11:15am April 10, 2013

➸ It's all in your Head

Do doctors realise how dangerous this is? Do they understand that because of this constant doubt, we all wait until our head has actually fallen off before we can be dragged kicking and screaming to accident and emergency? Us sickies all know - there is only one thing worse than trying to get an out of hours doctor to see you and that’s having to do it on a bank holiday.

We wait until we can’t walk, talk or eat before we’ll go near a hospital bed. We spend weeks longer than we should convincing ourselves we’re really fine. In fact, convincing ourselves that it’s “all in our heads”

You find yourself justifying things with friends that you don’t need to explain. You doubt yourself - did you cry off your sister’s birthday because you were heaving over the sink, or did you somehow make it happen because you didn’t really want to go? Did you come into hospital for a nice rest and a few weeks away from the kids? Are you really just an attention seeking drama queen?

It never goes. Every new symptom brings a new set of challenges. Every test that comes back fine makes you wonder if this really is the time it’s “all in your head”…

“Don’t ever be one of those doctors. If you cannot find out what is wrong with a patient, you have failed, not the patient. Don’t ever blame a patient if you can’t find out what is wrong with them, blame yourself. Lazy doctors blame the patient. Good doctors listen to them.

And with that, he wafts off in a cloud of quiet importance.

Doubting your patients, judging them, labelling them, is dangerous. But most of all it’s cruel. It leaves scars deeper than any surgeon. Yet I’ve met precisely four people to talk to so far this stay and it was ALL “all in their heads.” Unlikely, isn’t it.

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