Sometimes Intuition Works:A Rant

The DB picnic was today...at Vasona Park in Los Gatos. Lots of couples, babies, food, and doctors. I made a few new friends, connected names of those I'd met online to faces in RL, and overall it was a very good experience.

I particularly enjoyed hearing the lab director at DB's speak, Dr. W. He clearly loves his work, wants to continue on with DB's research, and his enthusiasm for what they are doing is evident for all. I mentioned to him that I have been considering returning to the immunology lab, asked him about the UCSF CLS program, if it was worthwhile and he said, "I'd hire you if you had your CLS."

Wow. Let me tell you how tempting this is to me. It's like giving a chocolate chip to a chocoholic.

But there was one thing today that totally rubbed in the wrong direction. And it's weird to write this. A little background first....

At the picnic today was one person there that I'd chatted with online on one of the Yahoo boards. Actually she's on two different, but related, IF boards that I subscribe to. She is always very informative in her replies to people...really goes out of her way to write. She wrote long, drawn out answers to people's questions. She even did research on people's questions: without being asked.

But this excessive outward expression of helpfulness felt awkward to me. Raised the hairs on my back. Yeah, I know I'm a bit distrustful of people and I'm skeptical by nature. But I've also got a great intuition for individuals and for couples. It doesn't often fail me, and in the past when I've ignored my intuition, I've more often than naught found out later on down the road that I should have trusted my instincts. In this case my intuition said, "Wow, she either is a true altruist, a rare person amongst us OR maybe something else is going on there."

So I've sat back and watched. Continued to read her emails. And wondered.

What makes this person tick?

Does she like helping people? Is she just a chatty person? Is she bored? Too much time on her hands? Or, is she that rare person that takes pleasure in being "that person" that people look to for advice? The latter of which is really ego gratification when you analyze it.

I told myself, "It could be any of these, but I'd be guessing."

So this morning this person had sent me an email asking me to *not* ask a particular question at the picnic during the "Q and A" session. My question had to do with DT and DB's respective work and whether it was possible to get DB's replacement to talk about DT's work and how it could work with RI. At least that is how I remember it. So she didn't want me to ask that during the "Q and A" portion. Now that the event is over, and I can reflect on the questions that were asked, I realize that it was really too technical a question for this forum. Most people were interested in hearing about the new laboratory, or how they would work with the new doctor. But this morningm of course, I couldn't know how the day would go and I replied to her that there shouldn't be a problem with asking such a question, and being that I'm not a politically correct person, I'd likely go on and ask it. I should have said that I'd, of course, do this with the utmost respect and tact, but I didn't think that needed to be stated.

So when I met her today, I continued to watch and listen. She pulled me aside at one point, when I was trying to chat up one of the speakers, and said that she didn't want me saying anything about her or the other board members, using their names, their cases, because if Dr. A knew that they were being treated by Dr. C for something that Dr. A didn't believe in that Dr. A might cease to treat them.

Okay. To even worry about this seemed totally offbase to me. I would never "out" anyone without their explicit permission. Why she would feel the need to emphasize this over and over baffled me. Also, the questions I wanted to ask, which she knew of beforehand, had nothing to do with anyone except me, my treatment, my doctors. Why she felt that my question might involve her or the others was beyond me. I didn't bring this up. It would have been seen as an attack. But I was intrigued by her fears, or better put, her paranoia. I asked her, paraphrasing: "Don't you see it as a problem if Dr. OB/GYN ceases to treat you for seeing DB or DT, and that the two issues here are (1) the doctor's ego, and (2), their desire to make money off of treating you themselves. So you would continue to see a doctor who held these two things above treating and healing patients?" I continued by saying, "It is in my best interest as a patient that I ensure that my doctors are all 'on board' with respect to my treatment. I WANT Dr. OB/GYN, DB and DT to all know what I am doing. To talk to each other. To get on the phone, if need be, with each other to talk about my treatment. That is how I am going to get the best medical treatment."

And she disagreed. She dissented. She became angry with me. But what is odd here is that her doctors are my doctors, literally, with the exception of the OB/GYN, where she is seeing Dr. T, who I dropped like a hot potato after he charged me for that consultation. But even Dr. T worked alongside DB. He's 'on board'. So WTF? Where do her fears come from?

At some point in the conversation, which was interrupted for a while, her husband actually stepped in and ever so slightly defended her position, which wasn't really a position, but a madness of sorts. I don't think he was privy to our email this morning but perhaps he was. I'm also aware of the propensity of spouses to defend each other, but I wish he would have resisted the urge to enter the dialogue as he did.

I guess neither of us could even understand what the other was trying to convey to the other, and at some point she and another IF from the two Yahoo boards turned their backs on J and I, really they did, and then they walked off to chat privately.

It was the utmost in rudeness. I was stunned, but thank god that the percoset kept me at bay.

I left with the impression that I was right on about my intuition. My gut instinct says that she wants to be the "expert" that people go to on "Board B", just like JR is on "Board A". I see this as ego gratification and co-dependency (the need to be needed) wrapped into one. Her paranoia about me not asking questions that have nothing to do with her in an open setting or "outing her", when I had no movitation or intention, is an example of her need for "control", where she really has none.

There is simply something not quite right with this gal. IMHO.