Have I mentioned doctors lately? I haven’t?

Well, doctors. One wonders what it is they actually do for us most of the time, except for the part where they substantially jack up the cost of living beyond the point where we can afford it.

A doctor diagnosed my multiple sclerosis but then, of course, could do nothing about it. A doctor got credit for diagnosing my cancerous tumor, though that was actually done by a physician’s assistant after the doctor had diagnosed it as a hernia. Doctors kept adding a plethora of drugs to my daily routine, all of which were unfriendly to my renal system, which ended not long ago in complete kidney failure for a few days. And, of course, in general they tend to diagnose and treat based upon their particular fallacy of the Average Human Being. And one of those, I ain’t. Neither are you.

So, they took me off all drugs, and I began to feel better than I had in many, many years. I am therefore chary of going back on and meds, knowing that I will feel worse. All of the conditions, save one, that they were treating me for no longer show up in tests. I am still about 10% high in the area of blood pressure, a legitimate concern.

I am doing my part. I am taking my blood pressure several times a day, keeping a spreadsheet and building a graph, sometimes checking it twice. I send this information along to my heart/kidney specialist, along with a record of how I have felt on any hypertension meds we have tried. At the end of such missives, I ask for advice.

I sent the last such correspondence about three weeks ago and have still heard nothing in return. As it transpires, doctors want to talk and not listen. I suppose they think that is the right and proper thing to do, since they are treating that mythical average person, whereas I am an actual person asking for actual treatment based upon my own actual peculiarities. They do not want the average person they are treating to die, but they clearly could care less about me.

I will call them again, I suppose, and they will try to blame their lack of an answer on me. Did you address the letter properly? Are you sure you mailed it? Gee, we don’t have it. Maybe you could send it again? All of which is pure bullshit. I mailed it. They got it. But treating real people is pretty difficult, it turns out, so they have never really bothered to set up an internal procedure to deal with processing and reading what an involved patient has to say. That average dude is a lot easier to deal with.

So, if I stop being here one of these days, you can be fairly sure that it is because one or more doctors, highly paid professionals every one, failed to do their jobs. As a result they either pushed me to my death in a sea of neglect and improper medication or, conversely, just ignored me long enough that I very permanently went away.