I'm a Bad Patient

"I am a bad patient."
We all know someone who uses that line whenever some period of illness falls upon them. Heck it may even be you, yourself reading these words. Of course there are many variants on the theme of 'bad patient', but given a recent spat of illness I have been working through, let me share with you what I mean when I use it.
I have had the opportunity to consider what the term means when I apply it to myself and how I have been raised in an environment where my value as a person has become twisted up with my visible productivity or masculinity.

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Getting straight to a clarification to head off any concerns you may have, I am blessed with a hearty constitution and no serious ailments or long term medical conditions, well apart from asthma, but I am being a responsible adult and taking my meds. Though I will confess that even this has been a struggle for me to accept. Are you sitting comfortably? Its time for a flash back sequence.

**cue wibbly wobbly special effects**

Early in my childhood I came to realise the impact ill health can have on a family. My father was discharged on a medical pension from the army when it came to light that he suffered from epilepsy. For anyone who may not know, its a neurological disorder marked by sudden recurrent episodes of sensory disturbance, loss of consciousness, or convulsions, associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain. In the 1980's, though we had come a long way from considering it demonic possession or locking sufferers up in asylums, some medications could only provide a partial control of this condition.  As a young kid I remember seeing my father collapse in one of his 'fits' and feeling so scared and helpless. I sat on the floor next to him despite my mothers attempts to shoo us away and reassure us that it would pass. I remember telling him that it would be ok, this giant of a man in my eyes.

**cue wibbly wobbly special effects**

Its a few years later and though my father's epilepsy is more under control, the pain and medication have caused other concerns over time. I sit with him going through the boxes and boxes of pills that make up his months supply. Sectioning them out into a stack of labelled containers marked morning, afternoon, evening and night. Its a complex experience for me because I am so grateful to have my father in my life, but I hate that he must endure so many of these little tablets. I am feeling a little unwell myself but I tell myself I don't need to take anything. Besides I have to make it to college, no time to see a doctor. I'm sure it will pass.

**cue wibbly wobbly special effects**

Time moves on again and I have decided I don't like doctors. I respect them for their dedication and their knowledge but that doesn't make this easier. My dad has finally overcome enough of his depression (yes that meant more tablets) to challenge the mountain of medications he has been consuming for decades now. It took a review, that he had to fight the health board to get, to identify that he had been taking medicine for a heart condition he never had. A doctor prescribed the drugs and he just added them to the pile. The specialist identified that the supposed heart condition was actually symptoms  by the mixed side effects of two other medications he had been prescribed. At this point I have been told I'm asthmatic, but I don't refill my prescriptions. I just tell myself that I can walk it off, or exercise more, that its just a chest cold causing the tightness and loss of breath. I don't even like taking headache tablets or pain relief.

**cue wibbly wobbly special effects**

I can't afford to miss work. More than two days back to back requires a doctors note for the absence and sure what do they know? Just tell me I have a cold and give me pills to take. Its like that time I had cracked ribs. I know my body best, just pain killers will see me through. I'm not sick, just a little run down. I will catch some rest when my day off comes around. I don't get sick, this is just tiredness catching up with me is all. I cant afford to miss work. The rent and the bills wont pay themselves.

**cue wibbly wobbly special effects....fades to black**

Welcome back to the here and now. Hope you made it through the flash back with as little nausea as possible. With this hindsight in place I can now tell you that when I say 'I am a Bad Patient' I don't mean that I am a handful, or I complain a lot, or place demands on others for care. I'm the kind of bad patient who doesn't take the medicine they are supposed to. I'm the kind of bad patient that doesn't stay in bed and rest like they really should. The kind of bad patient who stubbornly makes things worse on himself because he doesn't stop to rest and heal, doesn't go to the doctor even when he really should. I am the bad patient that doesn't allow themselves to be ill. The kind of person who believes that with enough will power they can deny sickness, and begrudges his bodies failures every time the puff of an asthma inhaler fills his mouth and lungs. Yeh, I'm THAT kind of bad patient.
Now I'm not going to knock myself too hard on the will power bit as a positive mental attitude does a lot for ones well being....but no amount of thoughts and prays can heal a set of broken ribs. That shit takes time and as much as I can endure a lot, taking pain meds doesn't mean I am weak.
And so we reach the word that causes so much of this issue around illness. Weakness. A word that I was raised with and taught to fear by my male peers. Weakness gets you hurt, and if you get hurt its because you were weak. Cyclical logic at its best, but when your social upbringing is steeped in toxic male ideology surrounding masculinity being meshed with physicality, well any sign of sickness makes you weak and as I have said already, weakness gets you hurt.

I can't deny where I have come from, but thankfully that's not where I have stayed. I have grown up enough to acknowledge that the use of some medicine is needed so that I can function to an optimal standard. I have taken the store bought neurotransmitters because for a time I couldn't make your own. I now work to an alarm reminder system to take the inhalers daily, preventing the possibility of an asthma incident.