Do Your Homework...

Have you ever been asked to attend a business meeting at the last minute, walk into the meeting unprepared, and felt stupid when someone asks you a question that you were not prepared to answer? Yeah, me either, but I have seen it happen to other people, and it is uncomfortable to watch. When it happens at the doctor’s office, it can have an impact on your health, not just embarrassing you at work.

Anyone who really knows me will tell you that I’m a talker. I am capable of active listening too, both of those skills are needed if you are going to have a lifetime membership in the (yet to be cleverly named) disease club. (NOTE: I should have a contest when I have more than five readers…)

When I started having to go to the doctor at least every six weeks, I found that they always asked me the same questions.

1. Weight – I now walk by the scale and announce my weight to the office. I weigh myself daily and have proven to be honest, so they allow me this privilege.

2. Meds – They want to know the meds I am taking and their doses. Nobody who takes as many meds as me (and most other chronically ill people) can just list all of them and their doses without help.

3. Chief complaints – what is going on with the disease since the last visit? Have you ever walked into a record store (before iTunes) and right until the second you walked in knew exactly what you wanted? Then you find yourself ambling through stacks of CD’s trying to remember what you came in for. You walk out having bought stuff, but not the stuff you wanted. That used to happen to me at the doctor’s office all the time. I knew what was wrong before I got there, but as soon as my doc walked in, I completely forgot unless it was throbbing that very minute.

Dani’s Greatest Hits – After a while, I got smart, and I made a list of my meds, then it grew. My doctor’s nurse and I call it “Dani’s Greatest Hits.” It goes like this:

• Meds - At the top, it has a list of all my meds, how long I have been on them, their dose, and results. I put them in a word document and use a little table to make it easy to read.

• Past therapies – after a while my chart got so big that my doc had to thumb through three volumes to see what we have already tried, so I thought he would find this useful. It lists, what I have tried, how long I was on the drug, the date I started and why I stopped.

• Surgical history – all my surgeries, dates, and outcome

• Complaints – Basically I have my entire chart in one document. I bring it to appointments, and that way I don’t get record store syndrome. Also, my doctor doesn’t waste time trying to think of where to go from that point. He likes my greatest hits so much that he has given it to the hospital when admitting me in the past.

I have also found my greatest hits useful when I write to other doctors asking for advice. It tells them that I am invested in my care, and gives them a brief history without taking up too much of their time.

Be concise. If you are not, docs will stop listening and you will not be heard. Do your homework. When they say, “how long have you had this pain?” Say “three weeks” or however long, but know the answer to the question. Don’t start with a sigh, and say, “well, I guess that it started when I was three” (I am boring myself even writing that.) They will think that it must not be too bad if you don’t even know when it started. This goes for the greatest hits as well. Years of medical history I have been able to keep to one page. I am sure this is partially why my doc likes it so much.

Doing your homework tells your medical providers that you care about getting better. It has been my experience that it inspires medical providers to care more than their job requires them to, and that works out well for you in the long run.

Onto that contest for naming the sick club…