Medically unnecessary
Aug. 20th, 2012 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI'm going to go ahead and make this one public. The personal is political and all that.
Somehow I missed this story back in May, probably because I had other concerns, like not being paralyzed. The short version is that the Ontario government is cutting coverage for various services, including "medically unnecessary" MRIs for lower back pain.
Well now.
About this time last year, I went to my GP in some distress. I've never been a highly energetic person, but after a summer spent travelling and having fun, I was exceptionally exhausted, even by my usual standards. There was something wrong. I could tell. I had a perfunctory round of the usual blood tests to rule out anemia and B12 deficiencies, both of which I'd suffered from in the past, and allergy tests to rule out seasonal allergies. Then my doctor gave up and proclaimed it to be "stress," linked to my preexisting diagnosis of clinical depression. The problem was, of course, that I was still on summer vacation, I wasn't particularly stressed, and I wasn't having a depressive episode.
I desperately wished, at the time, for some sort of major diagnosis. It sounds awful to say, especially in hindsight, but I knew that something had gone horribly wrong somewhere in my body, and no one believed me. I wanted something to point to so that I can say, "See? I really am sick! It's not just in my head." Because if something could be diagnosed, it could possibly be fixed, and I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my life trying to be normal while feeling like I'd been hit by a Mack truck. In hindsight, there were probably a lot of other avenues my doctor could have investigated, and none of them necessarily led to the actual cause, which was that there was a tumor growing in my lower spine, diverting energy to fuel its rapid acceleration. But at least I might have been listened to, believed. Trusted.
Skip forward several months. In March, an MRI finally caught the mass. By April, I had a diagnosis. This was after months of brutal, agonizing pain that left me screaming when I woke up in the morning or sitting down for five minutes, several trips to the emergency room, and visits to both the walk-in clinic and my GP. It was only the intervention of a different GP, this one unusually sympathetic and curious, that got me an MRI appointment. By this time, it had grown too large to safely remove. Had it not been caught, it would have continued to grow until it snapped my spine and left me permanently paralyzed.
Here is the absolute best case scenario for me in the future: The drug injections aimed at shrinking the tumor continue to work. The surgeon is able to remove it after it shrinks enough in an operation less invasive than a spinal fusion. I am not left in crippling pain. I'm able to resume normal activities. I spend the rest of my life knowing that there is a 40% chance that the tumor will regrow, a Sword of Damocles that almost everyone in my life refuses to acknowledge. I will spend the rest of my life fighting with the medical system to ensure that I'm monitored, that the next time Maggie the Tumor raises her ugly head, they can catch her before she reaches the size she did this time. This is the reality of cancer "survivors" and, agonizing as it sounds to someone with anxiety issues already, it's the best that they can do.
So you might imagine that I'm taking this news a little personally. I'm sure Health Minister Deb Matthews is able to sleep at night believing that she's cutting waste and imposing austerity on all the hypochondriacs and whiners out there who don't really need to know what's causing all their pain. I'm sure she, like most neoliberal politicians, believes she really knows what's best for people. I'm sure she pushes the numbers around and hey, this looks good, then goes home and has dinner with her family and doesn't believe that this kind of nightmare will ever happen to her or her loved ones.
But I am left thinking that if I staggered into my doctor's office now with a highly aggressive spinal tumor, I'd probably be fucked by the fickle finger of fate (or, rather, fisted by the invisible hand of the free market) and that long term, it would have cost the taxpayers of Ontario a good deal more money to support my paralyzed ass. So fuck that shit, seriously.
Somehow I missed this story back in May, probably because I had other concerns, like not being paralyzed. The short version is that the Ontario government is cutting coverage for various services, including "medically unnecessary" MRIs for lower back pain.
Well now.
About this time last year, I went to my GP in some distress. I've never been a highly energetic person, but after a summer spent travelling and having fun, I was exceptionally exhausted, even by my usual standards. There was something wrong. I could tell. I had a perfunctory round of the usual blood tests to rule out anemia and B12 deficiencies, both of which I'd suffered from in the past, and allergy tests to rule out seasonal allergies. Then my doctor gave up and proclaimed it to be "stress," linked to my preexisting diagnosis of clinical depression. The problem was, of course, that I was still on summer vacation, I wasn't particularly stressed, and I wasn't having a depressive episode.
I desperately wished, at the time, for some sort of major diagnosis. It sounds awful to say, especially in hindsight, but I knew that something had gone horribly wrong somewhere in my body, and no one believed me. I wanted something to point to so that I can say, "See? I really am sick! It's not just in my head." Because if something could be diagnosed, it could possibly be fixed, and I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my life trying to be normal while feeling like I'd been hit by a Mack truck. In hindsight, there were probably a lot of other avenues my doctor could have investigated, and none of them necessarily led to the actual cause, which was that there was a tumor growing in my lower spine, diverting energy to fuel its rapid acceleration. But at least I might have been listened to, believed. Trusted.
Skip forward several months. In March, an MRI finally caught the mass. By April, I had a diagnosis. This was after months of brutal, agonizing pain that left me screaming when I woke up in the morning or sitting down for five minutes, several trips to the emergency room, and visits to both the walk-in clinic and my GP. It was only the intervention of a different GP, this one unusually sympathetic and curious, that got me an MRI appointment. By this time, it had grown too large to safely remove. Had it not been caught, it would have continued to grow until it snapped my spine and left me permanently paralyzed.
Here is the absolute best case scenario for me in the future: The drug injections aimed at shrinking the tumor continue to work. The surgeon is able to remove it after it shrinks enough in an operation less invasive than a spinal fusion. I am not left in crippling pain. I'm able to resume normal activities. I spend the rest of my life knowing that there is a 40% chance that the tumor will regrow, a Sword of Damocles that almost everyone in my life refuses to acknowledge. I will spend the rest of my life fighting with the medical system to ensure that I'm monitored, that the next time Maggie the Tumor raises her ugly head, they can catch her before she reaches the size she did this time. This is the reality of cancer "survivors" and, agonizing as it sounds to someone with anxiety issues already, it's the best that they can do.
So you might imagine that I'm taking this news a little personally. I'm sure Health Minister Deb Matthews is able to sleep at night believing that she's cutting waste and imposing austerity on all the hypochondriacs and whiners out there who don't really need to know what's causing all their pain. I'm sure she, like most neoliberal politicians, believes she really knows what's best for people. I'm sure she pushes the numbers around and hey, this looks good, then goes home and has dinner with her family and doesn't believe that this kind of nightmare will ever happen to her or her loved ones.
But I am left thinking that if I staggered into my doctor's office now with a highly aggressive spinal tumor, I'd probably be fucked by the fickle finger of fate (or, rather, fisted by the invisible hand of the free market) and that long term, it would have cost the taxpayers of Ontario a good deal more money to support my paralyzed ass. So fuck that shit, seriously.
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 03:56 pm (UTC)Second, holy crap. This is kind of terrifying me right now, because I'm currently suffering from incredibly low energy, again, and all my bloodwork looks fine and they can't figure out what's going on.
Third, holy crap. I'm so glad they finally found Maggie when they did, and am highly unnerved about what these changes to the medical system mean for the future.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 04:08 pm (UTC)Good luck to you, and hugs back.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 06:36 pm (UTC)I'm glad they found Maggie. I'm glad you're responding to the drug. I'm just terrified for all the people who will be hurt by this. :(
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 07:18 pm (UTC)People will die because of this, I'm sure.
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Date: 2012-08-21 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 10:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:05 pm (UTC)Though middle-aged white men are shit about going to the doctor, so financially it makes sense too.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 07:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 01:04 pm (UTC)