Uploaded March 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Achievement unlocked: medical limbo. Granted for advancing beyond the "it can always be worse" phase.
In this video, we discuss what medical limbo is, how the medical system, inadvertently or intentionally, puts and keeps people here, and my limbo life.
Thoughts that didn't make it into the video
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In addition to the urgent care doctor, my psychiatric medication manager suggested I look into alternative medicine, in part because if I can't find help in the Bay area, where else could I possibly go? Also because, as I and the urgent care doctor said, until I reach threshold, there's no help for me. Which is just... super. [Bleep] me for wanting evidence-based care, I guess.
My universal chaos constant hit mid-making this video, even. Another referral from January was for an endoscope for my swallowing problem. I've just been waiting to hear from them because I don't have any numbers to call. My husband had his intake appointment last week and his GP wanted to get his esophagus checked out because of his chronic heartburn. He got a call later that week to book!! Nagged my doctor, was given the referral phone numbers. Somehow mine was sent to the wrong specific place - it was approved back in January, but because it wasn't exactly where it needed to be, I never got a call.
Related to that, I'm not entirely happy with my case manager. Regarding the endo referral, before knowing the situation, she assumed it was being triaged. That somehow me having trouble swallowing was less critical than my husband's lifelong indigestion. Then I got a lengthly med-splaining of what triaging is, and how it would work. I got a lot of med-splainy lectures in that call. But, also got her view of her role: basically, HR for patients. So, that's neat. Good to know I have zero advocates, I guess.
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Links
Chubbyemu youtube.com/channel/UCKOvOaJv4GK-oDqx-sj7VVg
abelina sabrina's video youtu.be/JIXuo4fclcw
___________________
Merch! cass-eris-shop.fourthwall.com
Questions? Comments? Requests?: twitter.com/CassErisYT
Discord server (by way of linktree): https://linktr.ee/casseris
Instagram: instagram.com/cass_eris
Support the channel!
patreon.com/casserisYT
paypal.me/casseris
Music: zoeblade.com
Timestamps
0:00 The Medically Damned
1:32 Intro
2:52 What is "Medical Limbo"?
3:48 The Thing (Contradiction/Tension/Paradox/etc)
7:15 "Advocate for Yourself"
10:14 Doctor Knows Best, caveats
14:36 Constraints on doctors
16:28 Discounting patients' personal, bodily expertise
18:31 Cognitive biases
21:55 Delay time in diagnosis
23:49 What's a patient to do? Receive unhelpful advice
28:25 Life in Limbo
35:42 Why are we talking about this?
trigeminal neuralgia
nerve pain
chronic pain
US healthcare health care
lupus
SLE
systemic lupus erythrematosus
multiple sclerosis
MS
cognitive bias
confirmation bias
anchoring
implicit bias
premature closure
care advocate
case manager
Achievement unlocked: medical limbo. Granted for advancing beyond the "it can always be worse" phase.
In this video, we discuss what medical limbo is, how the medical system, inadvertently or intentionally, puts and keeps people here, and my limbo life.
Thoughts that didn't make it into the video
-----
In addition to the urgent care doctor, my psychiatric medication manager suggested I look into alternative medicine, in part because if I can't find help in the Bay area, where else could I possibly go? Also because, as I and the urgent care doctor said, until I reach threshold, there's no help for me. Which is just... super. [Bleep] me for wanting evidence-based care, I guess.
My universal chaos constant hit mid-making this video, even. Another referral from January was for an endoscope for my swallowing problem. I've just been waiting to hear from them because I don't have any numbers to call. My husband had his intake appointment last week and his GP wanted to get his esophagus checked out because of his chronic heartburn. He got a call later that week to book!! Nagged my doctor, was given the referral phone numbers. Somehow mine was sent to the wrong specific place - it was approved back in January, but because it wasn't exactly where it needed to be, I never got a call.
Related to that, I'm not entirely happy with my case manager. Regarding the endo referral, before knowing the situation, she assumed it was being triaged. That somehow me having trouble swallowing was less critical than my husband's lifelong indigestion. Then I got a lengthly med-splaining of what triaging is, and how it would work. I got a lot of med-splainy lectures in that call. But, also got her view of her role: basically, HR for patients. So, that's neat. Good to know I have zero advocates, I guess.
-----
Links
Chubbyemu youtube.com/channel/UCKOvOaJv4GK-oDqx-sj7VVg
abelina sabrina's video youtu.be/JIXuo4fclcw
___________________
Merch! cass-eris-shop.fourthwall.com
Questions? Comments? Requests?: twitter.com/CassErisYT
Discord server (by way of linktree): https://linktr.ee/casseris
Instagram: instagram.com/cass_eris
Support the channel!
patreon.com/casserisYT
paypal.me/casseris
Music: zoeblade.com
Timestamps
0:00 The Medically Damned
1:32 Intro
2:52 What is "Medical Limbo"?
3:48 The Thing (Contradiction/Tension/Paradox/etc)
7:15 "Advocate for Yourself"
10:14 Doctor Knows Best, caveats
14:36 Constraints on doctors
16:28 Discounting patients' personal, bodily expertise
18:31 Cognitive biases
21:55 Delay time in diagnosis
23:49 What's a patient to do? Receive unhelpful advice
28:25 Life in Limbo
35:42 Why are we talking about this?
trigeminal neuralgia
nerve pain
chronic pain
US healthcare health care
lupus
SLE
systemic lupus erythrematosus
multiple sclerosis
MS
cognitive bias
confirmation bias
anchoring
implicit bias
premature closure
care advocate
case manager
