November 13, 2008

The day has finally arrived, I am about to meet my Rheumatologist.  The specialist that may be able to give me some answers.  I am very much anticipating my appointment and look forward to walking up the stairs to the second floor of the University of Alberta Hospital.  I am about to meet Dr. Davis.

I should know by now to never get my hopes up.  I don't meet Dr. Davis right away.  I am greeted by 2 overly eager and yet timid interns.  Okay, I have dealt with interns before with other doctors throughout my life.  I believe they have a place and they need to learn hands on.  What I don't appreciate is that you ONLY see the interns.  I'm getting ahead of myself.

So the interns take a look at the letter from my Doctor, review all the blood work that has been done on me since September.  They ask me questions pertaining to my health history etc.  I don't mind all this, in fact, it is necessary.  They then ask me to change into a gown as they want to check out my body, my mobility etc.  After a series of poking and prodding and moving my joints around, they write a bunch of stuff down and say they have to talk it over with Dr. Davis.  After a few minutes Dr. Davis finally comes into the room.  He barely looks at me.  He is muttering about needing to get to some lunch meeting.  Do I care?  No, I am a scheduled patient and he should be giving me the time that is needed.  Anyways.

Dr. Davis barely looks me in the eye.  He reads over everything and says that I need to go for a bone scan to rule out arthritis even though he is positive that I don't have it.  He sends me for some more blood work and says to book a follow-up appointment, oh yeah, it will be awhile as the great doctor is going back to his homeland (England) for a few months.  In the meantime he thinks that it is just stress related to my upcoming Colposcopy appointment.  He couldn't be farther from the truth.  These symptoms started before I even knew about my abnormal pap smears and I wasn't worried as I knew it was being taken care of.

And with that, less than 5 minutes with the great doctor, without him barely looking me in the eyes, let alone touching me he was gone and I was no better off. Oh yeah, I am booked for a bone scan the following week...which he thought was going to be a waste of time anyways.

I leave the appointment a little frustrated.  I understand that I might not have answers right away.  It was the way in which I was treated and the bed side manners that this doctor had.  If he is more concerned about a lunch meeting and getting to England, I don't have much faith in him to take care of me as a patient.  So there we are...November 13th...none the wiser and a heck of a lot more confused and uncertain. 

Next week I have my Colposcopy appointment and my Bone Scan.  Let's get through that and see what happens from there.  In the meantime I am not getting any better; probably a little worse as each day goes by.