A Day of Doctors

Now for the followup. Today I meet with my oncologist in the morning, my primary care doctor in the early afternoon, and my cardiologist in the late afternoon. I wonder if I could convince them to all meet me at the same time and check in with each other! But that is not the way the system works despite their verbiage about having a team approach to health care. Instead, I get to spend the entire day at the same facility bouncing from one office to the next.

So the upshot of my ridiculous reporting of numerous irritating symptoms? All the tests show I am extraordinarily healthy! Symptoms be dammed. I reluctantly agree that it is good to know my body is sound even if somewhat leaky and creaky. My real conclusion is that the medical profession does not yet have the tools and paradigms to really measure the effect of chemo and radiation on the human body. My symptoms are not imaginary. Just not caused by traditional diseases that have those symptoms. Perhaps I should be talking to the researchers who have worked with victims of mass radiation from bombs and meltdowns. Bet I'd get more satisfaction from them.

Ah, well. I still have a few more tests to run. Like a sleep study (I suppose lack of sleep can make you think you are having a heart attack). And a neurological exam. That might explain the severe muscle spasms and track the ongoing neuropathy. Of course, I think it would be wonderful if someone were working on a solution to preventing chemo induced neuropathy. Just identifying it so that you know why your darn fingers don't work isn't particularly helpful!

Meanwhile, I continue to smile and nod as my "team" figures out what to do with me. I know they deal with people in much worse shape, so dealing with nuisance symptoms like mine is probably not high on their priority lists. I appreciate that they have listened to my complaints - which I will just keep to myself here on out - and tried to suss out some solutions. But truth be known, I want to work with a research team that is addressing the question of why chemo causes these symptoms and how the damage might better be assessed and perhaps even prevented. Where are the brainiacs when you need them??!!