Feeling overwhelmed
Where to begin?
I will try to make this as brief as possible.
In 2011, at the age of 38, I suffered a heart attack. During an appointment with a Cardiologist afterwards, he conducted a stress test on the treadmill that saw my O2 level drop into the low 70s. The cardiologist decided that a minor leaking heart valve wasn't as important as getting me in to see a pulmonologist.
The 1st pulmonologist ran PFTs, CT Scans then on to a bronchoscopy followed by an open lung biopsy. His explanation of the results were that I had "End stage idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.". He added that my lungs were producing a maroon/grey glue like substance with crushed glass in it. He said he didn't know what it was but he'd ask some of his associates. I didn't understand what the other stuff meant so he explained about the scarring, the honeycombing... That there was no fixing it. So I asked the obvious question, "What's the bottom line?". He answers with, "It means you have about 2 years.". With that he decided that my career with the State Department of Corrections was done and I should probably go on disability and take it easy with what time I still had.... So I did...
13 years after that diagnosis I am now on my 3rd pulmonologist. All I can say about the 2nd pulmonologist is that he did annual PFTs and CT Scans and pushed for me to be evaluated for a transplant... Which I almost agreed to.
I decided he didn't have my best interest at heart when I started seeing his assistant instead of him. She proved to be useless when, during my final visit with her, she had a different patients file pulled up on her computer where I could see it and proceeded to tell me they found a nodule in one of my lungs that they wanted to biopsy and tried to show me an X-ray that wasn't mine. I asked, "Are you sure?". She insisted she was, pointing to the nodule on the X-ray. I asked her what my name was. Irritated, she read the name that was on the screen in front of her... I pulled out my driver's license, showed it to her and asked again, "Are you sure?". She was getting pissy at this point. She looked at my license, looked at the screen and got real quiet as clicked on the tab that showed the patient information with a photo of the patient on the screen. She started to apologize but I just walked out without saying another word.
Now my 3rd, and current, pulmonologist looks at my records, looks at me and says, "I don't think you have what they said you have.". I sighed in relief and said, "Thank God because neither do I.". Afterall, I'm feeling pretty good for an 11 year old corpse.
Now granted it's been a slow process so far but, he's now testing me for genetic causes and autoimmune diseases that could be the root cause.
He's already done a biopsy and found pretty much the same stuff the first one found... He even sent a sample to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and the Doctor there said he couldn't make heads or tails of it either without seeing the original pathology report.. which I didn't have at that time but have since acquired.
So much for the short version, sorry.
Just needed to vent really.
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My goodness what a scary story, I already have lost a lot of faith with the medical community but after reading what you have been through I am seriously blown away. On top of everything they even gave you such a dismal outlook on your life expectancy, at the end of the day you are still here G-d bless you and sound very much like a very spirited person. Thank goodness you were able to make sense of this situation and made sure that you were listening when they had the wrong file, I like how you walked out of the room when she was trying to apologize, people like that shouldn’t be allowed to get into the profession in the first place, thank you for sharing your experience and I’m glad you’re doing well, amen.
@frouke , p.s. I noticed that your message was posted on 2077, I realize it’s a typo but in some way it works for me:)