I never would have thought where “The Story” would have taken me. During the pre-production for “Novel 01,” I did a little location scouting to a hospital, but for the longer, seemingly near-infinite pre-production for “Novel 02,” I took the day off work for my doctor’s appointment to establish primary care and get FND referrals to explore the area around this potentially-new doctor’s building. As I explained in the adjacent video to this essay, I was disappointed.

Major spoilers after the jump.

I bring this up because Sammohini’s journey will be significantly easier.

I have been fighting for my rights to have respect with my FND diagnosis for over 13 months now and my-yesterday’s appointment was the disappointment that my insurance’s case manager and I accounted for in our strategy. The case manager said that I might have to go through multiple primary care physicians before I found someone that was willing to advocate for me. As I explained in the video portion leading up to this essay, but which I’ll explain more succinctly here, while the resident I met with initially stated, legally, “I believe you,” the actions of the resident and the resident’s consulting doctor, or however the terminology goes, was less about believing me as a patient and more about punting me along to a neurologist for further evaluation.

My overall experience is one that Sammohini might encounter, but probably not.

Within the framework of Novel 02, she will have a FND episode of full-body paralysis on-site at her job working as a technical support person at Eville Medical. The same medical facility that will treat her medical condition. They all – from Sammohini, Sammohini’s coworkers including her brother-in-law John, one of the main characters of “The Story, and everyone that might treat her – have actively seen and experienced first hand her medical condition. This is different than what it is for me now. I can explain to medical providers about how I was not able to pick the job I wanted because of my FND. They can express empathy. They can hear me talk about how I can’t go hiking, which is an activity that the doctor who saw me my-yesterday enjoys doing, but they don’t have to do anything other than legally say “I believe you” and act in ways that don’t expand on that belief.

What do you do when you believe someone is going through a hard time?

Do you put up roadblocks? Do you create pockets of animosity? Do you make it so that the person experiences months of this same problem, which you’re told happens over half of each month? Do you make it harder for that patient to get any medical treatment? Or do you do what you can to collaborate? This is where Sammohini may encounter this in, maybe, Novel 03. We’ll see how the novel-writing experience goes for me again after I’ve completed Novel 02. Planning for a Novel 03 might be a nice way to abstract my experiences as I go toward long-term care. Maybe, though, just maybe, Sammohini will have an easier time than me, in part because I’ve had all the time I need to explore any ideas that might help me, whereas Sammohini is days removed from her medical experience when she gets referrals, respect from medical professionals, and is otherwise navigating through life with her new diagnosis.

I’m not Sammohini, as I’ve said many times, but here I wish I were…