It is still early here in my world this morning. Eight a.m. this June 19/14 as I prepare to ride into the morning fog that I see outside and cross that bridge. Here in Milwaukee, like in many other areas of this troubled planet, we had brutal rain storms and even tornadoes touched down in the midwest yesterday.
Here in my home, flash floods and thunder caused electrical outages but nothing major.
The gloomy/dreary condition outside gives me pause to think about what transpired these past few day as I awaited for this date. So many things have been written in response to the diary My gift for Father`s Day - Cancer I recenty wrote this past Saturday. That diary is replete with uncertainties that came out of my latest eye care examination by the eye doctor. This morning`s fog appears to add to the uncertainty and confusion to what I think might be a very dull and perplexing crossing to this creaky bridge I come upon.
I followed one specific advise that I call my doctor prior to this day when I am to see an eye-cancer specialist. The advise was to ask my doctor for clarification to his pesky diagnosis that "a small growth" in my right eye "looked" like "it could be" cancer. And because it was "caught early" an eye-cancer specialist could "easily" remove it.
Well I did call the doctor this past Monday morning and spoke with the desk receptionist. I explained what took place from the moment I signed in for my appointment on Friday 13th until my doctor made the creepy discovery that he used to set the appointment I have this afternoon at 12:45 p.m.with an eye-cancer specialist.
What I learned from that call pissed me off big time.
As back ground to reach today`s appointment, I noted in my recent diary that I had put-off and put-off a follow-up eye check appointment I get by mail from June 18, 2013 until last Friday 13/14 ( a whole year) due to other medical issues and brutal weather conditions that I felt that because my last eye examination had come out clean and perfect I could afford to postpone until I felt comfortable seeing the doctor.
I told the desk receptionist that I needed clarification from my doctor and that if he was not available, the nurse who took notes during my eye-examination could assist me with the notes that she wrote down. The receptionist told me that she would write down a note for a nurse to call me back. And I waited.
The call came at 10 a.m that same Monday morning. It was not the nurse who sat through my eye-examination and took the notes. It was a different nurse that I will not name here for obvious reasons.
After explaining why I needed to talk with the one nurse who took notes, she said that she had the record in her hands and could help me with any information I needed. That anything that was written could be explained if I wanted.
So I asked for clarification to what I have written that my doctor told me about the "small growth" and "looks like cancer" and everything else I have written that the doctor told me.
She told me that nothing was written by the original nurse about cancer, or small growth. What is in the record `s notes written by the original nurse is that I was given the appointment to be seen by another doctor, and that was all. I would undergo the same procedures I went though on Friday the 13th, which included pictures taken of my eyes, dialation eye-drops and that was all she had on record.There is no instruction for the eye-cancer specialist for what to look for written down in the notes she told me.
I understood that the nurse was telling me exactly what was in the record. I asked her
why, if the doctor had mentioned cancer as a possible finding to his examination, why in hell was it not in the record? I could clearly "feel" the nurse`s reaction when she told me that she could not understand why the doctor had told me what he did -- and nothing was written down.
I have to write down that the nursing staff working there have always treated patients
with great care and respect and that includes me. So when this nurse told me that my appointment was simply a re-do, and that whatever I felt, I should feel positive and not jump to conclusions. She was as bewildered as me since nothing in the record says any thing that the doctor told me..
It brings to my mind the doctor`s body language he went through while telling the nurse what to write down. He turned his swivel chair and his back away from me and got close to the nurse as he spoke with her. I could not hear anything he was saying. So that explains to this mind, I guess the confusion and my suspicion.
Could it be that my doctor wants to give a new doctor a way to make some revenue, by letting him examine me through a pretext on something not even on record, or any written instruction on what to look for?
I think about this possibility because many times my wife and I get unsolicited appointments requests by our primary health providers and I bitch at my wife that they only want to make money out of our Medicare insurance. I have suspected that if we do not become in need for medical assistance any solicitations by medical professions must be due to money. But that is only me. That is only my vicious suspicion on the medical profession field and it is not only because is this incident in my case.
I could be wrong..And what I am seeing today pisses me off, based on the record.
But I have kept that to myself of course. I have not been wrong in ages. Maybe today I am. I might be overdue. Before I cross that bridge, memories keep flowing out of my head.
Which springs my ole suspicious mind what I cannot avoid thinking about my doctor. But whatever I think, I can never think of anything I can say about how grateful I am for the services he has provided for me -- especially giving me back my eye sight, which almost converted me to Mr. Magoo by old-age I think, prior to meeting him.
When I came out of surgery to the eye in question today I recall what my doctor told me was the reason for my primary discomfort and redness of the area inside my eye.
"This eye gave me some difficulty" he told me.
"I had to inject it with a shot of steroids, didn`t you feel it?"
I told him I hadn`t and that episode was forgotten as the swelling left my eye and the eye sight got better.
I now think that the steroids might be the culprit responsible here. But like I said, I might be over due to make a mistake.
Anyway, another advise I got was to write a diary to fight off the anxiety of waiting and to distract from my uneasiness of that. Good advise. And this is why I sat here early this morning as I prepare to enter another chamber of uncertainty.
It is now a quarter to eleven and the dreary day is still outside. I have to get my starched suit ready to jump into it in the next few minutes as my son will pick me up to drive me over. I have concluded that I will tell him to wait in the lobby instead of being there asking questions if needed. I have now prepared myself to handled that. But I need my son to drive me because eye-dilation drops blinds me against daylight.
Some time tomorrow, or Saturday, I will let you know what is over the bridge.
I know that you have always wished Ole Texan well. This time my appreciation, thanks and love is no less.
Peace, see ya across the bridge.