Patient’s Health Care Survival Guide: Reclaiming the Right of the Patient to Be an Equal Partner in the Delivery of Health Care

By Susan Wright LCSW Ph.D.

The book is a story of one patient's remarkable journey from victim, to observer, to program solver. While struggling to save her life against caregivers who wouldn't listen, she realized that she was only one amongst many patients trapped in the same depersonalizing system. What began as a simple attempt at survival, over time became a desire to do something for others in the same boat. She decided to create a how-to self-care-healing guide for patients based upon her own personal experience during the three and a half months of futile attempts to put a name to her mystery disease. Later, she turned her attention to finding the means to reform the system itself. Having been exposed to all the chinks in a mismanaged health care system, she knew the problems began the moment patients met their primary care physicians (a good place to start).

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728370002

Susan Wright LCSW Ph.D.

I AM DR. SUSAN WRIGHT, author, trainer, licensed therapist-healer. and social activist, that is, until the day I suddenly became a managed care patient, lost my identity, and became nothing more than a machine with faulty parts that needed fixing. This book might just as easily have been titled How I Saved My Life, or Sorry Folks, No More Family Doctor. Instead, it is a true story about what it is like to be a seriously ill patient in a business run by private insurance companies, focused on cost containment, where medical personnel are salaried employees paid a set fee per patient, all of whom are assigned to a common pool after their medical histories are taken by a group of priority care doctors, each of whom carries caseloads of as many as 2000 patients. It’s no wonder we have been sidelined, and computerized. The fact is that our emotional and physical needs are two sides of the same human being. Treating one and not the other is bad medicine.

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Copyright © 2020 Susan Wright, LCSW, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/23/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7002-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7001-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7000-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020914943

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

DISCLAIMER

The information presented in this book is intended to provide accurate and authoritative information on the subject matter with the understanding that the use of the information is to be used at the reader’s discretion. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in providing professional or psychological services. The author specifically disclaims any and all liability arising directly or indirectly from the use of any information contained therein. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the service of an appropriate and competent professional should be sought. I have tried to recreate events and conversation from my memories of them. In order to retain their anonymity and to protect the privacy of certain individuals, I have changed the names, places and identifying characteristics and details, such as physical appearance and occupations. All names are entirely fictitious, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Contents

Dedication

Preface

PART I

The Mystery Disease:

A Journey through Mismanaged Health Care

A True Story

Prologue

Chapter 1    The Journey Begins

Chapter 2    The Symptoms

Chapter 3    A Close Call

Chapter 4    There Are Complications

Chapter 5    I Save My Own Life

Chapter 6    Misdiagnosis

Chapter 7    The First Medical Procedure

Chapter 8    The Missing Diagnosis

Chapter 9    A Cardiologist at Last!

Chapter 10    Still No Diagnosis

Chapter 11    Where Are the Medical Records?

Chapter 12    A Brain Scan?

Chapter 13    New Symptoms Appear

Chapter 14    Yet Another CT Scan

Chapter 15    The Second Bronchoscopy

Chapter 16    Confronting the Doctor

Chapter 17    The Guided Core Needle Biopsy

Chapter 18    My Medical Records

Chapter 19    Diagnosis: Cancer

Chapter 20    Treatment Begins

Chapter 21    Cancer Free

PART II

Patient’s Self-Care Survival Guide

(Alternative Suggestions for Self-Healing)

Chapter 22    Review

Chapter 23    The Journey from Despair toward Health

Chapter 24    Learning about Ourselves

Chapter 25    The Role of Our Beliefs and Attitudes

Chapter 26    Challenging Negative Beliefs

Chapter 27    Our Personal Responsibilities

Chapter 28    Taking Charge

Chapter 29    Self-Care Healing Exercises

Chapter 30    Defining and Alleviating Emotional Stress

Chapter 31    Healing with Thought Field Therapy

Chapter 32    What Makes TFT Unique?

Chapter 33    Preparation for Treatment

Chapter 34    The Universal Trauma Treatment

Chapter 35    Collarbone Breathing1

Chapter 36    Closing One Chapter and Opening Another

PART III

Positive Health Care Solutions: Replacing the

Wall between Doctors and Patients

Chapter 37    Introduction: The Final Steps

Chapter 38    The Problems with Managed Health Care

Chapter 39    Suggestions for Change

Afterword

Addendum

References

Dedication

This book is dedicated to health care patients everywhere,

my son who was there for me, and those supporters

who believed that by working together we can restore

the voice of patients in the delivery of health care.

We are the change we seek.

Anonymous

Preface

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF. I AM DR. SUSAN WRIGHT, author, trainer, licensed therapist-healer. and social activist, that is, until the day I suddenly became a managed care patient, lost my identity, and became nothing more than a machine with faulty parts that needed fixing. This book might just as easily have been titled How I Saved My Life, or Sorry Folks, No More Family Doctor. Instead, it is a true story about what it is like to be a seriously ill patient in a business run by private insurance companies, focused on cost containment, where medical personnel are salaried employees paid a set fee per patient, all of whom are assigned to a common pool after their medical histories are taken by a group of priority care doctors, each of whom carries caseloads of as many as 2000 patients. It’s no wonder we have been sidelined, and computerized. The fact is that our emotional and physical needs are two sides of the same human being. Treating one and not the other is bad medicine.

Join me in Part One, as I begin the hazardous journey of misdiagnosis, and endless and risky medical procedures and testing, which changed nothing and over time made me worse. As a patient, my caregivers talked down to me. Since they had no interest in listening to what I had to say, eventually I stopped communicating with them. Weakened, confused, and defeated, I realized I was losing my sense of self. If it were one of my patients needing help, I would have been there for them in a heartbeat. I knew I wasn’t alone. There were other patients in this same leaky boat and I had the skills to help us both. It was time I began treating myself to restore the adult decision maker I was before I became ill. I decided to fight back. I knew where all the chinks in the system were, and I began thinking about ways in which to fix them. One thing was clear, one had to become a patient to learn what was really happening in our health care system, and if it happened to me it could happen to you.

I promised myself that if I began to recover, I would share the skills, knowledge, self-care, and healing skills that had worked so well for me with my own patients. I planned to write an easy –to understand self-care and healing guide that would act as a lifeline for others, like me, who were not receiving the kind of caring, supportive services so crucial to their recovery. We need to feel strong if we are to fight back and regain a measure of control over our lives. The Patient’s Self-Care and Healing Guide is now a reality for anyone who wishes to use it. You will find it in Part Two. It is an effective way to feel better about yourself whether you are a patient or not.

I knew the task would never be over for me if I didn’t finish what I started. My belief in social justice was too strong to ignore the need to to find a viable way to change the system, tear down the wall that exists between doctors and their patients, and restore the voice of patients as equal partners in the delivery of health care.

My recipes for change can be found in Part Three: Positive Health Care Solutions. My intention is to empower us all. It will take a village.*

*Part I is based upon the diary I kept during my illness. It is a personal story, a departure from the kind of text I am accustomed to writing. It was only later I realized that it was time to cast a public light on the truth, to publish the facts about our health care system and hope that change would follow. The result: Parts II and III.

PART I

The Mystery Disease:

A Journey through

Mismanaged

Health Care

A True Story

Prologue

MY SOON-TO-BE LIVING NIGHTMARE BEGAN WHEN, ON JUNE 14, 2014, I flew to the East Coast to attend the yearly Association of Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP) Conference. My name is Susan Wright, and I am a mental health professional. Over time, I have attended these conferences, sometimes as a workshop presenter, but more often as a guest. No longer the community activist I was once, I am semiretired, with an office in my home where I treat patients, write books, and teach occasional seminars.

I was looking forward to the trip. It was time for me to reconnect with old friends, attend scheduled workshops, and listen to lectures given by well-known speakers on the future direction of energy psychology. The weather was warm and sunny, and all was right with my world.

For readers who may not know what the term energy psychology means, let me explain:

Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, old psychological beliefs were changing, the field was in flux, and the traditional theoretical approach to mental illness, developed by Sigmund Freud, began giving way to alternative methods of healing influenced by over 2,000 years of Chinese medicine. With the introduction of acupuncture to the West, the importance of the energy system as a healing source and the belief in the unity of the mind and body set the stage for the discovery of Thought Field Therapy™ (TFT), by Dr. Roger Callahan.

Thought Field Therapy was to become the first alternative treatment where practitioners recognized that the energy system might hold the key to healing emotional stress. As with Chinese medicine, TFT was based upon observation instead of the more traditional theoretical approach. Almost by accident, Dr. Callahan discovered, that when a subject was asked to think about a stressful situation, it was possible to alleviate the emotional pain generated by the thought, by tapping with the fingers on specified points on the body in a proscribed order. He proceeded to create algorithms (individualized ways of tapping on body points), that were designed to treat most emotional problems. The treatment was a revolutionary, rapid, effective, and safe alternative to spending months, or even years in talk therapy, and once learned, the technique could be easily adapted to treating one’s self.

Over the years, energy treatment methods expanded until an entirely new approach to emotional healing had emerged as a result of Dr. Callahan’s discovery. It was called energy psychology. Although I had studied many promising techniques and gathered a great many healing arrows for my psychological quiver, TFT remained my specialty, and I was at the conference to learn what new ideas in the field I could take home to use in my practice.

The meetings were just about to end with the awards dinner. Fatigued by three days of rushing from one place to another, I was looking for ward to a good night’s sleep and the flight back home . . . totally unaware that the medical nightmare that would change my life was just about to begin, and that TFT was going to play a crucial role in my survival.

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Chapter 1

The Journey Begins

Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when

we touch them with compassion.

Steven A. Hairfield

THE FINAL EVENING OF THE CONFERENCE, I WENT TO MY room, packed my bag, put aside my airline tickets, and went to bed prepared to return to California. At 2:00 a.m., I suddenly awoke from a terrifying nightmare, my heart racing. Still half asleep, I waited for it to slow down, and when it didn’t, for a moment I couldn’t decide what to do. Desperate, I decided to try using my energy tapping skills to see if I could calm my heart. At first, nothing happened. Then, after 15 or 20 minutes, to my relief, the palpitations slowed, and then they abruptly stopped. What on earth was going on? Should I call for a doctor or not? I finally decided that the smartest thing to do was to go back to bed since I would be leaving in a few hours.

Feeling fine the next morning, I was able to catch my plane, while trying to convince myself that there wasn’t anything to worry about. Perhaps the attack was a fluke. As the plane took off, I found myself reminiscing about the future. I said to myself, I’ve been healthy up until now. Oh yes, there was one exception. In 1988, after I left California to spend time working in Ohio, I suddenly found myself in dire need of medical treatment for the first time since I was a child. During a routine mammogram, like my mother before me, a lump was found in my left breast. It was cancer and I would need surgery. My doctor gave me a list of surgeons to choose from, but before deciding, I wanted a second opinion. I was scheduled, paid for by my medical plan, to visit the cancer center of University Hospital. Both facilities recommended a lumpectomy. However, before being scheduled for surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, I had other ideas. Throughout the procedures medical personnel were friendly and attentive. They listened to me, put up with my unconventional decisions concerning surgery and aftercare, and I recovered completely.

At the time, my health care plan was in its early developmental stages. In both Ohio and California, the medical facilities were scattered throughout the cities in which they were located. In 1999, when I returned to California, I had to decide where I wanted to continue my coverage. I was enrolled in Medicare and had time to decide what to do next. There had been changes in the delivery of health care; The family doctor was now called a "primary