Seeing the Doctor

I recently went to the doctor for a checkup and explained some of my concerns to my doctor.  I have been having some issues over the past few years, and do keep a regular check on my health because my grandmother likely had something similar.  She died at the age of 51.  We know she had cancer, but we just don’t know which one. We just know the region of origin.

My doctor came highly recommended to me by a handful of medical doctors I have seen over the years. She is intelligent, smart, witty and seems very knowledgeable. She is also given decent reviews by patients, so I felt like I was in good hands.

I’ve been unfortunately cursed with some benign tumors and they continue to grow slowly (which is not abnormal for the tumor type) so I keep getting them looked at to make sure they don’t turn into cancer.  The risk is very, very remote– but I also need to watch to make sure nothing else develops, either.

During my last visit, my doctor suddenly said we should remove them and a whole lot more!  She got me really scared by her words.  Her exact words were that they were growing too fast, and she was “concerned….very concerned.” Naturally, we had talked about my grandmother and her cancer again — so it was clear she was telling me she was concerned about cancer.  And her recommended?  Radical surgery immediately.

I walked out of the office stunned. I didn’t see that coming at all. It even took me a few minutes to understand what she was saying because she didn’t come right out and say it until I laid it on the table–“Is this what you are saying?”  She confirmed.

I was blind-sided and scared and freaked out. It didn’t help that after I left her office, I went out into the middle of a snowstorm, where the roads were slick and my nervous hands struggled to keep my car on the road.

And the power died as soon as I got home for 4 hours so I couldn’t do any research to understand more about what was going on.

At first, in my emotional fear, I believed her. Emotions are our biggest cloud to seeing the truth there is–for all human beings–and I am no exception.

As I calmed down over the evening, and I started thinking, by morning I could verbalize the holes in her approach.  She was telling me she was very concerned because my tumors had grown, and fast growing tumors could be cancer, but if I wanted a second opinion (which I told her I did), she told me to see this conservative doctor who would probably make a different recommendation all together because of his beliefs.

I realized if she truly believed I was on the cancer track as she so scared me, would she believe another doctor would take a different approach? A doctor who believed in Western medicine like herself?  That didn’t make sense to me because I wasn’t arguing with her, disagreeing or asking for any form of alternative treatments. It would be one thing if I wanted to see an Eastern medicine specialist, but I wasn’t.

She also never said to me, “I’m very concerned this could be cancer.”   She never outright said it.  She stopped short. She connected things by reference, but never actually said it.  This bothered me. She never gave me statistical probabilities, either.  That bothered me.

I have read up on vast amounts of literature the past few weeks and found she left out a lot of information/options/procedures/risk factors, and if I simply trusted what she told me, I would have been woefully mislead.  Her end diagnosis may be where I end up, but she didn’t take the prudent steps to ensure it was the right decision.

I’ve found out by ordering my medical records from her office that my tumors have not grown fast at all. They’ve actually slowed in their growth rate!!  The day I left her office in a panic, I asked her how many tumors I had now, because she said I had more than the last time.  She told me, “More than 5 — they stopped counting!”  My records show ONLY 3, with a possible forth.  And one could be 2, but there was no mention of five definitely, or that they stopped counting. This was another blatant lie!
 
I also discovered in her medical record of my visit that there was no mention of cancer whatsoever, or any concerns.  What she did was write down her notes as if I came in complaining and wanted a “solution”–and so she offered me options.  I couldn’t believe it.  Why do I still get surprised?  What she did was write down my concerns, but she took great liberty in grossly misrepresented them –making them much worse than what I said they were, which gives her the justification for recommending the surgery.  So what we discussed and what she actually wrote down were two entirely different conversations.

Also, during my exam, as we chatted, she asked me what I was up to lately and I told her about my training for law enforcement.  Guess what she wrote on her report?  That I worked for the FBI.  I never said that and you all know I do not work as a employee of the FBI.  Another inaccurate piece of information.  Her medical records hit me as “cover-your-ass” paperwork because it had nothing about our real visit in it!

In her report, she wrote about how she offered me all these different treatment options–for which she offered only 2 — and lied about one of the two.  She told me of two surgeries that were available, and only guided me towards one saying the other could not be done completely (where tumors would remain)–which is an outright lie!! It could be done completely and curatively but differently than she told me.  It would take a specialist surgeon to do it, however, and it wouldn’t be her! I don’t believe she had the skill.  She also wrote that she advised me of all the risks — which she advised me of none!

I can see if I took her to court (which I have no intention), I’d like look the nut job by her records. 

It was a very stressful and disappointing experience to say the least.

I went ahead and scheduled a consultation with a top-notch surgeon and expert in the area of my concern tomorrow at the University of Chicago.

I’m really nervous and scared because I don’t know where it is all going to go, but I need good and trustworthy answers.  This doctor has been given award after award and is highly regarded nationally, but this time, I’m well read, educated and ready to ask him 1000 questions, if need be.  No one is going to mislead me when it comes to my health!  I know all the potentials where this could go and I’m ready to get trustworthy answers. I want to know which option is best for me, and WHY.

If I don’t post for a few days, please understand why.  I’m going through a lot right now.