Holy cats. This blog post focuses on the monster who was my former neurologist and THE MONSTER CALLED ME WHEN I WAS WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT.

Therefore, I have some LIVE ACTION news in this blog post.

Exciting!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Right. So I’m an epileptic.

Been epileptic since I was twelve.

Consequently, I’ve had many neurologists in my life, especially due to all my physical moving and the fact that neurologists also sometimes get a new job elsewhere.

So I have a clear understanding of how neurologists are supposed to behave, due to my twenty-eight years of lived experience being under the care of neurologists.

I also know that epileptics like me are supposed to have “brain tests” somewhat regularly.

Yet, since I’m a rambler, I haven’t.

I’ve had quite a few electroencephalogram (EEG)s as they’re the single and only test most neurologists will request.

Hell, I’ve had three in the last year.

An EEG measures the electrical activity in one’s brain and, time after time, my brain activity is classified in the irregular to highly irregular range.

Naturally.

But what that really means is that I have full-blown epilepsy.

I’m not just flirting with seizures.

I’m the real electrified deal.

And I now have a great neurologist who came highly recommended and she is ordering all kinds of tests that a female epileptic my age should have.

I also understand why she is ordering these tests because she is an ethical practitioner. Also, I have secretly wanted a couple of these tests.

I remember secretly wanting more fun things but… life is a trip.

And my new neurologist requested a head MRI which is a magnetic resonance image of my brain, or a brain scan.

No. Not that Brainscan.

This brain scan.

I’m not sure which looks scarier.

In any case, coming back to the monster cited in this blog’s title, I recently left the practice of a neurologist I was assigned to by my state health care when we moved back to Milwaukee last summer

because he terrified me.

Neurologists, to me, an epileptic, are like general practitioners.

You ideally check in with them annually, they make sure you’re not dead, they renew your seizure-control medication prescription and you’re on your way.

However, my former neurologist told me, after a 72 hour EEG which I did AT HOME and, technically, BY MYSELF

and which was the second EEG he had ordered in four months’ time, that I was the most epileptic person he’d ever seen in his twenty-five years of practice and I’d probably die in my sleep soon:

👸 = 🚨 = 🧟‍♀️

Therefore, I’d eventually need a brain implant or, at minimum, I’d have to switch to a different seizure-control medication.

Scared shitless, I switched medication.

And the new medication thankfully worked as well as the former medication.

Largely because the new medication is in the same “family” as my former seizure-control medication.

And, unlike human families, pharmaceutical families are generally harmonious.

But, while I switched medication, I didn’t like the sick feeling I experienced inside as a result of my rather regular meetings with the former neurologist.

He upset me by getting facts wrong, by talking over me, by not listening, and by being quite controlling. He also made me feel as if I should be hospitalized and give up on living a normal life.

Or the closest someone like me could get to a normal life.

Again, in my twenty-eight years of “having a neurologist” I have never seen any of them more than once a year.

I see a neurologist annually.

And I’d seen my former neurologist at least five times in six months.

Therefore, since I wasn’t really happy about feeling sick and terrified and seeing this man all the time, I sought a second opinion and a whole different neurologist to go along with it.

And, again, I was able to acquire a new, highly-recommended neurologist, thanks to a friend, and thus able leave the scary one behind.

I only hoped that the neurologist who scared me was/is genuinely mistaken with terrible communication skills because, otherwise,

YIKES.

I don’t want to die in my sleep.

I don’t want to die at all.

So now I’m going through a barrage of tests with my new neurologist which has felt nice because they’re giving me the reassurance I’ve long lacked.

And no bad news so far.

However, my new neurologist also wants the data from my 72 hour EEG.

After all, why do another EEG if I’d just done three?

Well, she doubts the former neurologist’s assessment of my being the “most epileptic” and “on the edge of death” and wants to do her own interpretation of the same data.

Yet, accessing the data for my last EEG has been far more difficult than she assumed.

Why?

First, my new neurologist’s nurse found my former neurologist did not use the software most other neurologists use to perform EEGs.

Naturally. My former neurologist’s office did not come with a public bathroom. How could it be assumed that he used modern technology.

So my new neurologist’s nurse had to contact them directly and… she couldn’t as the former neurologist’s office was mysteriously closed for weeks.

Likely due to coronavirus.

That’s pure conjecture but neither of his two staff members wore masks until June.

I wore a mask and gritted my teeth as one of the two non-masked staff members — the EEG tech — sneezed as she placed the electrodes on my head for the 72 hour EEG.

Well, she put the electrodes on for the 72 hour EEG but I had to take them off myself.

Yeah, that was also new to me because I’d never before done an ambulatory EEG.

The EEGs I was familiar were done in a clinical setting.

Not completely DIY in an apartment in a bad neighborhood with a 1990s video camcorder which had to always be physically plugged into an electrical socket or else it would crash.

Secondly, the small office suddenly re-opened and, while my new neurologist’s nurse still couldn’t connect with them, I somehow could.

And over the course of three days, my former neurologist’s assistant gave me two different fax numbers, different criteria, and pretended they weren’t home and…

I was pretty sure they were never going to share the data and I’d have to do my fourth EEG in thirteen months.

But I stopped thinking about any of that because I was moving on and I had a BRAIN SCAN TO GET PSYCHED FOR!

And I’m a bit excited because I haven’t had one of those in years.

Though it’s weird to have a 7:30 P.M. brain scan.

I’ve only been to hospitals at night for really upsetting reasons.

But…

I guess it’s time to shake up that trend and do an evening brain scan!

THAT LOOKS SO FUCKING SCARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’d comfort myself with the memory of having done these tests many times before, as, again, I debuted as an epileptic at age twelve, but I can’t remember the details.

I have memory issues… whether it’s due to PTSD or it’s something epilepsy-related remains to be revealed.

However, if you meet me in physical life and I don’t instantly remember you, please don’t be offended.

If you meet me in physical life and act like I should know you but have never before met you,

keep in mind that I’ve been faking life for a long time due to grief and trauma but, somewhere, deep inside,

I REMEMBER EVERYTHING.

Don’t worry though. I’m a hermit. You’ll likely never get the chance to make an entry on my shit list.

And I was sure last night’s MRI was going to go great.

Why? Because I had been feeling confident.

My neurologist ordered a bone scan last week because seizure-control medications are known to deplete bone tissue.

But my bones are motherflipping NORMAL.

It’s the only part of me that is. And that’s wonderful.

So I’ve only passed two medical tests but I’m feeling pretty pumped.

Is that… positivity?!… flowing through my bloodstream?

God no. Rather, I think my hyper competitive Type A personality is experiencing a rebound!

KICKING ASS AND TAKING NUMBERS!

I’m sure this competitiveness will pass.

I had been in sports when in high school but then I became a full-fledged music scene goth and the gap between those two lives simply cannot be bridged.

Besides, I thought I had killed my competitive side so it’s always a real surprise to hear her pipe up unexpectedly.

You can’t just drop back into former pools of life, willy-nilly.

A dimension may suddenly open in the wall and suck you in and plunge you back in time.

Disastrous.

You can’t ever go back.

Oh ho ho ho!

While typing this, my former neurologist (the “monster”) himself called me RIGHT NOW IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS BLOG DEDICATED TO HOW HE HAD SCARED ME AND HOW I AM TRYING TO MOVING ON.

He had never called me before.

I was explicitly caught off-guard.

He then proceeded to passionately rant at me over the phone for about six minutes…

and I kind of went into a state…

he spoke so quickly I couldn’t even understand him for at least the first minute.

But I did pick up scraps of blurry verbal tidbits which included:

“Mother Theresa appeared to me”

“Jesus Christ (the person/God…not as a @#$!…no, he was referring to the literal Son of God)

“My patients are my life, my family”

“YOU are my life”

“I know you are a very good person”

“I know you are special”

“I felt a heart pang when I heard that you were leaving me”

“I haven’t had a patient like you”

“You are my favorite patient.”

I had to go into fully-fledged counselor mode during this because it felt like I was listening to an extremely unbalanced individual.

My husband could hear the call because he was sitting next to me on the couch and, even after I stood, well, he continued to easily overhear the phone call conversation because my former neurologist was speaking so loudly.

“He sounded as if you were breaking up with him,” said my husband, afterwards.

You don’t need a PhD in Counseling to know something was/is really off with this doctor.

I now honestly believe that man is a master manipulator or he is legitimately mentally ill.

He called to “apologize/beg” for six minutes.

For the record, neurologists don’t usually call patients directly.

And I’ve never had a neurologist call in the way my former neurologist called me last night.

Wow. Just wow.

And, no offense to neurologists, but they don’t usually care if you stop being their patient.

They’re neurologists. In the hierarchical field of medicine, they’re only outranked by maybe neurosurgeons.

They care/don’t care.

I have absolutely no hard data to back this up beyond my extensive lived experience with neurologists.

While I’ve had male neurologists who were balanced and competent, I’ve also had a few who were either arrogant and aloof or amazingly serious and somber.

But, once or twice, I’ve had a neurologist who was super affable, hyper witty and a bit bro-like.

Like surgeons often seem.

Or like… the fictional character Dr. Cox from the 1990s sitcom Scrubs who was Chief of Medicine and neither a neurologist or surgeon.

I love Dr. Cox.

Dr. Cox is my physically repressed Type A Personality’s hero… (because he secretly cares).

Anyways.

Away from happy-making Dr. Cox gifs and back to that phone call…

Eventually I stepped out of my Counselor suit and into my Special Forces suit after it was clear my former neurologist was tiring out and I had to make him give me the EEG data as long as I had him upsetting me on the phone.

In response, he went from:

“I’ll do anything for you, get you any information you need, whatever you need, I want to help you”

to

“I can only provide my report.”

Aka his interpretation of the EEG’s hard data.

Aha.

He went on to say:

“I don’t use software, I don’t use computers, you know, lots of places don’t use computers, I mean, I have a computer in my office but, you know, I’m a private practitioner and don’t do things the way big medical clinics do things…”

Yeah, that data never existed.

He didn’t interpret anything… no, he just winged it and made some scary shit up.

What in the actual fuck.

Uh, the way big medical clinics do things?!

That man doesn’t do things the way three-year-old humans now do things.

But, beyond his refusal to join modern times and be a modern day medical practitioner, and even beyond the supreme lack of professionalism and the inexcusable inappropriateness he demonstrated in that call and in our appointments,

the fact that there is a very strong possibility he invented extremely unsettling data…

I’d report him but, as far as I know, he already lost his state license to practice.

I learned that when my Walgreens’ prescription bottles had some other doctor’s name on them.

I mean, how is that man assigned to anyone.

I ask for legal, if not ethical, reasons.

That doctor is someone that perhaps the Amish could see if they should experience some sort of head injury.

As far as I understand, the Amish are accustomed to the men doing all the talking and they also don’t believe in technology or similar notions.

My former neurologist should specialize in providing care for the Amish.

Or probably should just not interact with other human beings.

He ended the call by stressing how he’d always take me back if it didn’t work out with the new neurologist.

No.

Just before that, he said,

“You’ve had four neurologists before me, yes? Quite a few.”

And that seemed innocent but it soon became clear he was somehow accusing me of something else.

Like I was a loose epileptic.

And he was also wrong because I’ve had at least ten neurologists before him, men and women.

😑

So I got off the phone with him.

I was shaking.

But, converting smoothly to automaton robot mode, I stopped shaking and called my current neurologist’s office to schedule another EEG and

then waited on hold for twenty minutes until they hung up on me.

Accidentally, sure.

So I called back and

waited for another ten minutes until I reached someone and

waited five more minutes as she tried to connect me and then got back on the line to share that

the staff member I had hoped to speak with had left for the day.

Antagonistic negative response I did not say out loud:

“Had they left a half-hour ago when I first called?”

At this point, I would have put my headphones on, listened to music, poured a glass of boxed wine and just focused on decompressing from the call and the inability to get through to the nurse.

But I couldn’t have a glass of wine because I had a night MRI.

Or…

The MRI may have been great timing as I was so weirdly shaken by that phone call I experienced a *twitch* as I hung up.

That’s like epilepsy saying, “Hi there.”

I haven’t experienced a twitch in many months.

So, since Epilepsy had stirred, I hoped it was subsequently more visual and showed itself in its true form during the scan last night.

As it would be ideal to get some some answers.

But I’ll never get a solid answer for why people can be so fucking harmful to other people.

Hot damn.

Motherflipping men on power trips.

Positive Mental Attitude all day long: I do feel a sense of relief because it’s possible my former neurologist made all the scary “you’re going to die soon” news up.

And I’d like to think the best of him, but I’ve waded through at least forty life pools since feeling able to give the benefit of the doubt to any man in a position of power.

So I’ll think nothing of him.

Right, Sea Captain Ghost Head?

Wait…

Okay.

Right, Sea Captain Ghost Head?

Oh my word, I desperately need a dog to talk to.

But, for the sake of my only child in isolating quarantine-pretend-friend -time, I respond to Sea Captain Head Ghost:

“RIIIIIIIGHT!” -one who never forgets who was super amused by how many friends thought she became a medical doctor though those were just the clothes I wore for the MRI…

In any case, if you feel that a doctor is in any way making you feel uncomfortable (beyond any bad news they may/may not be delivering),

be sure to tell someone (“get it out”/seek perspective)

request to see another physician as you don’t have to tolerate the abuse,

and, if the dynamic feels abusive, you can also make a report with your state medical board.