Published on 12, July, 2020
I’ve had a rather traumatising morning and was wondering if this was a problem other people on the spectrum have encountered?
4 years ago I had shingles. The past couple of days I’ve been getting horrendous burning pain that feels like shingles did last time. It’s a bank holiday so we phoned 111 and ended up going to an outpatient clinic at the hospital. The doctor (male) said he needed to examine me. My mum was with me, as was a chaperone (female nurse) and we explained to him that I was autistic and that I was very stressed at the thought of being examined as the pain was around the groin area and I've never had anyone have to examine me there before. I had hoped that would be enough to make him mindful of being delicate. He was not. It was horrible. I was lying on the bed, holding onto my Mum’s hand, crying my eyes out and having to shut my eyes. He said he couldn’t see any blisters so couldn’t give any antivirals in case it wasn’t shingles, which I completely understand (I study biomedical science at university and was worried that this scenario would happen), but his whole manner was wrong. He was very unsympathetic to my extreme distress and kept saying how he was “only helping”.
Several years ago I had a similar experience where a female doctor needed to listen to my heart through a stethoscope and started pulling my vest up without my permission because she was frustrated that I was trying to cover myself up given my mum was in the room. So I got very distressed at the feeling of exposure and her lack of sympathy or delicacy. (This was before I had my autism diagnosis)
I would be very interested to hear of anyone who has similar stories, as maybe this is a problem that really needs to be advocated for in hospitals
I have met some nice health professionals before and was so happy with their service. I thank them for their kindness and service. As long as a service is given in the spirit of love, sensitivity and self control while acknowledging people’s feelings and wishes and adhering to those we are correct in our endeavour of service one to another. I have also met some extremely intensive people working as health professionals. Golden retrievers are said to be sensitive dogs, maybe it would be a good idea to have more than a few in hospitals to assist with understanding needs and helping staff understand those needs so that people need not suffer unnecessarily? After all dogs help people in so many ways already.