My Doctor Does Not Love Me

I had a camera stuck up my nose yesterday.

What did you do?

A little background.

On September 28 I suddenly began experiencing great difficulty and discomfort swallowing food. I also had a sore throat and my voice was two octaves lower and quite raspy. I visited Dr. Feelgood on October 1 because I was becoming concerned.

My idiot doctor was not available. I was seen by some version of a physician's assistant or junior medical mafia type.

We did nothing but talk. No look down the throat. This concerned me.

She hooked me up with the local GI guys who scheduled a November 19 appointment for an office consultation.

November 19. My troubles began on September 28. I was furious. I was not going to go two fucking months before somebody even came close to looking down my throat.

I raised holy hell and discovered the GI dudes could do nothing unless my primary care physician deemed the situation as urgent, which of course she had not done.

I called her. We had a contentious discussion. By this time, about a week after everything started, the difficulty with swallowing had subsided but I had a permanent sore throat and my voice was still quite sexy.

Her sage advice was to wait. Her reasoning was that the swallowing thing went away and there was a good chance the sore throat would as well and my voice would become boring again.

She refused to classify the situation as urgent and did not want to do anything at all. At one point she said "You know, you don't have anything that is going to kill you in two weeks."

What a piece of crap. I stopped her short there and she immediately back pedaled, trying to make it sound like she was only joking.

I pushed hard and she finally scheduled me to see an ear nose and throat guy. The guy with the camera. The guy I saw yesterday.

On November 2. Over a month since I experienced throat weirdness. And she still refused to classify the situation as urgent regarding the GI guys, scum bucket that she is.

Anyway this guy was great. He answered all my questions with respect and he had a sense of humor.

Then he whipped out this camera thingy. Long slender hose with a camera on the end and kind of a jewelers loupe on the other end for him to spy through.

Gently he snaked it up my right nostril, telling me exactly what was going on at every second.

It was a weird feeling but honestly it didn't make me want to rip the thing out of my nose. It wasn't horrendous.

It got weird when he said "OK you are about to feel this thing touch the back of your throat." Which it did one second later.

That freaked me out a little bit because it suddenly became clear exactly how deep this thing was penetrating.

Anyway it was all good news. No growths, nothing weird. He did tell me that he could only look at the upper part of my throat and that it was good that I was following this up with a visit to the GI guys.

So................this morning I called the office of my primary care physician with the intention of dumping the cold hearted jerk for a new pcp.

I was told that none of the doctors in the group were accepting new patients so I would have to go outside the practice  to do it.

Sounded like bullshit to me. Sounded like a standard answer they give to everybody. Doctors circling the wagons to protect one of of their own.

She gave me a number to call at the hospital which I did. Got a recording telling me they would get back to me in 24 hours regarding the changing of physicians.

More waiting.

Generally the medical community in this country sucks. Patient health is not their primary concern and cash is king. Yesterday was a bright spot.

This is a long post.

You must be tired.