The Right Person

It’s a bit of a fact that the older we get the more our bodies start to show the effects of the wear and tear. We start to see, and more importantly feel what our lives have wrought on our bodies. Those late nights in our teens, the partying in our twenties, the out late and up early lifestyle starts to wear on us and as we get older it gets harder to try to recreate that lifestyle. 

We also start to see things in our health profile we hadn’t before. 

We cough more, we sleep less, our head tilts to one side, our arches fall, our backs hurt, we start to have issues with foods we used to love. 

It all catches up with us. 

Our bodies, like our spirits and personalities, are always evolving and through a mix of genetics and lifestyle the body we have in our forties and beyond is not the same as it was when we were in our twenties. 

For some that’s great, for others it’s a cold bucket of water. 

It just depends on how you lived and what the genetic wheel of fortune says. 

As all of this comes together though, what you need more than anything is someone you can trust to guide you forward on what you can do to remain healthy, live as long a life as possible, and to retain your alertness and joy for life. 

You need a person that will listen to you, hear you, and work with you. 

This is a luxury most of us don’t get though. 

I have known far too many people that didn’t get the diagnoses that could better their life and for some, save them. 

I have known too many people that suffered under the indifferent gaze of a medical profession that can’t see beyond their own interpretation and assumption. 

How many of us have had doctors that dismissed our fears and concerns and simply prescribed another medication that may numb the issue but not make it disappear. 

Recently I had an optometrist appointment that still has me reeling a little. My vision started to decline in 2018 and since then I have had to wear glasses to see things close up. My vision has continued to decline, as it is wont to, and so I have had to get new glasses. Last time I went I went to Walmart to get the check up and get the numbers for my prescription so I can order glasses online. Alas, they don’t give that out willingly anymore and so I got a pair of glasses for them that didn’t work for me – because they didn’t explain what I needed – and they wouldn’t give me a whole ‘script, which led me to a lot of pairs of glasses that don’t work either. 

Woof. 

I decided to go get my eyes checked again to try to get a pair of glasses that will work and went to a local place. I may not get the numbers to order glasses online but at least I’ll get a pair that works. 

The folks there were kind, listened, and wanted to make sure I got what I needed. 

Awesome.
More importantly, more relevantly, was that the optometrist saw something that hadn’t been seen before. 

I have had an annoying head tilt that I am terribly self conscious about but have not found a way to rid myself of. In speaking with the optometrist she discovered that my pupils are not lined up – one is higher than the other. This has affected my vision, my prescription for my glasses, my thinking I am dyslexic at times when words and numbers mix up, makes it hard to read at night without getting tired, and causes my body to overcompensate with the tilt. 

The misalignment happened via a concussion or something else. It’s relatively new because I haven’t had this tilt forever. 

I NEVER heard this before and knowing it brings so much into clarity for me. 

Why wasn’t this seen by the other optos?

How did they miss it?

It helped that this one has something similar and knew what to look for and did the work to make sure their hunch was right. 

Suddenly though, I felt seen. 

And that’s something that’s not life or death. 

I knew someone who suffered with a debilitating illness that made them all but a shut in, made life relatively joyless, and put them nearer to death than any of us would want to be. They knew they were ill but no doctors took them seriously. They simply misdiagnosed and mistreated. It took literal years of searching and research and seeking out a doctor that would listen until they found one that would and it changed this person’s life. 

They got a diagnosis, they got a plan and medication regimens, and they were thrown a lifeline that changed their lives. They were able to thrive once more, to find joy in the day to day, and to re-enter the world with hope. 

Finding that person that will hear you and will help you is THAT impactful and life changing. 

It’s that necessary. 

And it can encompass so much. 

Before my mother had a stroke that changed her life she had to go through horrifying withdrawls from a pain patch her doctor had prescribed to her for her arthritis that cause more problems than they helped.

What if more thought had been given to how it may affect her and her health?

Watching her go through that, body shaking and her mind addled, it was heartbreaking, and it feels needless, as if there must have been a better or more mindful route to take.
What if the people in crisis got the mental health help they needed? Someone that wouldn’t judge or lecture but would hear their pleas and got (and accepted, there is that part of the equation) the help they need. 

What if people we heard and seen when they told professionals their worries?

How many of us swallow that pain, that discomfort, and that fear because it’s not worth the expense it takes to try to get answers that won’t help?

I know I do that.
Do you?

We hear time and again how great our nation is but yet we won’t take care of our own. We won’t let people get help. We don’t encourage it. We stigmatize mental health until it’s too late. We don’t trust our doctors to do right by us – doctors who are often pressured to speed through their patients – so we ignore our discomfort. 

I loved someone who was so fearful of doctors that they refused to see anyone but a visiting nurse and a medical condition got out of hand and took their life. 

So many of us pay a good deal of money into systems that don’t support us or hear us. 

It’s all so frustrating but imagine a world where we all went to get the medical help we need, whatever it is?

Would it be a better world?

A healthier world?

A happier world?

A less painful world?

I bet it would be. 

And the structures are in place (like education, hmph) they just aren’t being used properly and aren’t supported by the systems we have. 

How sad. 

How sad that many of us live lives of pain, depression, fear, and end up in an early grave because someone just won’t hear our cries for help, or help us when we don’t cry out, because they want us not to be another cog but a thriving person. 

A fellow human. 

…c…