Arrrgh!!!

This time she felt it was appropriate to send me to an orthopedic specialist. Two brief visits, a lot of x-rays and one test later, and $3000 lighter, he made his best guess and suggested that I see a neurologist.

Normally I see the doctor once a year. Ocassionally I go in for help with poison ivy, or some dreadful, mostly short lived upper respiratory thang, but I dont make it a pratice of hanging around doctor's offices. I feel like I'm playing medical bumper pool.

I saw the neurologist. He asked me to do ELEVEN blood tests. I got ten of them done. The final one required that I not have any mineral or herbal suppliments or any seafood for the three days prior to the test. Since it is an expensive test, I decided to wait until I could meet the criteria. You know how it goes.....if I had done it, and had to retake the test, the insurance would most likely have only paid for one of them.

The neurologist is trying to eliminate causes for my problems, in order to determine how to treat them. It certainly makes sense to me, so I complied with the tests.

So....Tuesday, I had my follow up visit. It had been a month since I saw the doc, so I was all set to go in and find out just what was wrong. Was I ever wrong!!

We'd had a snow storm on Monday night. I wasn't sure what the roads would be like, so I left an hour before the appointment. The roads were cleared and mostly dry. I was there thirty minutes early. I sat in the waiting room, reading a book. The receptionist announced that the doctor was still at rounds and would be there in about ten minutes.

They put me in a waiting room and I finally saw the doctor 40 minutes after my scheduled appointment time. He came in, shook hands, sat down and asked me how I felt. Did the medicine he had prescribed help? Here's a new prescription. Here are the test results for four of the ten tests. The rest are pending. You're healthy. That will be $100. Make an appointment for one month from today.

Okay.....I knew that he might not be able to tell me what was wrong, but what REALLY burns me is that he knew the tests would take longer than a month to be completed, and he had me come in early any way. Do I look like a cash cow to you??? MMMoooooooooooo!!! I wasted two and a quarter hours Tueday morning, and got to pay $100 doing it, and I'm not any closer to knowing what's wrong!

I plan to circumvent the doc's funding for his golf course membership. I won't be seeing him until I am sure the results of the tests are in. I have NO intention of going to the doctor's office once a month, especially without results.

I wish that I could say this is a rare occurance. Jamie has a dread of doctors for this same reason, and BroadAtBat wrote eloquently about the same subject recently. I'm sure there are loads of you out there who have had similar experiences. I realize technology has caused us to leave behind the idea of the country doctor.....the one person who saw you from birth to childbirth. I know technology has also given us windows into human health that never existed before, but it has also made us impersonal to our doctors.

If you've been reading my blog, you know that we have had a change in our household. We are now following the diabetic diet. It's clear to me that we need to be more proactive in our own health care. We'll both be getting more exercise, and eating better diets. Hopefully, we will both be able to leave behind medicine that we have taken due to bad habits. And, when that happens, I truly hope there will be fewer doctors visits in our lives! No more cash cows here!