2. The medical expert.
When your ill, you know your ill, you know how your feeling and you know how your body is reacting to your illness and or treatment. It is also quite likely that when you are ill you will take some notice of how you are being treated. You are likely to have paid attention to the doctors and nurses and have probably got a decent understanding of exactly what they are doing or have done done to your body.
Or maybe you need your Uncle Jim to share her extensive medical knowledge with you that she has picked up over his years of being a lolly pop man!
The obvious fact that you have listened, done some research and actually been through having cancer doesn't stop some people from telling you exactly what you feel, what your doctors are doing and what your prognosis is without the slightest hint of knowledge of your particular circumstance, condition or in fact the medical field at all.
Before I had surgery to remove part of my bowel I had an epidural. This meant they could use less anaesthetic and I could recover more quickly. When I mentioned this to a family member I was told exactly how an epidural was delivered (she got it wrong) and exactly what is felt like to have one (wrong again) before boasting that having had two children she never had one! I was bewildered. Now maybe she was describing what she believed an epidural was like at the time when she had children (25+ years ago) or perhaps retelling the story of a friend. But it would probably have been easier to just ask me what it was like, wouldn’t it?!
Probably the worst part of this was how defensive she became when I told her what had actually happened in my experience, and how she started talking about how she refused to have one when she had children because of side effects as if that was related somehow and as if it wouldn’t make me feel kind of awful! I’ve never had children and perhaps never will, but I now know that her reaction will be pretty terrible should I have an epidural, I mean if she has such strong opinions when I have one for cancer surgery I can only imagine!
But that’s getting off track. The medical expert is a very frustrating person because they think they can tell you how you feel (they can’t), what medical treatment is best for you (they don’t know), and what the future holds for you (no one bloody knows!!).
Also, they are full of CR*P.
(But I’m sure that’s just the hormones I’m taking talking, my next door neighbour told me I would definitely have side effects of bullsh*t intolerance!)
