Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Seeing the Surgeon

Today Michael and I met his surgeon. Referrals are always a bit hit and miss. The one Michael saw earlier in the year was simply useless and racking up bills for Tri-care. He didn't LISTEN.  Dr. F seemed to enjoy sharing his past Army experiences and such....and he LISTENED as well.

Dr. F on the right receiving the "Physician of the Year" award in this area for 2013

I was VERY helpful. The first question  was, "How has this pain impacted your life?"

As Michael considered what he was going to say - and gave manly answers - I replied, "He can't sleep." 

Dr. replies, "The pain wakes you up?"  We had his attention.

Yep - time to figure it out.

Dr. F used to be an Army Surgeon and has been here for a couple of decades. He knows his stuff. He is willing to admit the mistakes he made as a "Jr Surgeon." He did NOT talk down any of our previous docs, but he did have some preconceptions that they may have messed up Michael's past surgeries.  He really thought he was looking at repairing work from previous surgeries.

This frustrated us as we've told EVERYONE REPEATEDLY the pain existed BEFORE the surgeries.

Then he got to the MRI results....we both noticed his demeanor and expression change as he read...and he didn't talk about repairing work from Jr Surgeons again.  He started drawing on his whiteboard. I'll say this for Michael's journey of the past few years - I could draw some really interesting Pictionary entries on internal organs.  He drew and spoke...and the "picture came clear." ::groan::

 Michael has a tumor.  The MRI caught it - but it was rather scattered. He wants another MRI - ASAP -  to focus extensively on the tumor and how it may be connected to various other internal parts. He also wants to see how much it may have grown and confirm it wasn't simply a blip on the MRI.   He told us this was "pre-op" and he wants a clearer idea of what he is getting into before they operate. 

He said we won't know if it's benign or malignant until its removed. . . but we need to remove it.  This assumes the 2nd MRI shows what the first did.

We aren't sure what time table we're looking at with the Holidays and  such....but Dr. F said 3.5 years is long enough to be searching for the cause of a pain. He said  he suspects, from what Michael has consistently said, it has been there all along and they simply weren't looking in the right area. A classic case of switching docs every year or so, doing the obvious tests and determining, "There's nothing there."  It took a retired Air Force doc at Beale to know where else to look, and a Sr Surgeon to follow it up.

It looks like the next bit of time may be interesting in our home. 

We're thankful to be taking steps to less pain for Michael.

Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...