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The test I wrote about, which I was told to have immediately on a "you might need emergency surgery!!!!" basis, of course came back negative. (Well, it found some stuff - at my age, if you look closely enough at someone's body you'll generally eventually find something - but probably nothing that could be causing any symptoms.)
That same doctor also told me I needed to IMMEDIATELY schedule two very expensive, time-consuming tests for a type of cancer I had already been checked for two months previously in a different manner, because she found something that she thinks the two-months-ago test missed.
Me: "Do you seriously think this is cancer? Because there's that completely benign condition which I already told you about, which I've had my entire life and which causes the exact thing you found…"
Doctor Five Alarm Fire (reluctant): "No, I don't think it's cancer, it's probably that benign thing. But you need to get it checked immediately, because it MIGHT be cancer!"
She also strongly implied that I was in immediate risk of dropping dead of a heart attack. "Go to the drug store, buy baby aspirin, and start taking it TONIGHT!"
Considering that the disease causing actual symptoms, whatever the fuck it is, almost certainly does not involve either my heart or the possibly cancerous parts, I'm thinking she was maybe a little alarmist. (At that point, my heart had already been checked repeatedly, by multiple methods, and appears to be fine.) I think THREE completely unrelated and extremely serious diseases are just a bit unlikely, considering that I have now been scanned and tested to hell and back and no one's ever found much of anything.
The good news is that I found a GP I actually like, who is additionally unlikely to give up and refer me out for both professional and personal reasons. (She's a friend of a friend.) She has basically the same theory on the probable nature and cause of my illness that I do, which of course endeared her to me, but since she's a doctor and I'm not, she came up with a quite detailed plan for 1) investigation with that in mind, 2) treatment of symptoms in the meanwhile, 3) consults, 4) back-up plans in case the first investigations don't find anything. Very methodical. I'm encouraged.
(She also thought the Three-Alarm-Fire doctor was being a bit alarmist, on all fronts.)
Incidentally, this is something like the fourth time in the last seven months that a doctor has outright said or strongly implied that I might be dying or in imminent danger of dropping dead. This is naturally doing wonders for my general stress level.
Comments closed to prevent a deluge of "Get the cancer tests done IMMEDIATELY!" I want a second opinion on that. Those particular tests often lead to painful, unnecessary, invasive procedures that find that oops, it was the previously-known, benign condition after all.)
That same doctor also told me I needed to IMMEDIATELY schedule two very expensive, time-consuming tests for a type of cancer I had already been checked for two months previously in a different manner, because she found something that she thinks the two-months-ago test missed.
Me: "Do you seriously think this is cancer? Because there's that completely benign condition which I already told you about, which I've had my entire life and which causes the exact thing you found…"
Doctor Five Alarm Fire (reluctant): "No, I don't think it's cancer, it's probably that benign thing. But you need to get it checked immediately, because it MIGHT be cancer!"
She also strongly implied that I was in immediate risk of dropping dead of a heart attack. "Go to the drug store, buy baby aspirin, and start taking it TONIGHT!"
Considering that the disease causing actual symptoms, whatever the fuck it is, almost certainly does not involve either my heart or the possibly cancerous parts, I'm thinking she was maybe a little alarmist. (At that point, my heart had already been checked repeatedly, by multiple methods, and appears to be fine.) I think THREE completely unrelated and extremely serious diseases are just a bit unlikely, considering that I have now been scanned and tested to hell and back and no one's ever found much of anything.
The good news is that I found a GP I actually like, who is additionally unlikely to give up and refer me out for both professional and personal reasons. (She's a friend of a friend.) She has basically the same theory on the probable nature and cause of my illness that I do, which of course endeared her to me, but since she's a doctor and I'm not, she came up with a quite detailed plan for 1) investigation with that in mind, 2) treatment of symptoms in the meanwhile, 3) consults, 4) back-up plans in case the first investigations don't find anything. Very methodical. I'm encouraged.
(She also thought the Three-Alarm-Fire doctor was being a bit alarmist, on all fronts.)
Incidentally, this is something like the fourth time in the last seven months that a doctor has outright said or strongly implied that I might be dying or in imminent danger of dropping dead. This is naturally doing wonders for my general stress level.
Comments closed to prevent a deluge of "Get the cancer tests done IMMEDIATELY!" I want a second opinion on that. Those particular tests often lead to painful, unnecessary, invasive procedures that find that oops, it was the previously-known, benign condition after all.)