Be Your Own Best Advocate for Medical Care! Are you Ready to Make the Difference?

by | Sep 21, 2023 | Blog

Many of us know the importance of catching a disease in the early stages. I’m sure there are many of you that could give a handful or more examples of when it was caught too late or caught in the early stages.

The difference between the two often comes down to who and how hard was someone advocating for you?

 I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating this.  We expect our medical profession to always be right and to think about every angle of any ailment we have.  But they are human too and we never know what they have been facing in the hours, days or weeks before they examine us.  We count on them, but we cannot assume that we have given them all the information with which to make their recommendations.  

 I’m not saying that we shouldn’t hold them to a high standard and expect them to keep up with the changing drugs, testing and knowledge of diseases that their license would indicate.

Let me give you an example. Before my significant other was diagnosed with terminal cancer he went to a lot of different doctors to try to determine what was wrong. Each time he came home with an ointment or other drug to try to alleviate the minor symptoms he was having. After one such time he was telling me about the conversation with the doctor and I stopped him mid sentence.
“What MINOR symptoms did you tell them about? What about the MAJOR pains you were having? What did they say about those?”, I asked. It was then that I decided to go with him to his appointments. I sat in the room with him, with his permission of course and when the doctor came in and asked him how he was, he replied he was doing great. WHAT?!? I immediately conveyed to the doctor that he was in fact NOT doing great and detailed the symptoms he had been having for over a year.
He looked confused and said, “when someone asks you how you are, you aren’t supposed to tell them all your problems!” The doctor corrected him and made sure that he understood that when a medical professional asks, they REALLY want to know all the details! This goes along with my last blog post about self-talk and upbringing. He had been continually told that people don’t REALLY want to know your problems, they are just making small talk when they ask how you are.

You need to OVER communicate when it comes to your health.

I tell you this not to say that his lack of communication could have saved his life. I’m telling you this because we need to over communicate to our healthcare professionals. If you can’t do it for yourself, be sure to have someone come with you and give the healthcare professional permission to speak with them. Unfortunately when we are receiving information that is upsetting we can hear only what we want to hear and not what is being said. I have found even with myself that sometimes the information being told to my significant other and myself was overwhelming and I would have to take notes and ask the dr to read them to correct anything that I misunderstood.
One of his doctors encouraged us to record the meeting so that we could reference the several procedures he was recommending and why he was recommending them. I found that to be extremely helpful, so don’t be afraid to ask if you can do that. Bottom line, it is your life and you are responsible for making sure you get the care you need. Always know that getting a 2nd or even 3rd opinion is not necessarily a bad idea if you feel that you are not getting the care you need. Be your own advocate. I did a great podcast with Dana Frost about advocating. Have a listen here https://advantagestoaging.com/are-you-the-ceo-of-your-health/

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