Four years ago, I was struggling to communicate with the rheumatologist. I was anxious and defensive and I was tearing apart every sentence she uttered, trying to judge whether she believed my diagnosis or not. Every time she countered one of my complaints with, “yeah, but that’s not lupus,” I thought she was telling me she didn’t think I belonged there and that she didn’t want to treat me. She wasn’t. She was saying “yes, and,” but I was too twitchy to hear it. She meant that I was experiencing more than just the one condition, and we needed to expand my diagnoses to include the complexity. Once we figured out how to speak the same language, trips to see her became a source of comfort rather than stress.
I am approaching the same crossroads with my new primary care doc. I met her at a very difficult time last year, and I had trouble modulating my delivery with her. I was either so spoonless that I could barely whisper out a few sentences, or I was so agitated that once I got to my car I wondered how much she must have doubted my sanity. I felt like I overwhelmed her a couple of times. But I had had that same irrational fear that she wouldn’t believe the symptoms I had come to discuss, and rattled like a person in a full-blown panic.
The visit today turned a corner. Maybe it helped that I wasn’t in the driver’s seat this time. She had asked me back to do follow up, and I didn’t walk in with a plan. She was able to ask all the questions she needed without me anxiously talking over her. There was real communication and I left feeling more hopeful about our relationship than ever. She gave me some simple assignments, and I already completed one task on the way home from seeing her. I agreed to return in a few months for another update, after the various threads tie up. Now this time, hopefully I will remember what it is I’m supposed to bring to our next meeting... or maybe it’s better if I don’t. That tactic worked out awfully well this time around.
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