A Premonition
Something is going on with my body that I don’t understand. Last week, on Friday, my wife drove me one mile to our optician because I was developing a sore on one side of my nose. I never got out of the car. My wife went inside to ask if it was better to bring me in or wait on a call. She returned a few minutes later with an optician in tow; my wife can be very persuasive. In this case, though, I believe it is because we have Cadillac vision insurance.
The optician took my glasses and returned in about two minutes with newly-installed nose pads. She waved her hand over the temples, recited a Druid incantation, and the whole thing was fixed. We returned home where, utterly exhausted, I slept the remainder of the day. On Monday we drove to an allergist about three miles from home. I got out of the car, spent more than 90 minutes in her office, and returned home. Again, I slept the remainder of the day.
Yesterday was the same. We drove downtown, about 30 minutes, to Vanderbilt Hospital where I saw first a resident, then a urologist. I have had two bouts of bladder cancer, and my urologist has stopped listening to me. For good cause, I do not trust him to do a cystoscopy, because I must sign a consent form to allow him to do so and, should he encounter a medical issue, to undertake whatever steps he deems medically necessary to fix the problem. He has already indicated he, not I, should be making final decisions. That is not how medicine works. I might well be sedated and wake up missing my bladder and everything else in the same zip code.
The Omniscient One
I had also visited a urologist at Ascension Medical Group, who refused to listen to me. He held that the only treatment for bladder cancer was a cystectomy. I tried telling him that the literature in the UK and Europe showed similar results with chemo-radiation. He cut me off and said that the UK and Europe practices were the same as in the US, and included cystectomy. “I’ve read the article.” Can’t trust him, either.
I’ve probably found a trustworthy urologist at Vanderbilt, but the point is that a visit to him followed by an attempt to eat a meal at McDonald’s on the way home, left me needing sleep the remainder of the day. The least effort exhausts me.
Last Thanksgiving, we went to our eldest daughter’s home for dinner with her and our son-in-law. Getting me up a few steps from the garage to the living level left me out of it the remainder of the day. That will be my last visit to their home.
Any effort leaves me exhausted. Coupled with now-omnipresent expressive aphasia, I can barely interact with anyone. My lifelong depression has given way to anhedonia.
My lung infections are now near-continuous. Head Pain is daily. The time is growing short.
I only pushed like because it is a heart. I admire your descriptive strength. Does writing about the changes in your body help you in any way? Mentally or spiritually? If you believe in prayers, I'm saying one that would lessen your pain and increase your joy.
Ric
Steps are the devil, aren't they? Add a rail. You can articulate so well. You will overcome these. You will. I'm blind in one eye. I have gone to many doctors for the other which is also shaky.This week I got a new lens that covers the whole eye. I can now see. Keep trying. New help every day.