How to approach your medical practitioner

Research emerges all the time and is updated regularly.

How to approach your medical practitioner

Postby Judith » Thu Nov 14, 2013 6:40 pm

How to approach your medical practitioner

This article below from The Delicious Revolution.com , written by a woman in the States,spoke to me, as I had initially had a most difficult interview with my surgeon who did the mastectomy. The next time I saw her I said 'maybe we can do better this time'--she did a double take and then warmed up.There may be suspicions and fantasies on both sides-

suspicions and fantasies.jpg
suspicions and fantasies.jpg (7.56 KiB) Viewed 4603 times


-this below suggests an 'ideal way' -towards approaching professionals who may then be more open to supporting a more holistic way of viewing anyone, rather than just seeing a symptom. This is just one person's experience but may nevertheless be worth a read before you have these important meetings...

[b]
After the most bizarre and unsettling experience with a surgeon – I decided I could never have the experience I wanted to have with any doctor if I wasn’t clear on what I wanted that experience to look like. So I focused my powers of imagination (remember that Einstein declared imagination to be of more significance than intelligence) on what an awesome interaction with a doctor could look and feel like. I feel like “The Solution” to our current state of medicine lies in all of us imagining what our medical care could look like and then settling for nothing less than professionals willing to support that vision.
The vision presented below for what a fabulous feeling conversation with a doctor would look like is an ideal recreation of an actual conversation I recently had with with the surgeon caring for me now (more accurately stated, as of yesterday). I get that “ideal” doesn’t acknowledge that doctors are not M.Dieties, that they are oftentimes tired, overworked and dealing with Google as the thorn in their side filling their patient’s heads with both good and bad information. That said, here is my admittedly ideal conversation skipping over the introduction and niceties …
[b]My Hero for Health Doctor:
“Joy, I understand that you are here visiting me to day because your primary care doctor found a complex cyst that concerns him. Is that correct?”
Me: “Yes- it is.”
Doc: “Ok, first of all I want to acknowledge that you have probably paid a visit to the modern day oracle know as Google to seek knowledge on the subject of complex cysts once your doctor informed you of the diagnosis. Did you do that?”
Me: “Yes- I did.”
Doc: “Well first I want to assure you that I am happy to resolve any questions or concerns about what you may have found on line. It is important to me that you not only understand what it going on in your body, but also that we diffuse any fears that come up. Getting fears out of the way facilitates a faster and easier return to health.”
Me: “Thank you.”
Doc: “Will you share with me what you know so far so I can get a sense of where you are at mentally & emotionally about this?”
Me: “Yeah, sure. Thanks for asking. I am admittedly a little freaked out, mostly because complex cysts are apparently less likely to resolve on their own and have a higher probability of being cancerous than fluid-filled cysts that tend to come & go on their own.” Conditioned pause to see if the doctor has his/her hand on the door to move on to the next patient.
Doc: “Go on.”
Me: “Combine what I read on line with the fact that my mom had a total hysterectomy at age 38- although it was way back when the military hospital used to do complete hysterectomies with any stage 4 paps to reduce risk of cancer. We can’t ever really know if she had cancer – but this brings up a little fear around that.”
Doc: “Got it. That makes sense. I’d be scared, worried, even anxious with uncertain family history and a mystery cyst going on. Let’s see what we can clear up with the information I have, and then- when your questions are answered, I’d like to share with you what I would feel safest doing to confirm that you are returned to top notch health.”
Me: “Sounds great. Thanks.”
Doc: “First of all complex cysts are just that- more complex that fluid filled cysts that we can see through pretty well with ultrasounds and other diagnostic procedures like MRIs. Think of them as being complex because there is so many different things they can be, so many reasons they can form. I’d like you to open up to the idea that your body is so magnificently intelligent and powerful that it knows when to encapsulate things into a cyst for preservation of your whole self, sometimes for easier or later clean up. Kind of like the way you might hide a mess from visiting friends but shoving it into a closet or junk drawer. It is true that some complex cysts are cancerous, but I encourage you to let me support you in finding out if that is even on the radar in your case because it is entirely possible that the big C is not a player in this scenario. Are you following me so far? Any questions?”
Me: “Yes, I get what you are saying. I’m good so far. My only question is what do we do next.”
Doc: “Great question. Here is what I would like to do. I’m not totally satisfied with the ultrasound results and I’d like to personally perform an ultrasound on you so we have the best possible picture of what we are dealing with. I’d also like to look at the health of the lining of your uterine wall to investigate the increased frequency of your periods. I’ll explain both of these in detail so you understand what we are doing. To get a better picture- we will use the same technique you experienced before with the ultrasound technician, but instead of a general picture, I’ll be zooming right in to check the health of the ovaries and checking up on where the cysts were. There is a possibility they will be gone, so be open to that. As for checking the health of the cells of the uterus, I would like to do a biopsy. This involves filling your uterus with water, since it is normally collapsed on itself from the mild pressure of the surrounding organs and tissue. With the water expanding the uterus, I will be able to insert a tiny camera that will allow me to confirm that the lining looks good and healthy. Then I will take a tissue sample from the back of the uterine wall. What I am looking for is to see that the cells there are healthy and thriving. If they are, that will clear any concerns about cancer, infection or other problems and confirm that your body is indeed operating at full capacity in keeping your reproductive region healthy with consistent regeneration of healthy cells. Does all that make sense to you?”
Me: “Yes, I get it. And, as a firm believer in the human capacity to find what we look hard enough for, I am thrilled that you are looking for healthy cells! I’m not one to play devil’s advocate, but to pop any doom and gloom thoughts that might bubble up into my wondering mind, will you tell me what might happen if you don’t find that the cells are healthy and thriving?”
Doc: “Certainly, but first let me assure you that I am right there with you in the human capacity to create BOTH good and bad with the focus of their energy and attention. That is precisely the reason I’d like to alleviate the big concern looming in the back of your mind about possible cancer. My goal is to clear that black cloud to make room for sunnier thoughts when we find healthy cells. But- if we find that the cells are less than ideally healthy – we will do whatever it takes to get your body functioning at the highest levels of health possible. Worst case would be that we find some sort of cancer that the body needs support in dealing with, and we have lots of options to do that. Because I suspect that we will find healthy cells, are you OK with holding off on looking at those options and creating a space for us finding happy little cells working hard to remove their waste efficiently and consistently create healthy new tissue?”
Me: “For sure- no need to create plans on how to cross a dodgy bridge if we are perfectly capable of swimming to the other side of the stream! What do I do next?”
Doc: “You will schedule the appointment for the procedures we discussed up front with Cindy. You will call me with any questions, concerns or changes that come up. You will take awesome care of yourself and be sure to think loving thoughts about your body and its innate ability to thrive. Sound good?”
Me: “Sounds awesome! Thank you.”
Doc: “You know I feel like I can let you in on a little secret a professor once told me. He said that if we looked at every cell of the body on any given day we would find lots of issues that would frighten most people, including mutating cells. He assured me that unbeknownst to us little problems, mutations and hiccups happen within the flow of health and clear up naturally provided we give the body what it needs to thrive. He likened it to stubbing your toe and not ever mentioning the injury to your loved ones, letting it be just a small thing that happened in the course of a day, not worth mentioning, not worth crying over, and not something to hold a memory of for very long. I share this with you because I want you to let this go for now, just as if you’ve stubbed your toe. And we will assume that your body will heal this up on its own and that the new pictures we have of the situation from these tests will be pictures of pure health.”
Me: “Thanks Doc. You totally rock and I’m thrilled to have your support in maintainig wellness. You’ve made a situation I was anxious about feel like a safe, comforting experience. I would be thrilled to discover that we results that had me come here simply captured a picture of my body dealing with something funky and cleaning house in the way it saw fit. That is the vision I will hold in my heart. Thanks again.”

[/b][/b]So there it is, my sweet dream that I trust will set the stage for any future interactions I have with medical professionals.

I’d recap the conversation that actually unfolded and delve into the nearly debilitating crisis of faith that ensued after that conversation, but I will wait until I can fully articulate what a gift this whole lesson has been. It has taken some time to lick my wounds, but I look forward to sharing the growth I am stepping into thanks to this experience.
For now I am happy to have crafted a vision about how that conversation could have gone. It makes me feel like I can communicate to my former surgeon the impact his conversation had on me, not from a place of judgement, but from a place of legitimate sharing between humans that has the possibility of altering communications for the better in the future.

Part of me says just move on and don’t look back. But part of me feels like I should honor that man and his skills by sharing that the way he communicated his expertise shifted him from being the hero for health I intuitively feel he could be to harbinger of fear and anxiety. I feel like I’m missing out on an opportunity to say how much better his skills could have been received with a simple yet powerful shift in perception from a search for cancer to a quest for health. How much better off would patients be if they were supported in anticipating the confirmation of healthy cellular activity while waiting for lab results instead of fearing the discovery of cancer cells with all the scary visions that there presence would ignite?

What do you think? The optimist in me, the one who feels at her core that we can all contribute to bringing medicine back to healing, to bring hospitals back to places in which powerful healers bring bodies back into alignment with health by supporting the body’s healing capacities and providing services that best promote the continuance of life at its highest expression when the body cannot heal itself, that version of me wants to share with this doctor my vision for how our relationship could be. Do you think there is a space for this feedback to be well received? Expressed to him, this vision has – at the very least - a possibility of creating change. Even writing this to you, I feel what I want to do. But I am curious…

What would you do?
User avatar
Judith
Site Admin
 
Posts: 277
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:08 pm

Return to Research

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests

cron

User Control Panel

Login

Who is online

In total there are 13 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 13 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Most users ever online was 268 on Sun May 03, 2020 6:38 pm

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests