Enclosed is a copy of an email to my wife … I wrote it about 3pm that afternoon so the details (as I remembered it) would be fresh and documented.
FROM: HART
TO: YVONNE
SUBJECT: Just got back from the doctor’s office
Well. it didn’t quite go as I imagined it. Here’s a summary, feel free if you want to call me, it’s up to you although, i will try to recall everything for my own piece of mind.
My appointment was re-scheduled for 1:05pm – I arrived at 12:56pm
At 1:52pm I started to play with my cell phone settings, and played the “Baby Elephant Walk” song twice … the receptionist asked if I could turn the volume down, and I replied “Is it too loud? It can’t be as annoying as waiting for my 1:05pm and it’s now 2 o’clock…
At 1:55pm they called me and directed me to a room to sit.
At 2:05pm or so Dr. G. came in and asked me how I am doing. I replied “It’s been a bad week actually .. had sunburn on sunday, went to a workout Monday morning and I seemed to have caught that stomach flu that has been going around with a case of diarrhea and – oh, my right eye swelled up to the size of a golfball.
Then, he looked at me, focusing on my eye, and said .. “Ok. let’s look at your results”.
(fine I figured – he has that sign in the office – one symptom per visit – was thinking that I’ll just ask him what could have caused it at the end of the meeting).
He reads me the results of last blood test and I write them down.
ALT .75
AST .51
CPK .119
Apparently, this all means that the readings are “slightly elevated”. I asked him ‘elevated from what?” and he said, ‘from normal’.
I told him I just didn’t understand – was my liver affected? was my cholestrol normal now?
He said, there was some effect on the liver, but just slightly (I take it that’s what he meant) We’ll have to watch it over time. He asked me how if felt taking the Crestor and he’ll write me a prescription for 100 at a time now.
That’s when I started talking more.
I told him that I didn’t like the Crestor, and I found it very discomforting actually, because at night, when I was inactive all I can feel was inner body burning as if trying to increase my metabolism and my legs were quite annoying and I couldn’t sleep for more than 2 hours at a time.
He said that shouldn’t have happened, and it’s probably in my head.
I asked him … “well?? did it reduce my cholestrol?” he said my cholestrol was 6.48 and my glucose sugar spot was 7.8 … I looked in my notes, and that is exactly what it was last time. I said.. “Nothing changed using these pills?? He said, no those are last month’s readings .. I just tested your liver this time.
He was writing his prescription, and I said – Listen, you can stop. I am not getting that filled. I stopped taking these pills after the May 12 blood test. Everyone I talk to and who I show these results to can’t believe that my doctor is prescribing me pills, especially something designed to be taken for life, before trying other things.
That’s when I guess I insulted him, and he got offended.
He suggested that when people say stuff like that, I should ask them if they have a license to practice medicine and make diagnosises. I replied, they are not asking me to be their patient, they are asking me to see another doctor.
oops. then he wrote something in my permanent file, just like on Seinfeld.
Apparently, he wrote down his new prescription for me… “make meaningful life changes and life choices”. He suggested to me that “listen, try to change your life. Do what you think you can help yourself. Try what others think or tell you to do and see me in 6 months. Will you do that?” And, if your levels get worse, keep in mind that you just lost 6 months of health care and you may not live as long because, you have above average cholestrol, you are borderline diabetic type 2 with your sugar levels, you are overweight, and you should be concerned.
I answered, “fair enough”. And, I scheduled an appointment for November 15, 2005.
HART
Well, that was my email that I sent to Yvonne so I wouldn’t forget the little details.