What do doctors think when patients come in with a self-diagnosis?
I went to my doctors for 8 months, I told him I had cancer and he rolled his eyes. I gave him all the symptoms and he disregarded me. He asked a lot of questions but I could answer them all. I'd lost loads of weight always tired, pain in flank so he tried B12 and I said ‘if you checked my records you'd see I'm already on it’. Thyroid ‘if you check my records you'll see I already take thhroxine’ and on it went. He looked at previous prescriptions and approx 10 years ago I was given an antacid so I had heartburn.
I went back and forth for 8 months and he told me that I should take a lower dosage of the antacid, take it twice daily and come back in 6 months. I told him it wasn't heartburn as I know what heartburn feels like and I reminded him that I'd been 6 times and after 3 they are supposed to do a referral.
He grudgingly did the referral and they have the opportunity of having it done in 2 weeks if they think it is cancer but after a week I rang up and he'd put me in the ladt category, basically no rush. I burst into tears, only time I cried, and she got me a cancellation on the Friday. I went in and obviously realised she found something. I eventually got a copy of my CT and the tumour had encapsulated my kidney so I lost that, part of my stomach, core muscles etc. I'm lucky, 10 years on and clear but I got this blown upto poster size, wrote in red marker “Does this look like heartburn to you?’ and grit filled it to his door (a horrendously strong adhesive they use a lot in the building trade).
The tumour was larger than a honey dew melon!
Comments