A Funny Thing Happened At the Doctor's Office

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Toes, you fit the jackpot of comfy. Hey Dude, good to go to. Have you ever had trouble kind of, how do I say this, have you ever had trouble holding your tongue? When things get a little bit weird, particularly doctor's offices, I mean we have a lot of opportunities to engage with people in the doctor's office. And last week we returned to Denver where Gracie had a consult with a new doctor, one that she'd not seen before. I've been back and forth with their office, giving as much history as I can.

That helps the process a little bit. But I get there, now I want to paint a picture for you. The picture is Gracie is in a wheelchair. And she has her crutches cradled in her arm when she needs to walk. She's wearing a skirt and she has two very visible prostheses on. Her legs don't have any skin covering, so they are very robotic looking.

And she's worn them like that since the 90s. And so the medical technician comes out into the waiting room, calls us in, so I'm wheeling Gracie back, she's walking beside me with Gracie. And she suggests that we back into the room, makes it a lot easier because those examination rooms are a little bit, you know, small. All right, you're with me so far, you've been there.

And she goes to the computer and starts filling out the questionnaire for the, you know, the patient questionnaire. And I'm not saying that she wasn't dialed into her job. Somebody else could say that.

I'm not going to say it. She didn't appear to be aggressively interested in her job, in Gracie, or anything else for that matter. And as she's filling out this form, she asked this question.

Do you have trouble walking? And my first response was, really? She's in a wheelchair holding crutches and she has two prosthetic legs. I want you to imagine the torque that went on between my brain and my mouth at that point. Gracie on the other hand was very gracious and she said, yes. Gracie has this ability to remain gracious in situations like that.

Not one of my gifts, I got to tell you. So she knew what I was thinking and she just got, I could see her just move her hand quietly just to quiet me down. Next question. Are you afraid of falling? And I'm just like, honestly. And Gracie said, I'm not afraid of it. I just hate doing it.

All right. Then the X-ray technician comes in and she's talking to Gracie and she's looking over and she puts her hand on the prosthesis where the sleeve on her prosthesis right at her knee. And she said, and I kid you not, does this come off? You remember Bill Engvall, the comedian, he and Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cableground and Ron White did a lot of stuff together. And, and he had this bit that he would do when people ask a stupid question, he would answer it with something and say, cause his premise was stupid people ought to wear a sign that says I'm stupid, you know?

And, and every time somebody would ask him something that was just bizarrely stupid, he would come up with a sarcastic answer and say, here's your sign. So I felt like that. I mean, I've had those moments myself where I've asked stupid questions.

I mean, we all have, but in that moment there with Gracie, I mean, we're in this professional environment. We're sitting there and you should know that when you ask a woman, if her prosthetic leg comes off, that's a stupid question. I wanted to say, no, we stapled it on, here's your side, you know, or what do you mean? This is my real leg. Here's your side. You know, I mean, you know, I've, I've told people many times before her, her legs are artificial, but her feet are real.

Here's your side. You know, I'm sorry. I can't help myself. Sometimes at that point, I said, you know, I probably need to wait outside because it was all I could do to just restrain myself. You know, sometimes the greatest accomplishment I'll have in a single day, maybe even a single week is just to keep my mouth shut in moments like that. Do you ever struggle with that? I mean, there are so many things swirling around in my brain that I just wanted to say. You just know it's not going to be helpful and you have to kind of be gracious. And, you know, there's, there's an old saying that there, the two best times to keep your mouth shut or when you're swimming and when you're angry. But I would say there's a third time is when people say something so clueless, so stupid, and you don't need to call them on it.

You know, that's a good time. I mean, you remember, you remember what I told you about when I was at the hotel and the lady had given us the wrong room and it didn't have the, all the handicap facilities that I'd mentioned. And I brought it to her attention as I was checking out one night and I had some ramen soup there.

You remember that? And, and I told her about it. I said, look, y'all gave us the wrong room and I've got ramen soup.

And she said, she was so sincere, she felt so bad. Here, take that soup on us. It's the least we could do. There ain't no least-er. I mean, that is the absolute, it's ramen soup.

Anything less than that is nothing. And, and I've, you know, you, you want to say something to people, but you can't. You, you just, it's not going to be helpful.

And Gracie, she knows me after 36 years of marriage, she knows what my brain is doing. And she's over there just like, just, just be quiet. Just, just, just go away. Just, just go out.

Just, just go away. And you know, what, what would you say? I mean, honestly, what would you say when she says, do you have trouble walking? You ain't got any legs. You got crutches in your hands, you know, and you're in a wheelchair.

Do you have trouble walking? Uh, no, I just, you know, I mean, what do you say to that? I grew up with four brothers and my sister came along. She was the baby and she's the worst of the lot, by the way, when it comes to this, we all speak fluent sarcasm.

I mean, we got it down cold. When you grew up in a large family like that, bunch of boys, particularly. And then my sister, she had no other frame of reference. She didn't have a sister. She had five older brothers.

And so she will blister you more than the rest of us combined. And it's hilarious. Now, dad doesn't speak sarcasm. My mother does, but dad does it.

He just sits back and observes it. But, you know, I grew up in an environment where when somebody said something stupid, there was a whole chorus of people that jumped in to point out how stupid it was. And so I find myself out there in these environments where people will say these things.

And I'm like, what am I supposed to do? Do you, do you realize the stress that puts on me as a human being to not want to pop off. And yet I know that I can't. And I'll bet you do too. That's part of our life as caregivers. And I thought maybe you get a little chuckle out of my journey in facts pits of struggling with that, just so you know, you're not alone in this. We're all in this together and it's okay for us to laugh about these things because they're funny. That's part of having hope for the caregiver, which is that conviction. We can live a calmer, healthier, and dare I say it, a more joyful life, even while serving as a caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

We'll be right back. Do you know what a PVA bag is? I'm Peter Rosenberger and at Standing with Hope, which is the presenting sponsor of Hope for the Caregiver. We do prosthetics for amputees over in West Africa. We've been working with Ghana for years, since 2005.

This was Gracie's vision after losing both of her legs. And we help them buy a lot of material for the prosthetic clinics. In exchange, we get to share the gospel with individuals and be able to present the gospel, not only with the patients, but their families and the community and even the nation. We've done national interviews with many of their public officials, including their vice president and the US ambassador to Ghana. But PVA bags, polyvinyl alcohol bags, they're using the lamination process to make these sockets that we make. They're brand new.

They're custom fit on site. And we purchased them in Ghana. Right now they're out and we need to get some more. So we make some more legs. We also need resin. We're always buying resin because that's one of the critical items in these acrylic resin sockets that we make. Now we'll recycle the prosthetic limbs that come from all over the country to a prison run by CoreCivic down in Arizona. And inmates volunteer to disassemble them for us so we can recycle the knees, the feet, the pylons, the screws, the adapters, the clamps, all that kind of stuff. But some things we have to purchase.

PVA bags and resin are two of those items that need to be regularly purchased. Would you help us out with that, please? StandingWithHope.com slash giving. StandingWithHope.com slash giving. And be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking. StandingWithHope.com slash giving. Thanks so much. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

I am Peter Rosaburger. Glad to have you with us. By the way, take a moment to go out to our Facebook group, Hope for the Caregiver. Join that group. I have a page, Hope for the Caregiver the page, but the group is something you join and we put a lot of stuff in there. Also other members post questions and they ask for different things and you can weigh in on them.

Or if you have a question, whatever's on your heart. And I'm going to probably sometime in the next couple of weeks, do a live Facebook event in that group that we can talk, whatever's on our heart. It's for caregivers. So please take advantage of that at Facebook, the Facebook group, Hope for the Caregiver. And you can also go out to our website, Hopeforthecaregiver.com, find out more about what we're doing. You can also subscribe to the podcast.

It is free. And I hope you'll take advantage of that as well. There's so many different resources I'm putting out there. Please don't try to just white knuckle this and do this all by yourself. That's a mistake that all too many of us have made over our journey as caregivers.

And I think that all of us who have tried to do that will certainly affirm that that is not the way to do it. Let's reach out for some help. The help is available and please take advantage of it.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. While we're on the subject of doctors and doctor's offices and so forth, like I talked about the last segment with the, here's your side. I also took advantage of last week's doctor visit with Gracie to remind myself of the three P's of dealing with doctors. This is for us as caregivers, the three P's of dealing with doctors.

Do you know what those are? How many of you all have a lot of doctor visits as a caregiver? I bet you do. And give it time if you don't, but the three P's, because it can be a bit stressful.

I mean, wouldn't you say, I mean, it could be a bit challenging and you feel a little bit intimidated. I know when I started this journey, I thought that doctors were just below God and a lot of them reinforced that. I don't think that anymore. I've known too many of them. Well over a hundred plus doctors have treated Gracie in these years. I mean, I've kind of just stopped counting at a hundred. I mean, I'm talking about spent significant time with her and some of them, you know, one of her surgeons that she started out with, he was a resident when she had her rec and now I think he's retired.

So she went the entire career with this guy or pretty much most of it. And so it's just, it's been a lengthy journey where we've had a lot of physicians and some of them have been wonderful. Others, not so much. They're human beings after all. And you're going to run into those. You're going to run in those who are sincere. They really want to do a good job. And then you're going to run into those who are just phoning it in.

And then you're going to run into those who are sincere, but they're not very good at what they do. That happens. Okay. Either way, this is the journey we're on. And so it helps us to be able to navigate this better when we go into these offices. And if you'll notice they're on a clock, I mean, they come in, they have everybody talk to you first so that all they have to come in and do is, you know, he or she will give a couple of minutes of time to you and say, okay, this, this, this, this, this. Okay.

We're done. And then next. And it's almost like they're on a conveyor belt, you know, mentality or roller skate. That's just the way healthcare is. You don't have those long conversations with doctors very often.

So you got to make the most of it. So I came up with a thing called the three P's of dealing with doctor, how to make the most of this medical visit. And the number one is be professional. Okay.

So what does that look like? Well, first off, how are you dressed when you go in there, if you're looking like you just stepped out of the backyard working, you know, it sends a message, respect the meeting, respect yourself, respect the professional environment. You don't have to put on a suit or anything. I mean, I've done that before, but it would be helpful if you went in looking like you took the meeting seriously. Also be very much on time, even if they're not. And most of the time they're not, but the one time you're late is the time they'll be prompt. So that's just the way it is.

I mean, I don't make these rules. People look at you by the way you dress. People look at you by the way that you show up, whether you show up on time, so forth. I mean, so be prompt and all those things, everything you would want people to treat you with as a professional. And also write down what you're going to talk about. Don't just think you got it down, write it down. Okay.

Put it on your phone, whatever you got to do, but have three to five issues that you want to hit. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay. So you go through it. It's a business meeting. These are diagnosticians, they're clinicians. These are people that are used to looking at data and making decisions. Give them data. Don't make them go hunt for it. Okay.

That is one of the most challenging things you'll do because you're going to end up shortchanging yourself and your loved one. And I'm saying this to us as caregivers, because a lot of times we're taking our loved one to the doctor. Gracie goes to the doctor a lot, but she doesn't always feel really well. She's tired. She's in pain. She doesn't feel real well.

She counts on me to be able to help her with these. Now I try to stay in my lane and not overtake the meeting. I've done that plenty of times.

I know you have a hard time believing that, but it's one of those things where you've got to be prepared on this. So, you know, it's a professional meeting, treat it as such. Go in there knowing that you want to address these issues and then go from there.

Dress the part, be on time and dress those issues. Okay. That's the first one, be professional.

Now the second one is it seems like it's a no brainer, but it's not. Be polite, but don't be subservient. Okay. You have caregiver authority. You know your loved one better than anybody else on the planet.

Okay. I've, I've been caring for Gracie since Reagan was president. And since most of the doctors that treat her have been in junior high school or less. And since a lot of the nurses that treat her since before they were born. Now that's my reality.

I don't know about yours, but that's my reality. So I'm very polite, but I've been doing this a very long time. I had a nurse one time to help me. She got, she fussed at me and in front of a bunch of other people and said, well, you need to trust us. Cause you, you called, left a message for this and you did.

Then you got a message over here to get. And I looked at her and I stopped her in front of everybody. I said, I called and no one called me back. If I don't get a call back, I will keep calling until I do. Because when there's a mess, when things happen, when she falls through the crack, I'm the guy that has to clean it up. Nobody else shows up to help me do that. So when I call, I expect a call back and that's just the way it was.

And everybody else kind of went, okay. Because I was serious about it. I was very polite, but I don't have the wherewithal. I don't have the, the emotional bandwidth to put up with power plays and foolishness. And I bet you don't either. So we've got to learn to assert ourselves.

Now we don't have to be disrespectful, but we can assert ourselves in this. And I know that some of you may feel very uncomfortable with that. I certainly was when I started this journey.

I didn't know what to say. I don't know the science, but I know her. And if it would help you, I would spend some time reading in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs gives you a, first of all, it gives you kind of a crash course in God's MBA, Masters of Business Administration, but it also helps you understand the nature of people, of dealing with people. And it might not be a bad idea for you to spend a little bit of time in Proverbs.

Read one on the first of the month, Proverbs two on the second of the month and so forth. And you will find that it gives you that foundational understanding of how to interact with people, because they're just people. People are people everywhere you go.

So yes, they may have some initials after their name and they may have more training than you do, but that doesn't mean that they are exempt from the human condition. And we can go in and be polite, but we can be assertive. We can set boundaries. So be professional, be polite, but not subservient. And then the last one is stay out of the pharmaceutical questions and conversations unless you are directly asked. Okay. Now this is really important.

I have done this so poorly over the years, and it's cost-gracy. I'm very influential. I'm very persuasive.

From what they tell me, I'm pretty articulate. And it's easier sometimes to deal with me because I can get right to the bottom of the issue, or I can say this, I can do this, or I can phrase things well, but they need to hear from Gracie, not from me. Gracie's the one with the pain. She's the one with the discomfort and these circumstances. And they need to hear her and observe her articulated in her own voice. Even if she has a hard time doing it, if she feels just awful that day, she has a hard time doing it.

That's okay. They still need to see her distress so they can evaluate what's going on with her, how well she's able to respond with certain medications and others. Sometimes some things will cause dry mouth, or sometimes things will cause harder to form your sentences or sluggishness or whatever. It doesn't matter. Medication has an effect on you. You show me a pill with no side effect, and I'll show you a pill with no effect.

It's the way it is. And part of the observation process, part of the appointment is for these physicians to observe and see. And if I'm running my yap, I rob her of the opportunity to be observed without me taking over or hijacking the conversation. So I have to sometimes bite my tongue and learn to like the taste of blood. It's like when I was in that room with her last week, as I said, the last block. And the lady says to her prosthesis, does this come off?

And at that point, I'm going to have to wait outside. And sometimes we just have to do that. Let the doctor talk about the prescriptions. Now it's okay to ask questions. It's okay to say, in my observation or in my experience, I've seen this doctor, I've observed this, and I'm a little bit concerned about this.

You know, that kind of thing. But be very careful with that because we're not physicians, unless you are a physician. And if you are, God bless you, go for it.

But if you're not, let's dial it down a little bit. Be prepared with questions. But also be prepared to hold your tongue. All right. So the three P's of dealing with a doctor.

Be professional, be polite, but not subservient. And try to stay out of the pharmaceutical conversations. It will make your journey as a caregiver a little bit more peaceful. Okay. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver.