So the opthalmologist finally called me back at the end of the day and I got to ask him all the questions I could think of, which weren't many. I am still royally pissed at him. I had to practically drag information out of him. I understand that he is just an opthalmologist and not a neurologist or a neurosurgeon, but he's all I've got right now, and even though he doesn't want to be pinned down to any definitive statement, he's got to give me something to go on for now if I have to wait a whole month before I can learn more.
On the other hand, I've had the whole weekend to kind of come to terms with the initial shock and start educating myself on the subject a little bit. If we had been sitting face to face in his office on Friday when he told me the news I probably wouldn't have been able to come up with as many questions as I did this evening.
On the other hand, one of the things I found out was that since my carotid artery is involved, I shouldn't engage in any strenuous exercise, such as weight lifting. Wasn't it this guy's responsibility as a doctor to tell me that right off the bat? For all he knew, I could have been doing weight lifting all along! I could have had a stroke!
Yeah, I am still plenty pissed at this guy! Wait'll I tell Dr. Ma and the colleague with expertise about it!
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Monday, October 13, 2008
Trying to get an appointment with the neurosurgeon
So the fancy neurology eye doctor guy is actually a neuro-ophthalmologist. I finally looked it up. I feel stupid. I didn't even know what kind of a doctor he was. I've decided that I don't like him. Nyah! He called me on my cell phone while I was driving to tell me what I already suspected, that I have a tumor behind my right eyeball. A benign tumor. Well thank God it's benign, eh? "Good" I said. I think maybe that threw him a little, because that's all he told me. "Well, how big is it?" I asked. He gave me measurments in centimeters, which I couldn't picture. "The size of a grape, a golf ball, a tennis ball?" I asked. "About the size of a golf ball" he said. "You should go see a neurosurgeon" he said. And then he just kind of left me up in the air. You'd think he'd never diagnosed somebody with a brain tumor before. "Do you want to somebody here in town?" he asked me. "Yeah, sure" I said. What was I supposed to say? I don't know one neurosurgeon from another. Hey, man, you're the fucking doctor! I think he just pulled a name out of thin air. This was at 4:00 Friday afternoon. I scribbled the name down on a scrap of paper while I was stopped at a red light. The light turned green and I had to drive a few more blocks until I got to a place where I could pull over. Then I immediately called the neurosurgeon's office. They had closed at 3:00, would reopen at 8:00 Monday morning. I would have to wait all weekend to even be able to find out how soon I could get an appointment. It was a long scary weekend full of uncertainty. Monday morning, I watched the hands of the clock as 8:00 rolled around. I called the instant I could. "Next available appointment is Nov 11" I was told.
! ! ! !
You've got to be fucking kidding me. Lady, I've got a brain tumor! (Of course, everyone who calls their office has a brain tumor. Get in line!) I'm supposed to wait an entire month before I can even get a prognosis?!?!?
This is unacceptable. I'm calling the neuro-ophthalmologist back and get a different referral. But his office doesn't open until 9.
The second eye doctor, the colleague with the expertise, he and Dr. Ma spoiled me. They were so sweet and caring. They took care of me. The colleague even called the neuro-ophthalmologist himself for me while I was there to get them to sqeeze in a timely appointment for me. I didn't realize how lucky I was to have such sweet and caring doctors as those two. Now I'm on my own I guess. Have to learn how to navigate this maze by myself. Just like everyone else.
! ! ! !
You've got to be fucking kidding me. Lady, I've got a brain tumor! (Of course, everyone who calls their office has a brain tumor. Get in line!) I'm supposed to wait an entire month before I can even get a prognosis?!?!?
This is unacceptable. I'm calling the neuro-ophthalmologist back and get a different referral. But his office doesn't open until 9.
The second eye doctor, the colleague with the expertise, he and Dr. Ma spoiled me. They were so sweet and caring. They took care of me. The colleague even called the neuro-ophthalmologist himself for me while I was there to get them to sqeeze in a timely appointment for me. I didn't realize how lucky I was to have such sweet and caring doctors as those two. Now I'm on my own I guess. Have to learn how to navigate this maze by myself. Just like everyone else.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
part 2
So finally my old glasses are so scratched I can hardly see out of them even if the prescription was still appropriate, which it's not. I seem to be developing good old age-related farsightedness on top of my lifelong nearsightedness and maybe it's time for bifocals (ugh!). This is aside from the scary right eye vision loss. And on top of all that I know I'm going to have to qualify again at the rifle range soon for my job. I haven't had to do that since before the vision loss started. I'll never qualify with my eyesight the way it is now, and my glasses all scratched up and outdated. It's time to bite the bullet. I have to get new glasses. I have to face reality in an eye doctor's office.
Of course I don't have a regular eye doctor, as I don't have a regular anything else doctor either. But one of my co-workers has this eye doctor who she says is an absolute artist when it comes to fitting you with the correct prescription, so off I go to this wonderfully sweet, kind, gentle, soft-spoken Korean eye doctor. She does all the usual tests and then some others I've never had before. She puts in the drops and shines the bright lights (which glare excruciatingly in my hyper-sensitive left eye, and, frighteningly, disappear completely in my half-blind right eye). She has me look into the thing like a video game and hit the clicker every time I see a light wink in my peripheral vision. She only has me do it with my good eye, though. I'm thinking I could have done it with my bad eye as well - I still do have peripheral vision with that one, after all.
Dr. Ma is very concerned. "Your left eye is better than your last prescription" she tells me. "And the optic nerve is very healthy. But your right eye - " She pauses. She is trying to break it to me gently. She's so sweet. I know it's serious. I've known it for a long time. I was just too chicken to find out before now. But now I'm ready. Better late than never, eh? "Your right optic nerve is - very ill" she says.
"Very ill." Aw. That's such a mild way of putting it. She wants me to come back tomorrow (tomorrow!) and see her colleague who has more expertise "with these sorts of cases".
Okay. So I take a half day off which ends up being a half day + an extra 45 minutes (good thing my boss is a fairly flexible type), and I sit through another eye exam. More drops, more excruciatingly bright lights, and I have to wear a protective film strip behind my glasses for the rest of the day to protect my dilated pupils. Shit, if I'd known it was going to be like this, I would have made the appointment for the end of the day instead of for lunchtime!
So after all this, the colleague with the expertise tells me that my right eyeball is stuck, not rotating properly, and something is causing "a problem" with the optic nerve. It might be a thyroid problem, it might be a "mass". He doesn't want to say "brain tumor". He doesn't want to scare me. He doesn't want to say anything definitive without further tests. "You should probably get an MRI" he says. He's going to refer me to a neuro-opthalmologist.
My health insurance is a PPO instead of an HMO. "That's good" he says. "This way we can send you where we want." The one they want to send me to has an office 15 minutes from my apartment. But he's booked up months in advance. The expertise colleague calls the office and wangles me an appointment for next week.
"Can I still get new glasses?" I ask. "I really need new glasses, look at these!" "No, I don't want you to throw your money away if your vision might improve" he said, and sent me off to the neuro-opthalmologist.
So I still need new glasses!
Of course I don't have a regular eye doctor, as I don't have a regular anything else doctor either. But one of my co-workers has this eye doctor who she says is an absolute artist when it comes to fitting you with the correct prescription, so off I go to this wonderfully sweet, kind, gentle, soft-spoken Korean eye doctor. She does all the usual tests and then some others I've never had before. She puts in the drops and shines the bright lights (which glare excruciatingly in my hyper-sensitive left eye, and, frighteningly, disappear completely in my half-blind right eye). She has me look into the thing like a video game and hit the clicker every time I see a light wink in my peripheral vision. She only has me do it with my good eye, though. I'm thinking I could have done it with my bad eye as well - I still do have peripheral vision with that one, after all.
Dr. Ma is very concerned. "Your left eye is better than your last prescription" she tells me. "And the optic nerve is very healthy. But your right eye - " She pauses. She is trying to break it to me gently. She's so sweet. I know it's serious. I've known it for a long time. I was just too chicken to find out before now. But now I'm ready. Better late than never, eh? "Your right optic nerve is - very ill" she says.
"Very ill." Aw. That's such a mild way of putting it. She wants me to come back tomorrow (tomorrow!) and see her colleague who has more expertise "with these sorts of cases".
Okay. So I take a half day off which ends up being a half day + an extra 45 minutes (good thing my boss is a fairly flexible type), and I sit through another eye exam. More drops, more excruciatingly bright lights, and I have to wear a protective film strip behind my glasses for the rest of the day to protect my dilated pupils. Shit, if I'd known it was going to be like this, I would have made the appointment for the end of the day instead of for lunchtime!
So after all this, the colleague with the expertise tells me that my right eyeball is stuck, not rotating properly, and something is causing "a problem" with the optic nerve. It might be a thyroid problem, it might be a "mass". He doesn't want to say "brain tumor". He doesn't want to scare me. He doesn't want to say anything definitive without further tests. "You should probably get an MRI" he says. He's going to refer me to a neuro-opthalmologist.
My health insurance is a PPO instead of an HMO. "That's good" he says. "This way we can send you where we want." The one they want to send me to has an office 15 minutes from my apartment. But he's booked up months in advance. The expertise colleague calls the office and wangles me an appointment for next week.
"Can I still get new glasses?" I ask. "I really need new glasses, look at these!" "No, I don't want you to throw your money away if your vision might improve" he said, and sent me off to the neuro-opthalmologist.
So I still need new glasses!
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