In my last post, I wrote about the absolutely monstrous difficulty I was having getting off the migraine prevention medication (that wasn’t actually preventing migraines) I had been taking for 11 years. I saw two doctors and a sleep specialist about the issues I was having and none of them were helpful. My interactions with my regular doctor were especially demoralizing. She gave me a medication that was supposed to help me sleep and when that didn’t work, she left me to my own devices. She’d told me to follow up with her via email about how things were going, but she never responded to me. I made an appointment with her as well, but it was 4 weeks away. As I’d mentioned, I finally gave up and started taking the medication again which immediately fixed my sleep and stomach issues (because it’s really hard to live when you can’t eat and only sleep 3 hrs per night — go figure).
Meredith, I so empathize and commiserate with you on your medical situation. As someone with a chronic thyroid issue that's not easily treated by conventional medicine, I'm frequently feeling defeated and shame at my body/situation. Recently, I thought I was going to have to stop seeing a doctor who has actually helped me, because of insurance changes, and I burst into sobs in my job's parking lot. And that's a whole other story around the shame/defeat that comes with insurance in this country.
I love how you connected this to student support & belonging and feel a deeper connection to those ideas now in connecting my own journey to it. I'm already thinking of ways to jazz up the ways I speak about these emotional aspects of research with students. Thank you for these insights and those great resources!!
Meredith, I so empathize and commiserate with you on your medical situation. As someone with a chronic thyroid issue that's not easily treated by conventional medicine, I'm frequently feeling defeated and shame at my body/situation. Recently, I thought I was going to have to stop seeing a doctor who has actually helped me, because of insurance changes, and I burst into sobs in my job's parking lot. And that's a whole other story around the shame/defeat that comes with insurance in this country.
I love how you connected this to student support & belonging and feel a deeper connection to those ideas now in connecting my own journey to it. I'm already thinking of ways to jazz up the ways I speak about these emotional aspects of research with students. Thank you for these insights and those great resources!!