Not doing well

Your post is really hurtful. You don’t know anything about my life and my experience with doctors.

My grandfather was in a hospital following a surgery. It was a Saturday. I was visiting him, and he had a stroke right in front me. I immediately and quite frantically alerted the nurses and doctors. They told me that neurologists didn’t work weekends and that a doctor would evaluate him on Monday. My family and I had fits them. He needed immediate attention. They placated us by saying they would page a neurologist.

You know when he showed up? Monday. By then it was too late. My grandfather had suffered severe brain damage. He no longer recognized me, my mother or my brothers. He never recovered.

My son, at the age of 12, developed a migraine variant known as cyclic vomiting syndrome. He vomited 20 to 30 times a day. His middle school did not want him to attend given his condition. The county public school system set him up on a home and hospital teaching program where teachers would come tutor him at our home.

Initially, doctors though it was a gastrointestinal problem. After a year of undergoing test after test, they ruled out a GI issue and recommended a neurologist.

After researching doctors, I brought him to the head of the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Neurology department. (We live in Maryland. Hopkins was the best hospital available here.) We had one visit, and the doctor started my son on a migraine medication. After several weeks, we saw no improvement. I called to make a follow up appointment. The doctor’s next available appointment was in 7 months.

So I called and emailed the doctor asking for help. My son had been vomiting at least 20 times a day for a year and a half at this point. The doctor said there were no other treatment options available and that there was nothing else he could do for us.

The home and hospital teaching office reevaluated the student’s medical condition every 3 months. I routinely filled out all of the forms and gave the office permission to speak with my son’s doctors. When the office called the Hopkins neurologist, who had only seen my son once, and knew from my emails if he had bothered to read them that my son was still very sick, he told the office that there was no reason my son couldn’t attend school.

Consequently, the county terminated my son’s home teaching and I received a threatening letter that if he didn’t return to school immediately, I would be reported to the truancy offices and investigated.

I had to quickly bring my son to his pediatrician, who knew of his condition, and had him write a letter which got my son’s home teaching reestablished.

Ultimately, I found a hospital in Delaware that specializes in hard to diagnosis children. The doctor we saw there told us that there were entire families of medicines that we hadn’t tried yet. She gave us hope, and it took another year, but my son finally got relief from his illness. She was wonderful.

These are just two examples. I have many more. There are wonderful doctors out there, but there are also quacks that do more harm than good, and there are arrogant pricks who don’t give a damn about their patients.

So spare me the lecture about how you think I should feel about doctors.

You also seem to have very little understanding of depression, which can make a person angry and irritable for no rationale reason. And there was NOTHING in my post that blamed anyone else for my situation. I choose to stay with this man for 10 years; that’s no one’s fault but my own. I know that and I didn’t say otherwise.

This forum is supposed to be a safe place. No judgement. No hate. Maybe you should find somewhere else to tell people their feelings are invalid, even though you don’t know shit about their lives and experiences.