"I am in receipt of the letter, and I would like to speak to the doctor" she said, with a carefully controlled but venomous tone that surprised her.
The letter had been in the mailbox since before a heavy rain the day before. It was soggy, ant ridden, and crumpled up, but she could tell it had been mailed certified. She knew without looking that it was from a doctor. And she knew without opening it exactly what it would say.
"I therefore regret to inform you that I will no longer be able to provide medical services to your son."
Another one. Another doctor who had no idea how to treat her son other than to refer him to a parade of specialists. Another one who tried to make it look like it was all her fault because she hadn't been doing enough medically for her son herself.
Her son had seen a parade of medical caregivers starting when he was first diagnosed at the age of eight: gastroenterologists, endocrinologists, orthopedists, physical therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, pain specialists, rheumatologists, and neurologists. She spent years running from one doctor's appointment to the next.
All of the doctors prescribed at least one prescription medicine, and some of them as many as four. Despite all this medical intervention his health deteriorated inexorably, and in time he became completely bedridden. Not from the original disease mind you, which was "under control", but from the drugs.
OK it's time I came clean. I'm talking about myself and my son. I started this in response to 's freewrite challenge for the prompt " numchucks" because I really felt the urge to go bash that doctor's head in with some sort of object. But it's not an entry to the contest. And I won't be bashing in any heads.
Maybe I will tell you some more later because there really is much more, like how natural medicine has benefitted my son in ways so called western medicine could not. And like how parents are forced to go medical routes that they know are harmful just to keep custody of their children.
But right now I have to get busy finding yet another doctor, hopefully one who is a healer and not a self-serving drug pusher.
Thank you for reading! Tomorrow I'll try to write something more cheerful. My posts have mostly been about death, abuse and grief this week. Somehow I keep laughing though. It's another one of my superpowers.
The image is mine. The hand is my son's.