s involved with the billing process and the inner workings of Workman’s Compensation and personal injury insurances. If everyone involved were dedicated to the goal of the patient achieving happiness and productivity, maybe the patient would be motivated to getting back to work and to avoiding the deep and subliminal depression that goes along with long term pain. If everyone in this system were to concentrate on fixing their own ills, their own systems that seem “out to get” the patients, maybe then there could be an answer to making it all work for everybody. |