Can I just Get a Zipper? - #Wattys2015

Advocate: the most important word you can learn if you have health problems

Advocate can be a verb or a noun. As a verb it means to speak on behalf of. As a noun it means one who speaks on behalf of.

When you have a health issue it is important to learn advocate for yourself and it is also important to have a person who can advocate for you when you are less than able.

Health professionals can be intimidating, and sometimes have a certain focus. How many times have you been to the doctor and had something you wanted to ask, but by the time you got to the end of your visit, you had either talked yourself out of asking, or not had the opportunity?

To advocate for yourself you need to realize that everything you are concerned about, or have a question about, is valid and worthy of voicing. Don't worry about annoying your doctor or embarrassing yourself. This is your health, not your reputation at school after you asked the person you had a crush on to the dance. It's better to be embarrassed than dead.

This may sound dramatic, but my life is an example many times over. Most recently, this January, you know if you have been reading, I almost died from what seemed at first to be a really bad Flu.

I went to the ER when I had a painfully sore throat, was feeling really poorly, and my blood pressure was drastically out of whack.

I keep a blood pressure monitor at home. I know what a normal range is for me on the days I am feeling well. So if I don't feel well, and a quick BP shows it is sky high or drastically low, I know I need help.

The hospital was overwhelmed with flu cases, at the time, so they gave me some fluids and sent me home.

I went to my doctor the next day--sent home again. A few days later, on the weekend, I went to the ER twice in the same day. The second time my throat was so sore, I was writing things instead of speaking. Not just because it was a little uncomfortable, but because it was so horrendously painful I was literally incapable of speaking.

Two ER visits in the same day earned me automatic hospitalization. Luckily. I don't remember much after they admitted me. My throat closed up from epiglottitis and I needed an emergency tracheotomy.

If I had felt "maybe I shouldn't go back...they are going to think I am being a nuisance" or some other excuse, I would be dead.

But I learned a long time ago that the doctors are there to be bugged (too bad for them). The reality is doctors are not infallible. In fact, three doctors and several nurses missed some very obvious signs, over several days, that I was actually suffering from toxic shock and a strep infection.

Doctors are diagnosis machines. They have been trained to see A and B and know that this equals a diagnosis of C requiring treatment with X Y Z. But if they don't notice or recognize A or B then the machine is broken and they don't see C and can't get to X Y Z.

When the doctors saw me, they thought "Flu" because I said "Flu" and everyone else in the whole world, it seemed, had the Flu too. They thought I had the Flu. I thought I had the Flu. And the thing about the Flu is, you can't cure it, you just have to get rest, fluids, and wait it out.

If I thought I had the Flu, why did I go back? Because I felt like "something was wrong." And I had blood pressure evidence to prove it. If I hadn't been willing to keep going back when I felt like something was wrong, I would not be here to write these words.

If you feel like something is wrong, listen to your body, and speak up for yourself by going to the doctor or ER. It will save your life in a situation where you are acutely ill.

Chronic issues, that aren't immediately life threatening, are also another place where you need to find the confidence to advocate for yourself. Once doctors know it's not immediately life threatening and they can't figure out what's wrong, or how to treat it, they often just shrug their shoulders and tell you to find a way to live with it.