The title just about says it all. But, for the long version, read on:
This past Wednesday I saw Dr. A for my routine neurology checkup--this one, of course, the first after having met my nemesis in a bizarrely unhelpful neurologist at Johns Hopkins Neuromuscular Clinic, which actually made this local appointment slightly less than routine.
Yet I felt defeated before going in. What would be the point of trying to convince Dr. A that Dr. Red Queen (RQ) of Hopkins had not properly examined me or considered my medical history when she'd come up with her unequivocal veto of any possibility that I might actually have myotonic dystrophy?
If the woman had spoken to me with the slightest curiosity or compassion, I might have more easily accepted her assessment. Unfortunately, I maintain to this day that she subjected me to quite the opposite.
But this is not meant to rehash a story already told in a previous episode.
The issue at hand today had everything and nothing to do with Dr. RQ.
Trying to convince one doctor that another has treated you badly is akin to having to convince someone of your sanity. Try it sometime.
However, I've have learned through long, hard experience that doctors are not infallible, beginning when I, at twenty years of age, disagreed with my eldest son's pediatrician who told me my firstborn, then about five months old and about whom fellow church members had expressed concern he might have hydrocephalus, was merely a "right-handed baby with a funny-looking head." That's exactly what he said--I realize now in a possibly unfortunate attempt to sound lighthearted and relieve my worry.
But I had reason to worry back then. My insistence that my baby be seen at Children's Hospital National Medical Center revealed his skull was closing up prematurely and, if it weren't opened by a surgeon, would result in terrible brain damage--a condition called craniosynostosis. Oh, and he wasn't just "right handed"--he'd held his chubby little fist to his chest because his premature birth had resulted in a cerebral hemorrhage. His entire left side was partially paralyzed. And the reasons for all of the problems, I might add, are consistent with pregnancies in women with myotonic dystrophy.)
My point is this:
I don't always agree with a physician tells me, though if one were to mount a study on the many encounters I've had with doctors of many types and specialties one would conclude I've been a respectful and mostly cooperative patient. I'm just not willing to give up my right to think for myself.
