Believe it or not

One thing I like about today's doc (I like a lot about him) is that not ONCE did he write off all of my many symptoms as coincidence - or any of them.

He agreed with me on this: while hoarseness is a symptom of nerve spread (I think), I said I thought it was actually due to acid reflux.  He said, "yes, you're probably right, that's probably from acid reflux." Or some such.

However, he did not pick out a SINGLE symptom and say "yeah, that's just incidental..." Or "that's an interesting coincidence, but they're completely unrelated."  Or "I think you're wrong."

In fact, he thanked me for bringing things up, even if they were weird.

In fact, he says he thinks I've got Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which progresses from showing very little on the TSH results to eventually producing wonky levels (I think - still learning about it)... which could be why I've been having symptoms for several years intermittently (and others steadily).

In fact, when I brought up my difficulty regulating my weight, at no point did he say "well, as we get older, we have to learn to control our portions." Instead, he encouraged me to think I'll be able to regulate my weight, finally, once I get my TSH levels steady and I'm taking synthetic thyroid (I HOPE SO - AND I HOPE IT DOESN'T REGULATE UP!).

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the referrals from the endocrinologist who was responsible for helping discover the cancer, but I'm still going to seek someone else after the cancer treatment, because the best I got out of my endocrinologist was that my symptoms could point to thyroiditis, but didn't require medicine.

Eh?  As it progresses, Hashimoto's obliterates the thyroid.  I think I'd prefer the medication.  What I don't get is that, assuming I didn't have cancer, she was just going to let me be sick - because she didn't identify that I even had thyroiditis, only the symptoms, and she felt that while I might have this collection of symptoms, they didn't mean enough for medication.

This is what I'm trying to explain when I say we need to advocate for our own care.  We have to push forward and know that if we don't feel right about a diagnosis, we can look elsewhere, that other doctors may - and do, and will - have other opinions that feel better to us.

Yes, I like to hear that something (not my crazy mind) has been causing these weird symptoms for the last few years.  It's so simple, really, for a doctor to win my heart.  All s/he needs to do is: 1) be one of the best in the field (go Lisa's surgeon!), and 2) listen and not tell me I'm wrong (see previous parenthetical).

That's really all I ask.