Monday I spent the afternoon with one “specialist” to talk about a “minor medical procedure”. Wednesday I’m scheduled to see my neurologist about something totally unrelated as a follow up and then on Thursday I’m supposed to talk with yet another “specialist” to evaluate the blood tests that were taken Monday along with the CT and MRI scans; presumably to discuss surgical procedures. Wow, three specialists in one week; this isn’t funny and yet I find myself looking like the opening scene from a Billy Crystal movie.
He has his “white man’s afro” hair cut as he wanders around his bedroom explaining the life cycle of the average male. There’s a pretend walker which he uses to move about the room, making exaggerated faces as if his dentures had been left in that glass on the night stand. I can hardly wait for my memory to begin to fail, sitting in the bathtub while Carmen, the care taker from the clinic, the one we hire when my brain turns to oatmeal; when Carmen reminds me to clean behind my ears. That will make my world complete, the total Billy Crystal “old man of the sea”; bathtub, what’s the difference at that age.
Now I’m getting those looks from Lucy, the kind of look that tells me I should have listened to her way back when. You know that look; yea, be careful now.
“I told you, you should have continued going to see Dr. Frank” (named altered). “Just because you think he’s a quack doesn’t mean he couldn’t help you get past this without them cutting part of your liver off.”
How can you get angry with the love of your life when she wants so desperately to help? The fact remains that I lost any respect for Dr. Frank when he checked me over that one time I relented to Lucy’s promptings to go see that quack. He told me flat out that I probably had suffered a heart attack; but instead of advising me to go immediately to the hospital, Dr. Frank zapped my chest with some sort of cosmic ray gun, put some foul tasting drops on my tongue and told me that he just saved my life. No thank you, that kind of back woods medical attention might play well on the Walton’s television show; but I’d prefer somebody with a little more respect for common sense.
So, I’m still in the dog house for rejecting “old fashioned homeopathy” and the real benefits it offers when done in moderation. I’m sure that those foot baths help relieve and make you feel better; not so sure that years of toxins are actually pulled out through my feet, quack, quack-quack. Was that a duck walking by or an opinion? I’m not entirely against taking herbs to maintain a proper metabolism that has been subjected to modern day fast foods; but I don’t believe for a minute that passing some cosmic ray gun over my chest will fix a tumor, a heart attack or a sack full of gall stones.
If, after having talked with the liver specialist, I am given sufficient information to either live with the tumor they spotted on those tests or have it removed; then and only then will I make the decision to rely on modern medical procedures and doctors. I can always walk out and close the door, let the tumor sit there and hope it isn’t something I’ll regret later on. That is what being an adult is all about; living with the challenges you are given and accepting responsibility for whatever happens.
“Piece of cake!”
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