A stressful doctor's appointment!

(Chapter 15 Medical Appointments and its Challenges & Chapter 20 Advocacy in my book)

Today, I had a follow-up appointment with a doctor that has been treating my left knee for the past five months. He explained that the bursa part on my knee cap really isn't much better after the cortisone shot that he gave me at my last visit. Now he would like me to do some strengthening exercises for the thigh muscles.

He demonstrated several exercises to me and had me copy him. He verbally corrected me and showed me again if I did something wrong. I explained that I had a memory problem. I told him that there was no way that I would remember these exercises by the time I got home. He said not to worry and that he would have them all written down for me. After he showed me the exercises that he wanted me to do at home, he told me when to make a follow-up appointment with him. Around the same time, the medical assistant came into the room and he left. She gave me some papers including a paper that read:

“Knee Exercises

·Leg Extension

·Leg Rotation

·Leg on Top of Leg

·Horse twice a day, 2 mins.

·Chair 30 secs, increase to 1 min. by 5 sec/ increments, 3x/d

·Lunges 25x each leg, 3x/d.

·Exercise Bike 70 rpm 10-20 min. 3-5 days/w. (I don’t own)

I looked at this list and I told the medical assistant that this wasn't going to work for me and that I had difficulty with my memory. I told her that I needed pictures with lots of detailed words describing what to do and how many times etc. I'm not really sure if she knew what to say, but I told her that I guess I was on my own to figure it out! I'm pretty sure she said something, but right now I don't remember what it was. Whatever it was it didn't change anything for me. I was not very happy! I hope that he is not expecting me to be successful at this when in reality, he just set me up for failure. I feel defeated!

The only thing that I can think of doing is going on my laptop computer and researching each exercise. I wish that I wouldn't have to do this! It would have been nice if I could have gotten the doctor to understand my needs, but apparently that didn't happen! I decided not to do this research online.

This is a doctor who I've only known and been treated by for about five months. It is a separate office from my primary care doctor, but he is still part of the same practice, so he should have access to my records that state my memory problems and my diagnosis.

Perhaps it is time for me to take control of things and let my doctor's office know that they need to make a notation on my file, so that anyone treating me, doctor or physician assistant will be aware of the mild cognitive impairment diagnosis. I need to let them know that they need to make some accommodations for me such as allowing me more time to process what is being said to me by the staff. Plus, I think I would like them to check with me to make sure that I'm clear on what they've said to me. It is time for me to put some of my advocacy skills in action to advocate for myself.

August 14, 2017

I called the doctor's office and I was only able to leave a message for someone to call me back.

Update: August 15, 2017 I received a phone call from the doctor's office and they wanted to know what problems I was having and I explained it again! She asked me for the list of exercises that I had been given and said that maybe all I needed was to come in the office again, so they could go over them with me! Oh my! They still don't get it! I told her that these words on the page meant nothing to me. She told me that the doctor was off until tomorrow and when he returns, she will talk to him. I told her that I would also be willing to go back to physical therapy. She said that someone would call me tomorrow.

August 15, 2017

I got a call from the doctor’s office and they asked if I wanted to go to physical therapy and I said yes. She said that she would fax the paperwork to the physical therapy upstairs from their office. I have been there for physical therapy before. After I hung up the phone, I waited about 30 minutes before I called the physical therapy place to make an appointment. I scheduled my first appointment which is an evaluation scheduled for August 25th. The drama and stress that this has caused me is something that I would like to avoid in my life! This can't continue to happen!

I think that PT is going to help because I have been there before and they know about my memory impairment. I have requested the same physical therapist that I've had before, because he knows what he needs to do for me to understand things and he has a lot of patience if I don't understand him the first time.

It is a shame that I had to go through all this stress and all these phone calls just to have them understand what I needed. I hope that this doesn't happen again because I think that this was totally avoidable!

This should NEVER have happened to me and should not happen again! Moving forward I will continue to educate my doctors on how they need to help me and if they are unwilling, then I will be contacting my neurologist for some advice on this problem! My doctors should not be adding stress to my life because stress just makes my symptoms much worse and this is so unnecessary! I will not tolerate being treated this way! The next time that I see this doctor, he will listen to me and take my needs and concerns seriously and not just "brush them off."

I think that the only reason that I mentioned to my doctor that physical therapy might be best for me was because a friend of mine suggested it to me. This is not something that I was able to figure out on my own. So sad for me to know that I needed help in figuring this out.