Doctors are Douchepotatoes

 Before I begin, a quick nod to my friend Amberr Pocalypse of Phoenix, AZ, for creating the word "doucehpotato." Might I suggest, Amberr, that you submit that wacky new invention to Urban Dictionary. It is a winner.

Anyway, on to why doctors are said spuds. I belong to what is quite possibly the worst HMO in the history of the HMO. Every single Primary Care Physician (PCP in HMO-speak) has an office that looks like Price Club. I mean cavernous. They don't double-book, they QUADRUPLE book. You make an appointment for 11 a.m., you're lucky if you get out of there by 4 p.m. and I am not exaggerating. You sit in the waiting room for hours with a bunch of sick people yacking on you. Then you get moved to an exam room - where you wait for another half hour to 45 minutes. I have learned to build things out of tongue depressors. I have also learned to steal latex gloves and cleaning supplies. I'm not proud of it, but I figure if I'm giving up a day's work, a little Lysol and some protective handwear isn't too much to ask. 

My current PCP has a giant sign in front of her office in English and Chinese, advertising the fact that she is an internist who also does colonoscopies and immigration physicals. Which is nice, and I'm wondering if I can get my passport photo there as well. I switched to her a little over a month ago. The reason for the switch was fairly simple. My previous PCP (who had a giant sign that said WALK INS WELCOME WE DO HIV TESTING GET YOUR FLU SHOT HERE ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS WELCOME - very homey) was a total dick. He never, ever listened to me. The last few visits I had with him were a total nightmare. I had screaming pain in my back, my joints (ALL of them) were locked up and swollen, getting out of bed was a chore, I was exhausted and, final straw, my urine looked like strawberry Kool Aid. Also I had this rash. I went to see him, I tell him all this. I give him the urine sample. He writes me a script for a week's worth of percocet, tells me I'm drug seeking, makes me sign some contract stating that I won't get meds from anywhere else. Sends me for blood work. I come back the next week and he tells me I MOST ASSUREDLY HAVE KIDNEY CANCER AND I SHOULD SEE A DERMATOLOGIST ABOUT THE RASH. Wait...wut? I'm sorry but if you say "cancer" to me the rest of the conversation gets lost, but I did catch "dermatologist" and "rash." I snapped. I really did. Who the hell cares about the RASH if I have KIDNEY CANCER? Then he writes me more pain meds and sends me for an MRI of the kidney. Now both my boyfriend and I are totally wigged out. When I come back the next week, he tells me oops. It's probably not cancer. It's systemic lupus and it's attacking my kidneys, the right one of which has a lesion in it which is causing the bloody urine. Holy mother of ass. He also once again writes me narcotics and calls me a drug addict. And starts in again about the stupid dermatologist. No rheumatologist, no urologist, no nephrologist. Let's clear up that rash, Mo Baby.

That was when I decided to switch docs. The problem is, with my HMO, you can't go see what the doctor is like before you pick them. They're lined up in a book by zip code. So you makes your pick and you takes your chances. And this one seems even worse than the last one. Of course, I don't actually KNOW, since on my first appointment, after explaining the diagnosis and all the shit I went through, I didn't actually see the DOCTOR. I saw the Physician's Assistant. Who told me I probably had a kidney stone, wrote me a prescription for Ultram (which gives me seizures) and told me to see a urologist. So I spent yesterday in the Emergency Room. Where the nice doctor told me I better get my ass to a urologist and a rheumatologist and, furthermore, I should file a complaint with the AMA and the NY State Insurance Commission. It was so nice to finally be heard that I actually cried. And I don't, as a rule, cry. At least not in front of people.

I see a visit to the insurance company, in person, in the near future. And it's not going to be pretty.