11:52am May 8, 2013

Three strikes and you’re out.

1. Telling me that next time I got pneumonia you weren’t going to give me antibiotics, because too much antibiotics is bad for you. But pneumonia isn’t. At the same time, telling me to disregard my oxygen readings, the green and brown phlegm, and the aspiration. Because “everyone aspirates”. No, they don’t. Not like this. People do not wake up unable to breathe and have to call 911 and get pneumonia and end up hospitalized. Over and over. That’s fairly rare. And just because it was happening to me twice a week didn’t make it the same as the slow aspiration that’s more common and less lethal.

2. Trying to convince me not to get a feeding tube, when it was necessary to save my life. Yeah I’m looking at you, Mr. Are you at peace with your decision.

3. Royally fucking up at the only job you were ever actually assigned to me. Which is as sleep doctor. The first two things only crossed your path by accident. But this one, your new specialty, you managed to fuck up too.

See, I went to him because I was waking up really pale with oxygen readings as low sometimes as 75. So my pulmonologist decided on an emergency basis that I needed to get a sleep study done to re titrate my bipap, which is complicated because I have both central and obstructive sleep apnea.

So she sent me for this excuse for a doctor, who from the beginning refused to take me seriously about anything, in potentially deadly ways, as outlined above. Friends warned me he could get me killed and that to him I’m just “that retard”.

So now I got to the sleep clinic last night. And the technician said he told her that I was coming in because I’d lost weight and wouldn’t need as much pressure on my bipap. I told her he was stupid and that this would get me killed and that I refused to be started at a lower pressure. That the whole point of the appointment was because I had low oxygen. That if anything I needed higher pressure.

After the night was up, she told me it would’ve been an absolute disaster if I’d been started at a lower pressure. I was right. He was wrong. Of course. Plus it’s a myth that you suddenly need lower pressure if you lose a bit of weight. Most of my obstructive sleep apnea is due to inherited problems with the shape of my mouth anyway, and the central would be there regardless.

Anyway today I’m calling the office (or rather getting my DPA to call for me, since she can handle telephones) and getting him taken off my case. My pulmonologist was trying to shield me from his utter stupidity. But I don’t think she can. And since I don’t have a death wish, he’s out the door.

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