Ooh, Shiny!

…. or the difficulty of keeping specialists focussed on what you want, rather than what interests them.

I saw a new specialist last night, this one a spinal surgeon, but the appointment didn’t go entirely to plan. What I really wanted to talk about was the holistic effects of having injuries at both lumbar and cervical spine, and the fact that what would be a comparatively simple neck/arm problem for anyone else compromises my entire mobility, because it’s interfering with using crutches. She just wanted to talk necks.

Now to give her her due, she did do a reasonably full work-up and did talk to me about the lumbar issues, but no more than reasonable, I don’t think she really understood the extent to which things revolve around my pelvis, and she just plain wasn’t interested in how I’m disabled by the pain I experience, barely so by the fact I spent most of March only sleeping on alternate nights. The pain interested her, what it meant for me didn’t.

I’m reasonably happy about the fact she’s sending me for nerve conduction tests, no matter they are reportedly unpleasant, I’m very happy that she’s thinking about sending me back to pain management, because they will listen to me, but is it too much to ask that she listens to me too?