Diagnosis Please
One thing that sucks about the doctors I keep getting handed to at the community health center is that none of them really seem to care that I am in abdominal pain. They don’t care that I have a difficult time bending over (although if I get hired at Target and the job requires it, I will deal with it) or that my stomach hurts for no apparent reason.1
After poking around at my stomach, the doctor I got this time says he doesn’t think it has anything to do with Squishy2, but he thinks I have gallstones. That’s great except you can’t have gallstones if you don’t have a gallbladder! Then he changes his tune and says there could be a stone they missed in the bile duct. Also a good explanation except they had to check because there was a stone stuck in the opening to the bile duct when I had the gallbladder removed and it was removed in 1997.
So then he changes his tune, yet again. This time he says it has to be abdominal adhesions. All right, I’ll bite on that one, but how the heck did I get them – the only abdominal surgery I’ve had was the gallbladder removal. Oh, that would have been enough to cause the problem. And I don’t need to worry about it if the adhesions aren’t obstructing my bowels. Really? So in other words, I can live in pain and discomfort because this guy says that exploratory surgery is not an option.3 Getting a CT scan when I’m in pain is also not an option because it has to be done in Iowa City – clear across the freakin’ state. Peachy.
Why is it that when all you want is a damn diagnosis, you can’t get one??
- Jeez, I think me and Jenn should get together – we’d make a matching abdominal pain pair. ↩
- For those not in the know, my hernia. ↩
- Mind you, the same doctor says that he wants me to take HCG shots (yes the pregnancy hormone) to regulate my cycle and Progesterone shots to get rid of the excess facial hair. ↩
