No fool like a (really cute) old fool (with rockin' gazongas)

The main problem in living this far out of the way is that your choices are real limited when it comes to health care. Now, living in America means thats going to be a problem anyway, but I also live in a tiny American town that had to advertise internationally to persuade two doctors to come practice here.
Naturally, we didn't end up with anyone who had to turn down offers to teach neurosurgery.

Whenever I've had to choose a new doctor I try and go for the youngest woman on staff. If it comes down to one of those 'feet in the stirrups' type procedures I'd rather have someone who knows their way around the territory doing the exam, for one thing. For another, the younger person knows the newest procedures. Right?

Well, this time I didn't get much of a choice.

I have a couple of chronic conditions that make it necessary to visit the doctors fairly often. A 30-some-odd mile round trip to Bellingham is out of the question in midwinter. A 17 mile round trip to Lynden is just ridiculous. Why? Seems all the practitioners in Lynden are stonewall Christians who belong to these profit driven, drug company-sponsored 'treatment management' programs. On the one hand you get to listen to Dr. Apostles' witness while he does your PAP smear, and on the other you end up getting convinced you need all the expensive drugs and treatments that 'Big Drug Corporation, Ltd.' is pushing. That is a WHOLE 'NOTHER POST. Suffice it to say, that WON'T do.

When we got news of the new practitioners' opening shop here in town there was much rejoicing. Rejoicing tempered with the realization that we were going to be dealing with some 'C' students, mind; this is American medicine after all. But at least it's a foot in the door and close, right?

Well...
Doctor #1 is an elderly gynaecologist who decided, once he'd moved here, that he wanted to be a General Practitioner. Just because. Try something new; what the hey. Never trained for it. Not qualified. The guy spent the last 30 years talking to tuna; suddenly he's magically able to diagnose throat cancer and cataracts and Alzheimers? Sure! Why the fuck not?
This is the same guy who basically tried to kill my Yummy Biker by prescribing him a combination of drugs that even I know is LETHAL.

Prior to that I had to go in and have a talk with ol' Doc Tuna about how reading your patients' goddamn charts beforehand is a good idea? Since-and I could be wrong here; after all I didn't go to medical school like he did (back in the Pleistocene) -a patient with a previously diagnosed sleeping disorder should probably NOT be given medication proven to increase the likelihood of OPERATING MACHINERY, EATING AND DRIVING IN ONES' SLEEP.

The other doctor is a youngish guy....hardcore Christian but not obnoxious about it. He operates independently of the 'treatment management' Mafia, and so I figured why not give him a chance?

The upside of this is that he's a good guy.

The downside of this is that he's a typically overworked American GP who has compounded that whole issue by having six kids AND being a member of Doctors Without Borders.

Kids are good, and I believe in this program, and I admire the guy for being part of it.

What I don't like is the fact that he has a standardized packages of speeches he delivers on any given medical issue, nearly word for word each time. The man isn't seeing individuals; he's seeing conditions.
The guy is right on the verge of burnout.

This past winter was possibly the worst winter for me, health-wise, on record. I spend more time sick than I did well, and I had a nearly constant respiratory infection going. I went through over-the-counter rescue inhalers by the metric shitload. I needed to go out and be active. It's vital that I do so, now that I have diabetes. And I wanted to get out and be active too...but every goddamn time I did the infection came back, or I caught another cold, or got bronchitis, or ran onto a fungal bloom someplace or a cat or some feathers and had a huge allergic reaction. My system was under constant, constant attack and the asthma was just RAGING.

But oh yes, I did go to see my doctor. Three times.

Each time I received the same standardized speech about 'viral infections are untreatable with antibiotics and I should wait and let it run its course and then come in only if it persists'. ('Persist' being the infinitely definable operative term here.)

Now, were I a younger person I would have bought this unquestioningly. As an older person with a medical phobia, I let myself trust that his experience would be recent and that maybe he knew something that I hadn't heard. All the while, what I should have been doing is trusting MYSELF.

I've had this shit since 1966. I KNOW the goddamn difference between a viral infection and the usual crap I get. I have allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, polyps and asthma. I know that the standard cortisone-based treatments for the asthma actually makes the other stuff worse in the long run because steroids suppress the immune system. I KNOW that the only recourse, in my case, given my etiology, is to take the goddamn antibiotics and heal up and then work like hell and get strong. Now that I'm diabetic this only goes double, since inhaled corticosteroids make diabetes WORSE.

So next week I get to go in and tell Mr. 'I Donate My Skills Worldwide for the Greater Glory of Christ' that he's full of shit.

Basically I fucked away an entire winter believing someone else and letting my fear of doctors give me an excuse to listen to the WRONG ADVICE. That's time I will never get back. I screwed the pooch bigtime and I've got nobody to blame, ultimately, but ME.

And then I get to go find a new doctor!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!