Getting Enough Medical Information

As mature adults, we are responsible for our own medical care. At the end of the day, a doctor's job is just a job. It's an important job. It's one that takes years of study and training. However, it's your life, not theirs.

I think I'm at the point in my current medical journey where I can decide my own course of action from now on. The doctors can provide assistance, but the decisions are my own. Who's life is it anyway?

There have been enough x-rays, blood tests, and exams to give me some idea what's going on. The person taking the lead on my case isn't even a real doctor but a nurse practitioner. Because of that she may be too ready to send me to specialists that are not needed. For example, she wants me to go back to the wound clinic guy. While he was good for some things, in two visits he missed that my legs were still infected. He thought the problem was just a surface ulcer. Right now I'm in no hurry to see him again.

Then there's the issue of my heart. In a week I went from congestive heart failure to my heart being perfectly fine. The expensive definitive blood test was good, the EKG in the ER was good, the last chest x-ray was good. However, she still wants me to find some way to pay for their expensive cardiac care department. The weird EKG she took in her office has her spooked. The one taken two minutes later in the ER was fine, but there's a long shot possibility that I actually had a weird, totally unfelt, episode in her office. Since that actually happened to her once in her 13 year career, she's worried. I'm not, and it's my body.

Right now I'm still on antibiotics, low salt diet, and I'm taking some pounds off. Once the legs are better the diet and weight loss will continue. At my age there's too much weight to carry around.

That's where things currently stand. I made an appointment to see the nurse practitioner again at the end of this round of antibiotics. Had I been kept on them longer the fist time around this mess would not have happened. She's agreed to extend the antibiotics if necessary.

All in all, I'm making improvements again and feel better about taking charge of my treatments.

-Sixbears