The Acute Care doctor who treated me recently for pain under my right rib got it all wrong. What we as patients must do is to determine if their diagnosis makes sense. Hers did not. I felt she had made a diagnosis based on my age and weight rather than what all the tests reported. She was wrong about everything she diagnosed plus she missed that I had serious case of pneumonia. If not treated so quickly, I could have died.
I took control and asked for antibiotics from my lung doctor after the Acute Care doctor refused my request for them. I am now well and feeling fantastic for the first time in months. How long did I have pneumonia that it was able to get to the point of extreme pain?
So question their ideas. Ask questions and argue a point that just does not seem right but do it politely. Example: She said that I had gall stones. I knew that was just not right as I had not had any gall stone pain, which is an extreme pain. I asked, "Wouldn't I have had pain?" When she replied that I was having pain now, I thought to myself that the pain was clearly in the wrong place for gall stones. I knew she was wrong. In her mind, I was over 40 and overweight so I must have gall stones. From there on, I did not trust anything she said.
It is our job to run and understand everything about our treatment. It is our job to know our numbers from the test results. It is our job to understand the medications we take and the reason for them. All the specialists focus on is their own area of expertise. We must be the person to gather all the data and share it with each doctor.
We are the keepers of our own information.
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