By September, it was an entirely different story when he wrote \u201cangry, sullen, distrustful, anxious, hostile.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Of all the things I\u2019ve read as I\u2019ve made my way through her records, this is what upsets me the most. It\u2019s not the loss of the use of her legs, or the radical ways in which her life has changed. It\u2019s not what this has wrought on our entire family. It\u2019s the simple observation that the specialists and experts she met last year\u00a0changed who she was, and taught her not to trust.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Dear Doctors,<\/p>\n I blame you. Her anger and resentment is completely your fault. You took my friendly, trusting child and created a girl who is sullen and resentful towards anyone in scrubs or a lab coat.\u00a0You\u00a0taught her that\u00a0you\u00a0were not on her team, but were her adversaries to be struggled against and overcome in the quest for answers. That\u2019s all on you.<\/p>\n Five months and sixteen doctors and\u00a0our daughter\u2019s view of the medical profession is forever changed. Five months of your not listening \u2013 to her, us, or our family doctor. Five months of treating her as a \u201ccase\u201d instead of as a human being. Talking down to her<\/em>. Talking down to us<\/em> in front of her. Refusing to test her for anything<\/em> which might mean contradicting a colleague. Accusing her of acting and recommending that she be punished for it. (There\u2019s a special place in my heart for the ER doc who said that.) Refusing to look at the extensive notes and timelines I brought to every<\/em> doctor appointment. She saw me cry and beg for your\u00a0help, and more than one of you actually said the words \u201cthat\u2019s not important.\u201d Why? Why was it not important? Why was she<\/em> not important?<\/p>\n She heard you. She heard all of the things you said and all of the things your demeanor towards her said.<\/p>\n And the shame of it is that she needs you. She\u2019s a paraplegic who will need doctors and their expertise for the rest of her life. The doctors you\u2019ve taught her will not be helpful. The people you\u2019ve taught her not to trust.<\/p>\n Thank you for that. Thank you for taking a crappy situation and using your arrogance and lack of\u00a0professionalism to make her entire life infinitely more difficult.<\/p>\n What you kept forgetting last year was that she was a person not just a set of symptoms. She was a little girl who was frightened by what was happening to her body and her life. She was scared of the hospitals and you made her even more nervous. It would have been so simple to teach her that you saw her as more than a piece of meat, that you saw the beautiful unique and wonderful person that she was and still is. That you saw her humanity.<\/p>\n You didn\u2019t do that, and now her therapist and I will spend the next few years undoing the damage that you have done so that she will be willing<\/em> to come to you in the future.<\/p>\n The next time that you step into an exam room and look at the person sitting there, please remember what your actions and demeanor have done to our daughter and resolve to be better than that. Remember that you are teaching that patient not just about yourself, but about your profession as a whole. What you do and say and how you say it will affect their perception of doctors for the rest of their lives. It\u2019s a huge responsibility, but it\u2019s not a hard one.<\/p>\n Be kind. Treat the child in front of you as if they were your own beloved child. Because that\u2019s what they deserve from you.<\/p>\n Last week, we requested full and complete copies of Ella\u2019s medical records from every doctor or hospital she saw in the last eighteen months. Last night, we received the digital copies of her complete file (including notes) from the neurologist who finally diagnosed her as having \u201cAbnormal Muscle Movement.\u201d Dr C\u00a0was the mad genius whose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net\/hphotos-frc3\/v\/t1.0-9\/10689691_1554759668093863_6912946513961270309_n.jpg?oh=a716e40ae167ad38ea43fa8ed217abd3&oe=569C962D\")
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