The Conversation

I think I have POTS. It's genetic and has been diagnosed in multiple of my family members, and my symptoms/episodes align exactly with what my family experiences.

I live in Canada so the wait times for even a doctors visit are upwards of 2 months. I've literally waited 14 months for an appointment before. On top of my history of fainting (which to be fair, is pretty tame but still) I had an incredibly scary experience yesterday. I had completely collapsed and was unconscious for at least 15-20 seconds if not longer, and right after I sat back up after that I blacked out a second time. I vomited as well, like, full ejection of my stomach contents (sorry, yuck). Following this I couldn't even sit up for almost two hours. I was about away from home for a work thing, so I was taken to the closest urgent care clinic.

The doctor at that clinic basically said I was lying. He said that situation just doesn't happen to anyone ever, so if I "really did" pass out twice that was very serious and needed immediate medical attention. But he wouldn't do anything, so he just printed off a referral for the hospital. Didn't even completely fill it out or anything lol. Hospital wait times are terribly long here due to short staffing mostly and I felt okay, so I went home. Then this morning I called my doctors office to follow up and they said their absolute earliest time slot was over a week from now. I honestly really felt like something was wrong so that was quite a long time away but idk at least it's not a month I guess.

Later this afternoon I got really dizzy again and even sitting down was really uncomfortable. My legs were really tingly and numb, they kept shaking.. wasn't good. Went to a different clinic, and remembered the last doctor yesterday who kept reiterating how serious it would be if it "actually happened". Today they even asked if I was familiar with POTS, to which I said it ran in the family, and then they just sent me home. They said it was probably something I ate even though I told them I hadn't really eaten anything both times and I've had multiple passing out episodes within the past year or so. But they insisted if I was sure it was serious and not just something I ate that I could just wait for my doctors appointment. However, my family doctor makes me nervous too. He had previously turned away a family member of mine who thought she had broken her foot in a car accident, saying it was just the shoes she was wearing and refused to even let her get an x-ray. When she took herself to the hospital for an x-ray it showed that one of the bones had actually completely shattered. I feel like I'm going in circles.

When I had been to the hospital for passing out before, they said it was probably just nothing and to go home. It keeps happening, and I have symptoms outside of just passing out. But no matter how much I try to advocate for myself, I feel like its for nothing and no one is listening :"( It's embarrassing to keep getting turned away, and this time I really felt so close to figuring out what was wrong, I thought maybe I needed this big episode to finally get somewhere... and the doctor yesterday saying how serious it was made me hope that it was, well, serious /enough/, at least.. but I guess I'll just have to wait and see what my doctor says.