My Experience with the Health Care System
I have been suffering from lower back pain for the last three months. The pain, as anguishing as it is, pales in comparison to the pain of having to cope with apathetic doctors and the managed health care system. I have come to understand why health care reform is such a heated topic.
My experience began simple enough. I found myself in almost indescribable pain after an unusually strenuous day at work. My boss suggested that we file a worker’s compensation claim. I had tried to suffer through a week of this pain before we filed the claim. The next day I went to see a general practice doctor my company uses. He talked to me for less than ten minutes, had some x-rays taken, and gave me a shot and a prescription. He wrote a note limiting what I was allowed to do at work and made a follow-up appointment for the following week. The prescribed drugs made me nauseous, dizzy, light-headed, and almost unable to stay awake. The drugs only dulled the pain and messed with my head so much that I refused to drive or carry cash fearing what I might be capable of doing.
The following week nothing had changed. My wife drove me to my appointment where I waited almost an hour to be seen. This time the doctor talked to me for less than five minutes. He explained that he was going to refer me to a specialist and sent me on my drug influenced way. A week later I received a phone call advising me that I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. The date for the appointment was nearly three weeks away. In the interim, my limited supply of prescription happy times had long since run out. The pain, the worst I have ever felt, made even simple tasks unbearable. Trying to work was impossible and overdue bills began to pile. I had used all of my sick days and vacation already.
When I finally saw the surgeon, it was more x-rays, more waiting, another shot, and more prescriptions. The doctor also set me up with two weeks of physical therapy. He told me not to work for two weeks and sent me on my way. My physical therapy was scheduled to start the following week and I had a return visit to the surgeon set for one month after my original visit with him.
The physical therapy was the only bright spot of my experience. The therapists were caring and informative. I began to show signs of improvement. I quit taking my prescriptions and returned to work. Maybe I was over zealous in my return to work.
I soon returned to my previous state.
When I saw the surgeon on my return visit, he scheduled an M.R.I and a return visit set four weeks down the road. I was in his office for nearly four hours and he spent less than five minutes in the same room as me. I spent most of the time completely alone except for the months old magazines I had for company. No explanations were given and no course of treatment was suggested.
At my return visit I was given another shot and more prescriptions. I was informed that in the doctor’s opinion surgery probably wouldn’t do me any good. He told me that I had Degenerative Disk Disease and was prepared to send me on my way. Unwilling to let this visit end as unsatisfactorily as the previous one, I tried to explain the severity of both my pain and my situation. The doctor’s response was a poor attempt at comedy. “What do you want me to do, shoot you?” he quipped. With that he was out the door. I was left to my own devices to figure out that Degenerative Disk Disease is, at its most basic, a fancy term for old age. I am thirty-eight.
If I suffer from old age, why give me the shots and prescriptions? I must have missed the big news about the discovery of a treatment for growing old. The constant pain I am experiencing does give me a geriatric appearance when I walk. I still have not been able to survive an eight-hour shift at work. I have some days that are better than others.
In total, I have spent nearly ten hours in two different doctors’ offices, and less than thirty minutes talking to those doctors. I am in no less pain then when this all started. Frustrated and destitute, I can’t help but wonder how many other Americans have had similar experiences.
