At the end of my sleep study the tech asked me if I wanted a CPAP machine ordered for me. I told him no, I checked a box on a piece of paper saying that I did not want it because I wanted to talk with the doctor before I chose my treatment. But then 4 days after my sleep study I received a call from another facility saying that they have ordered me a CPAP machine and I need to come in and be fitted. I told them to cancel it and I wanted to talk with the sleep doctor before I chose my treatment.
Three weeks later I went to my sleep study doctor as a follow up to the horrible sleep study. I waited for 45 minutes in the waiting room, then another 30 minutes in the exam room. Finally the doctor walks in, not the doctor I was supposed to see but a doctor nonetheless. She shows me my study in time line form showing me where there were "episodes" of my breathing slowing down (not stopping). I think that all of these episodes happened when I was tossing and turning, rolling over, and being startled from each and every noise I heard. I asked her if there was an indication of where my heart rate was compared to my "episodes" of slowed down breathing. She said that there was not. I explained to her that if she looked at my heart rate and times when I was tossing and turning maybe that would correlate with those "episodes." She was unwilling to check and see saying that the data was unavailable.
Then I broke down. I was trying not to cry...but I felt so unheard, not listened to, not cared about. Like I was a round peg trying to be fit into a square hole. Like, "you are overweight so you MUST have sleep apena, not insomnia" although I've had insomnia off and on since I was a teenager. My whole family gets up in the middle of the night. I have jumped online at 3am because I was so frustrated with tossing and turning just to find my sister online too. So this is sleep apena right? Not family related, right? Thats what she was telling me.
Anyway, in my breakdown I told the female doctor just what I thought of the sleep study (in nice terms), told her that the room that was supposed to be sound proof was not, how the tech kept barging in and how I slept all of 30 minutes before I was kicked out. She said she would get the doctor (the doctor I was meant to see in the first place).
Then he walked in. The doctor I was meant to see. And I was so sorry she has asked him in the exam room to talk with me. He sat down next to me and said that he doesn't know where I come off asking questions about the sleep study....that he has been a doctor for XX number of years and I should not be questioning the study or what his is prescribing...that I have sleep apena, one of the worst cases he has ever seen (which by the way the female doctor said that it was mild) and that it was because I was overweight....he said that if I lost 50 pounds that it was likely I wouldn't have sleep apena anymore but "THAT ISN'T VERY LIKELY....IS IT?"
At that point he was interrupted for a phone call from another doctor and stepped out of the room. All I told myself during that 5 minutes he was gone was, "Melanie, don't you fucking cry...don't you fucking cry." And I held it together because I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of crying. (At this point Justin said I should have walked out, actually he said as soon as the doctor said that I shouldn't question him is when I should have walked out.)
The doctor came back in. He told me that didn't appreciate me canceling my CPAP that he ordered - I explained to him why...because I wanted to talk with him first. Then he said the he would not allow me to pick and choose my treatments, that because what he thinks should be done is what is going to be done. He then left the office and I was done with my appointment.
I checked out of their office got into my car and started driving...started crying. Then I called Justin, not wanting to talk about my doctors appointment. But then Justin asked how it went. I cried all the way from Sparks to Fernley. Then I got online and started going to various websites to rate your doctor...only to find on several websites that my doctor was already rated (I should have checked those ratings before I went). Then I rated him as well, of course. Here is one of those sites. Can you guess which one is mine?
I have already asked for my records and written a letter to my primary care physician's office (who referred me there in the first place) explaining what happened.
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