What you don't want in a urologist/Or, the next hard thing

For the last 4 years I have had blood in my urine. Really I've had it longer than that, as urine tests from grad school show it. I've known I needed a test called a cystoscopy, which inserts a camera through the urethra into the bladder. I have refused on the basis of this being far too traumatic for me after the sexual abuse. They need to be sure I do not have a tumor or anything in my bladder. For a long But it has gotten worse in the last year or so, and when I was so very sick and dehydrated in November I had to give a urine specimen that was frightening looking. It was full of chunks of blood and clots, and if it had been something I saw in a catheter bag I would have been searching for a nurse ASAP. At first we all assumed that I'd test positive for a UTI and the pain I had could be explained, but no, it was just blood. When I saw Dr. Body we talked about and the fact that 36 hours later I was still peeing clots and large amounts of blood. He basically told me that there was nothing he could do, nothing worth even doing a urine specimen for him, if I wouldn't have the cystoscopy because there was no way to know what is wrong without that.

I thought a lot about it, and the next time I saw him, a whole 2 weeks later thanks to my ankle sprain, I told him that if he found someone who would knock me out and make sure I do not remember anything from the pre-op room until I leave the hospital I would do it. He told me something about that being possible and that there was only one female urologist in the area. I should have realized that this was not a rousing support of this woman or her ability to be helpful to me in the emotional sense.

So I was already a bit put out by this practice when I was sent to gather test results from 2 hospitals in a snow storm with 24 hours notice they were needed. And then Wednesday I saw her. She was horrid. She never bothered to even introduce herself. She showed me my cyst, never said anything about what it might be or what importance it might have, asked what the nephrologist said ("see a urologist") and then sort of scanned the 2 pages my doctor had written out. But she didn't care, and so she immediately began to try to argue me into doing it without sedation. She never asked about my experiences or what I needed or why. Then she made a big fuss about doing it sedated if I INSISTED, since "30 year olds do get bladder cancer". Thanks a lot. I tried to talk to her about meds and she blew me off, telling me I had to talk to the anesthesiologist, but nobody would explain how or when that would occur. Essentially she totally refused to let me have any control over the situation whatsoever and she lacked any and all compassion. She also never bothered to examine me or explain the procedure whatsoever. So yesterday I mailed 2 letters. One was to Dr. Body telling him that I did NOT chicken out but that I will be getting a referral through Dr. Brain to someone at Cleveland Clinic where who is compassionate and used to psych patients. ( I feel pretty certain this doctor was very uncomfortable with that. Many are not. I just don't return to them.) Dr. Brain keeps an awareness of other specialists who are better with psychiatric patients and who bother to consult her about her patients and things like that. There are only 4 women choices there, but she'll find someone outside the Clinic if needed. The other was to the urology practice, saying that I felt that Dr. Bladder was unable to meet my unusual needs at this time.

But then I talked to Dr. Mind about this. And I realized through our conversation that it is time for him to know even more about my past. It is time for Dr. Mind to know more specifically what the sexual abuse I survived included, because it's going to be hard for him to help me through this without that. I think he's been subtly trying to tell me that for 2 weeks and this week the subtly actually sunk in. But I cannot do this out loud. I can't speak those words. So tonight or tomorrow I'm going to be making a list. A list that is undoubtedly going to feel way too short, but clinical terms leave out so much. But it's clinical or not at all, and if he has the list and asks questions I can talk more. But what an ugly list. And what fun to dig through painful memories for ways to describe it all.

I can't wait to have this over.