The place was Billings, Montana. I was living with my husband in a posh downtown hotel. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
Oh yeah – I forgot to mention that it was the dead of winter.
You are probably wondering why the original “California Dreaming” girl would take off from a winter haven like Palm Springs to frost over in Montana – and the answer is the only one that would account for these circumstances: Somebody needed help.
Like the Lone Ranger, I could not refuse – and besides, it was a heck of a challenge.
The twist is –- I was helping out a managed care insurance company. A huge one.
So now we have the makings of a first class mystery. Renegade Doctor rushing to help out managed care corporation in the coldest part of the country when she could be warming her tootsies in the balmy desert oasis.
Let me go back and set this in perspective. Read more on Cheap And Accessible Medicine Is Worthless If It Is Shoddy…
Filed under medicine by on Mar 16th, 2010. Comment. 
I looked at her, better dressed than most of the folks at the clinic where she was seen, with an open mouth. I had to take a few extra minutes to figure out what I was going to say next. In case you have not guessed, that is pretty far from my usual state.
“I have a chemical imbalance,” she said. She looked a little like Sharon Osbourne, hip and trendy but expensively dressed. “He gave me some medicines that really helped, like Xanax and Ativan, and either of those would be just fine.”
I freely admit that psychiatric diagnosis and treatment have a long way to go to meet either the organic precision of the surgical specialties or the subjective enthusiasm of the non-prescribing mental health professionals, such as psychologists or psychotherapists. But there are practitioners out there who are either so indifferent or so pressured that they rattle off words without meaning and give prescriptions that hinder more than help.
Filed under Diagnosis by on Jan 12th, 2010. Comment.
I wanted to re-post this message now that we are starting a new round of articles. The reason is probably obvious — it’s a very personal statement. But also, it was only posted for a few days before we took the blog down to refurbish it. I hope you enjoy this.
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The opening sentence of Erich Segal’s novel Love Story asks the question, “What do you say about a girl who died?”
I think of that when I’m going to talk about Harry — my little brother.
Read more on Remembering Brother Harry — A Case of Asperger’s…
Filed under Asperger's by on Nov 20th, 2009. 1 Comment.