And The Asshole Award Goes To...

Hooray!
I have officially met the worlds biggest asshole doctor!

Apparantly, the pulmonologist that I saw today feels that it is his mission to treat difficult cases with "tough love".

Thankfully I had a friend come with me today to witness the assholory or else I would have thought that I was just being overly sensitive.

After giving him a rundown of life in the last year, he stated that my heart and lungs are fine. He then stated that the lungs have no nerves so "You could inhale a bucket of razors and not feel a thing". (Hmmm, now that would be a COOL party trick!)

He also stated that my chest wall looked fine on the cat scan so he didn't see any reason for chest wall pain.

Now I will admit to sighing heavily somewhere in this description. Funnily enough, when I sighed heavily at my family doctor's, he interpreted it correctly and said "I know you're frustrated but we'll keep looking". This asshole got all defensive and said "These tests are the gold standard and any pulmonologist would run them but if you want a second opinion, go somewhere else."

And he didn't say it, you know, in a nice way...

My friend interceeded at this point to tell him that I wasn't trying to be rude, that I'm just frustrated after being sick for a year. He reiterated the exact same line. These are the tests that any pulmonologist would run and I was free to get a second opinion.

It was around here that I started crying.

And it was then that he said "I'm not a rheumatologist or a psychiatrist but I think you should be checked for fibromyalgia or depression."

My friend then proceeded to tell him how much I am pushing myself everyday just to go to work and take care of my family. Working against the shitty physical feelings that I have every single day. Along with the fact that I have not chosen to withdraw from my favorite activities such as knitting, spinning, and running my crafting group and fiber retreat. I have done it because I can't physically do these activities anymore.

He then said "I'm saying you might be depressed and here you sit, crying. What should I think?"

He then proceeded to tell me how bad prednisone is which I am aware of. He quickly told me of the cataracts and the osteoporosis and then asked if I've gained weight lately. Yes, I replied, I had. "Well, you can expect to be 300 pounds in another year. It will make you obese. You will get HUGE."

What the fuck???? Oh, I'm such a stupid, idiotic woman that not only am I depressed with fibromyalgia but you can play on my naturally feminine fear of being FAT??? Yeah, guess what, being blind and having a broken hip sounds even worse to me but hey, maybe I'm just being IRRATIONAL.

What really disturbed me was that I never told this guy that he was wrong. I don't have heart and lung issues? Great! What should we look at next? But he didn't talk TO me, he talked AT me. I was a petulant, retarded child and I needed me some edumacation.

He did repeat some rheumatological labs though. I see the family doc tomorrow to see what that will be all about.

My friend said that she wasn't wishing me ill or anything but if something shows up, I need to take the results back in with a bunch of XXXXX's and OOOO's on it, right above the words "kiss my ass".

And I paid how much for this humiliation?