How to Win Enemies and Assure that Googling Them Influences People

Oh, this is by far the most useful thing I've done with my blog so far. Google "Brent Beadling," seriously, see where my blog comes up. Link number 6, baby. And Commenter Number 3, below, apparently found my blog that way and thinks it's "awesome" that I am calling out the fine doctor.

I'll be emailing you soon, Commenter Number 3. We can commiserate together.

UPDATE: Holy Shit, if you google "Dr. Beadling Jacksonville" or "Beadling Jacksonville", I soar straight to the top. Do you think I should include this little snippet of info in the nasty-gram I am going to write to the fine doctor?

Dr. Brent Beadling, or "Don't mess with me, I will cut you"

From the moment Dr. Brent Beadling walked in the door, he made it quite obvious that he was only interested in getting me in and out of his office as soon as possible.

Being relatively new in Jacksonville, and having had a couple bad colds lately (when previously, I had been well for over a full year, quite an accomplishment for a kid who routinely spent the allergy-prone seasons knocked completely on her ass since birth), I had yet to establish a relationship with a primary care physician. I decided it was time. I am mostly over my more recent, less violent cold, that was not nearly as debilitating as the one I had in March. The coughing spasms that produce great green clods of phlegm and keep myself and my boyfriend up for significant portions of the night (when the four hours' worth of Robitussin runs out at approxmiately 3 AM) were less pronounced. I didn't resemble an uncharacteristically young woman to have the death rattle of a chain-smoker three times my age. But sick I still was, and being out of the gym, and being run down, is anathema to someone as spunky as me. I wanted a physician to listen to my health history, and recommend not only things I could do to get well, but moreso, things I could do to stay well. And to establish a relationship with someone to whom I could run for antibiotics when my body wasn't doing a good enough job on its own.

Dr. Brent Beadling apparently went to a very very good medical school. He is obviously way more brilliant than us all. I can think of no other justification for being as much of an asshole as he was. He didn't listen to me. He cut me off when I tried to tell him things about my symptoms. He rolled his eyes when I would tell him that I had allergies and therefore, am sick more than average, telling me that allergies and colds "have nothing to do with one another." I corrected myself, and apologized for mis-speaking, but told him that my allergist had told me that because I am allergic to so many things at so many different times of year, I am more susceptible to catch illnesses. He corrected me that people with allergies have their hands in their nose and eyes and mouths more than people without, and therefore, we spread more germs. Fine, whatever: I have more illnesses. What can you do to help me overcome and/or prevent those, fine doctor? Dr. Brent Beadling. (I'm hoping the more times I say his name in this post, the more likelihood it has of popping up in a google search.)

He continued to talk me out of all the things that I had been told about my many and sundry upper respiratory infections and told me that nutritious eating, getting rest, lots of fluids, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including exercise, were the key. (All of which, not being an actual idiot, but merely playing one in Dr. Brent Beadling's office, I had been doing, and actually, I make it a practice to engage in healthful habits, regularly.) He proceeds to write a prescription for an antibiotic that he was complaining he constantly had to prescribe because people run to the doctor at the first sign of a scratchy throat, which is why antibiotics begin to lose efficacy. He explained that antiobiotics "make you feel better" because people get them and in a few days they start to feel better, when in reality, their own immune system fights the infection on its own in 3 to 14 days, as 97% of colds are caused by viruses, against which antiobiotics are useless. If he had actually cared what I was saying, he would know that last time I was sick, I sweated it out for five days, out of work, at home, before my cough was literally so bad, I sounded like the aforementioned chain-smoker with a death rattle. (Yeah, there's my body making itself better, good work, body.) When I finally went to emergency care and got an anbiotic, I began to feel better immediately. Having had this same cough all of my life, and knowing my illnesses, and knowing my body, and knowing that colds go straight to my chest, and knowing what will and will not make it "better," I don't run to the doctor at the first sign of a scratchy throat. I wait until I see my body is not fighting the infection on its own. And so, he writes the "useless" antiobiotic prescription for a person who is actually in his office after having largely fought off two colds in as many months (to large extent) with her own immune system, and actually is looking for long-term, preventative care to avoid the colds that plague her in the first place.

He continued to sigh and roll eyes and act distracted and like his time was too good for me, all the way until, in the middle of answering a question I had about why *my* colds always devolved into a crippling cough that winded me merely climbing the stairs to my apartment, he actually put his hand on the doorknob and opened the door. While treating me. Allegedly treating me. I told him I had a couple more questions. More sighing and acting like he couldn't be bothered. He came back and proceeded to pawn me off on other specialists, telling me he didn't deal with X, Y, and Z, and didn't I want to see an allergist? What I wanted was to get the prescription and get out of there.

When I left Dr. Brent Beadling's office this morning, I wondered if he was as much a jerk to his other patients as he had just been to me. I soon got my answer. I was on the verge of tears. I had just been treated like a total idiot, and like I was being prescribed medicine to rush me out of his office, rather than because it would do me any good. I felt as though I had been patronized, rather than have anyone really listen to my symptoms and suggest anything that was going to be actually helpful in the long run. I drove to my apartment, wanting to cry and complain to my boyfriend before going to work. I was doing 50 in a 35 around the curve on Point Meadows Road when I saw the cop. I hit the brakes, but it was too late. He exited his car and flagged me down. Being on the verge of tears anyway, and knowing this was the last thing I needed, I summoned them. I was talking through tears before he got to the car.

"Officer, I am so sorry, I know I was speeding, I've just had a really bad experience with my doctor, it was awful, he just acted like he didn't even care about me or my illness and he just was such a jerk to me, and it was just so obvious that he couldn't possibly have less time for me."

"License, please."

"Please just give me a warning, I promise I'll slow down." More tears.

"Where'd you just come from?"

Sniffle. "Baptist Health on the corner."

He narrowed his eyes. "What doctor?"

"Dr. Beadling."

Pause. "He IS a jerk. That's why I just dropped him as my primary care physician."

No lie. The cop let me off with a warning. And referred me to his physician.

Incidentally, when I called to complain to Dr. Beadling's administrator at Baptist Health, she listened sincerely and sympathetically, and when I was done, indicated regretfully that "Dr. Beadling has a problem with compassion."

"So do sociopaths," I quipped.

Oh, and Dr. Beadling, if you're reading this, let me give you a little information from *my* line of work, since I'm sure you're as grossly misinformed about the law as I was about the differences between "allergies" and a "cold." It's not slander if it's the truth.

Ten Random Things. . .

At my bro's behest, voila:

Ten random things you might not know about me:
1. I am a major cryer. People think I'm a real "Steel Magnolia," and I am, but part of being tough as nails and being able to take anything that comes your way is being able to handle big emotions, and I frequently handle mine through tears. Tears are not always an indication of sadness with me. Sometimes, I LIKE CRYING. I actually enjoy watching a good movie that I know is going to make me cry, out of sweetness and sadness all rolled together.
2. I am an eternal optimist. I like to (and generally do) believe the best in people. I will give you my trust right off, but if you do something to betray that trust, you won't get it back. My boyfriend is the exact opposite, you have to earn his trust. He fakes like he’s all concerned about me being too naïve and getting taken advantage of, but really, my tendency to see the best in people is a big part of why he loves me.
3. I am vainer than I think I should be. But I can’t help it. I’m the chubby girl who got thin and buxom and then had the guy from high school hit on her without realizing who she was. (I told him to Fuck Off. It was great.) But no matter how “pretty” I am, a little fat girl still lives inside me. She needs to shut up about the fucking twinkies already.
4. I believe in God. Reese’s peanut butter cups and Chick-Fil-A biscuits and Russian literature are some examples of proof of His/Her existence. And, to borrow from James Lipton, if I ever get to Heaven, I hope to hear God say, "You didn't get everything right, Molly, but most of the decisions in your life came from a good place in your heart, and you did a pretty good job overall."
5. I think all hymns should sound like you should play them in a discotheque. I would make a joyful noise a whole lot better if they did. Rebecca St. James is a big influence in this belief.
6. I believe that all dogs go to Heaven. Including animals who were abused, neglected, and/or mistreated here on Earth. I believe that those animal owners get to be abused, neglected, and/or mistreated in the hereafter. . . because. . .
7. I believe that what goes around comes around.
8. I could never marry solely for money. Damn.
9. I am in the process of becoming a Catholic.
10. I cuss like a sailor. My stepdad always asks me, why, if I know SO MANY words, I have to reduce myself to using those. I tell him that because I know SO MANY words, he should trust that when I say Fuck, it’s the deliberately right exact word I’ve chosen for the occasion. I have nothing if not excellent diction.

Nine places I’ve visited:
1. Paris, France
2. London, England
3. New Orleans, Lousiana
4. Barcelona, Spain (maybe my favorite place, definitely my favorite European destination)
5. Italy's Big 3: Venice, Rome, Florence (my favorite country & culture)
6. St. Tropez, France
7. Vienna, Austria
8. Prague, Czech Republic
9. San Diego, California

Eight ways to win my heart:
1. Have a way with words.
2. Don't ever think I've gone too far, but instead, that's I'm incredibly irreverently amusing beyond belief.
3. Tell me if I hurt your feelings and let me make it right. And then forgive me.
4. Treat my dog like the beagle you never had, but always wanted. Tell your parents you're dating a single mother and then, when they start breaking out in hives, show them pictures of Sadie.
5. Get excited about my dorky side, the side that loves Harry Potter and Star Wars and enjoys the library more than smoky bars (although I still think the library would be fun if they served drinks). Think I’m the hottest dork you ever saw.
6. Wash my car without telling me, and then bring me a Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuit before I’ve even woken up.
7. Think it’s sexy that you’re not quite sure whether I’m smarter than you or not.
8. Don’t get grossed out about my womanly biological functions; think that it’s normal; frequently turn bodily functions into fodder for amusement, until I stop getting embarrassed when I fart.

Seven things I want to do before I die:
1. Become, if not a particularly famous, at least a financially comfortable mystery novel writer.
2. Live in Europe.
3. Learn another language well enough to speak it conversationally, when I live in Europe.
4. Get married.
5. Have a precocious child, according to the “you're going to have one just like you” curse put on me by my mother.
6. Be a stay-at-home mom-slash-mystery writer. Do lots of crafts. Make my kids’ Halloween costumes.
7. Be someone’s crazy, liberal, irreverent “Aunt Molly” that they go to with things they’d never tell their parents. Try not to lead them too far astray.

Six things I’m afraid of:
1. That I’ll unintentionally hurt someone I love, and they won’t let me take it back.
2. Not dying, exactly, but dying before I’ve lived a full life. Like, dying at 30. Eek.
3. Disease. (See 2, under dying slowly and painfully.)
4. Childbirth, sort of. Any type of pain, really.
5. Roaches.
6. Len dying, before I’ve lived a full life with him.

Five things I don’t like:
1. Raw celery; the smell is enough to make me dry heave.
2. Cellulite. That’s why I had most of mine sucked off.
3. The double standard that says that a guy who sleeps around is a stud and the girl who sleeps around is a slut.
4. The extreme influx of reality television. Writers. . hello? Come back please.
5. The social programming that teaches women (and men) that any woman over 120 pounds is “fat.” (No really, I’m not, but thanks.)

Four ways to turn me off:
1. Be a homophobe.
2. Be self-righteous.
3. Be prettier than me.
4. On the other extreme, care nothing about your personal grooming (you must achieve the exact right level of manscaping).

Three things I do every day:
1. Feed the dog and take her to potty.
2. Kiss my man goodbye when I leave for work, and hello when he comes home from work.
3. Read (unfortunately, not always for pleasure, sometimes, just things like pleadings, yuck).

Two things that make me happy:
1. Sewing.
2. Reading.

One thing on my mind right now:
What time is it?. . .O HOLY COW! I should work now. . .

Oh, PS, Attractive Nuisance and Irish Eyes, you're tagged.