To Make America Healthy Again, we need an arsenal of the best, most caring doctors who will work hard to help us become and stay healthy. Doctors who will answer our questions, address our concerns, and do all they can to find answers and the treatments necessary to help us become as healthy as possible. It is easy to believe they are doing all they can for us when our health is good, but when we run into health problems and become sick, we realize the actual quality of care we are receiving from them. It's essential to question what our doctors say when needed, and it is just as important to value those doctors who work hard to diagnose and heal us.
In 2014, I was involved in a serious automobile accident. To my surprise, my primary care doctor refused to address the severe ongoing pain in my hand and to order the test; I needed to find the fracture in my hand. Needless to say, I found a new doctor. After finding a new primary care physician outside the VA and having my hand cast, I saw my previous doctor again, and she said, "Of course, it was broken." At that point, I realized how valuable a good doctor is—and in 2018, I found out just how true that was.
At my regular appointments, I began complaining about a growing exhaustion inside me. I called it extreme because, most of the time, I couldn't function any longer than an hour at a time. It wasn't fatigue from lack of sleep or overexertion—it was whole-body exhaustion. Every day, I felt totally "wiped out."
When I first started complaining about my exhaustion level, my doctor ran tests for anemia and thyroid function. At the time, he ruled out the possibility of sleep apnea, as I had been previously tested for it. He always gave me a complete examination, but at that time, he could find no other symptoms to accompany my growing exhaustion. All the tests came back negative.
In the spring of 2018, we reviewed my bloodwork, including a test to check my inflammatory markers. He hadn't discussed any of his suspicions before he ran that test—many symptoms that point to chronic inflammation, including GI issues and the fatigue I was experiencing. At the time, I had a growing amount of abdominal pain, which I didn't give much thought to be a problem. Although my stomach symptoms had started to become more regular and slowly became more severe, there were days when they were mild and days when I had no pain. I wasn't experiencing irregularity, so I figured that something I was eating was GI upset. I became even more vigilant of my diet and switched to safer foods that I knew were bland and non-irritating to my stomach. The overbearing symptom I was dealing with, however, was extreme exhaustion.
As I said, my doctor actually listened to me. Having my medical history to guide him, he knew something was wrong, so he conducted an Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR) blood test. My test results showed my ESR rate at 129—the normal rate for a woman in my age range is under 30. That left many questions for both me and my doctor. He explained that high inflammation markers most commonly indicate infection, malignancies, or autoimmune disease. As new tests were ordered, he explained each test, why it was being conducted, and what the results meant.
I had the standard blood and bowel specimen testing done, a CT scan of my torso, and an MRI of my head, looking for the cause of my inflammation. All of those tests came back negative, but my doctor did not stop there. Since I had been complaining about headaches, he scheduled a temporal artery biopsy to look for a chronic inflammatory disorder called giant cell arteritis (GCA). That biopsy was negative. As far as my headaches were concerned, I was later diagnosed with ocular migraines.
He sent me to a rheumatologist to rule out rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease. I developed arthritis as a result of my automobile accident in 2014, and with that came pain in my joints. Bloodwork was drawn, and I was given MRIs. Those tests were also negative. During this examination with the rheumatologist, he noticed slight skin irritations on my face and, while reviewing my medical history in-depth, ruled out rosacea.
In July 2018, after every test result was negative, my doctor sat down with me, and we talked. In December 2017, I had a routine colonoscopy, and the results were normal. He examined me that day in July 2018, and during the examination, he asked about my GI symptoms. Then, he ordered a repeat colonoscopy, only this time with biopsies.
When the results were ready, I had two appointments: one with my primary care doctor and the other with my new GI doctor. The results were positive for colitis—finally, an answer! So, to heal, I needed to learn more about diet and foods and work to become healthy again.
If I hadn't had a doctor who listened to me when I complained about my level of exhaustion, my chances of diagnosis would have been delayed at best. As a result of everything he did for me, I learned to value this doctor greatly because he did not hesitate to work with me to find the underlying cause of that exhaustion. For those of you who have doctors who listen to you, my advice is to hold on to them in every way possible. In my many years of being seen by doctors, I've had very few who I found have listened to what I say. This doctor of mine was a warrior.
As Americans, we deserve these warrior doctors who will do everything they can to find the causes of our illnesses. When it is beyond our control to become healthy, we need to be able to look to those with medical training to find the answers that allude us and trust that they are doing all they can to help. It is not unrealistic to expect our doctors to diagnose us and give full treatment where we are informed as to our disease, the cause, and how to become healthy again, no matter how long it takes.
