I just found out that our family doctor has left our base hospital. Normally it doesn’t bug me too much to have to switch doctors, since I think most of them are professional guessers anyway, but I liked this one. Although I don’t think she was any more brilliant than most of the doctors I’ve put up with in the military’s lovely medical services, she had the good sense to listen to me, and she seemed to understand that I probably know my body better than she does.

I haven’t always been this bitter about doctors, in fact I was quite trusting up until about four weeks into my seven week “vacation” at Utah Valley Hospital when I was expecting Jonas. I had gone into pre-term labor (because, you know, that’s just what I do), and had been transferred an hour and a half north of my home to this huge hospital that was supposed to have the best NICU (Neo-Natal Intensive Care unit for those of you who are lucky enough to never have had to know what that place is) in the region. According to my tests and my contractions, the kid was coming soon, even though I was only twenty-nine weeks along. To make a long story short, I enjoyed seven weeks of hospital food, no cable, six shots a day, and a whole bunch of nasty drugs that made me hallucinate, vomit up the nasty hospital food, and become more weak than I have ever been in my life. Gratefully, I delivered at thirty-six weeks.

During the course of all this hoopla I learned a thing or two. I learned that some doctors are good and some doctors are self righteous pricks who need to be kicked out of your hospital room. I learned that just because the doctors says, “do this” doesn’t mean you have to do it. In fact, unless you are unconscious you would be pretty stupid to just blithely go along with whatever they write on your chart. If you are unconscious you absolutely need to have a person there to act as your advocate, who knows your wishes. That is my big advice for the day. Never, ever, EVER leave your loved one at the mercy of an overworked medical staff who are pulling twelve hour shifts and mixing up patient files and forgetting to give medications at the right times. It’s not smart. Doctors make mistakes. You’ve got to be informed.

The next time I went into pre-term labor, I was much, much better informed. I was also not putting up with crap from anybody. I went from “The Best Patient Ever” to “You Do Realize That You Are Doing This Against Medical Advice And I’m Going To Write That In Your Chart, Young Lady.” I can honestly say that the second time around, the only doctor who liked me was my own, and probably because she wasn’t there for the worst of it. But can you blame me? The first thing the doctor did when I got there was overdose me. I even asked, “are you sure I’m supposed to be taking this much?” Medical arrogance won the battle and the last thing I remember hearing before there is an half an hour void in my memory is, “Shoot! Her blood pressure’s really low. Get some oxygen! How much of that stuff did she have? Ohhhh, that wasn’t right.” No kidding. When I came back the doctor laughed and said, “Gee, you’re a real feather weight on that stuff, har, har.” Yeah, you’d be too if I gave you a double dose. A horse would have passed out, jerkface.

The thing that amazed me is that when I wouldn’t comply with everything this idiot wanted me to do for the rest of my stay, he was shocked. “But I’m the doctor,” he seemed to be thinking, “I’m God.” At one point I asked to have my IV removed. I was stable and it wasn’t serving any purpose except hydration and the way I was sucking down jugs of water and running to the john every twenty minutes that didn’t seem to be a problem. He didn’t want me to remove it and tried to convince me that I should leave it in, because, what if, like last night, they needed to give me intravenous meds? “So you plan to screw up again?” I wanted to ask him. Instead I just took the port out myself when he left the room. (It’s not hard; you just yank.) He bitterly wrote it up with the list of other stuff I’d done AMA and I could see the nurses snickering behind his back.

Anyway, I have a hard time finding a doctor I like. I want someone who will listen to me and believe me when I say something isn’t right. My old doctor used to let me call in when there was a problem because she respected my ability to self diagnose. I’m not saying she was going to give me narcotics over the phone, but if I said the baby had a yeast rash she’d put the prescription in and not make me have to deal with six levels of military bureaucrats to try and get an appointment in their sweltering, understaffed clinic. We’ve been assigned a new doctor and I’m nervous about her. I need to schedule a well baby check for Maggie, so I guess I’ll find out soon enough. If I really hate her I guess I can change the kids to pediatrics and have myself seen at the women’s clinic, but then I’ll have to learn to like two doctors instead of one.