So I go to the gastrofunintestinenalripyouopenenterologist. Yeah, that made my gut hurt more. 3:30 on a Friday, what could be better. Of course, to get there and realize my previous doctor did not send over the medical files as requested. This is like the 5th time this has happened to me in the last 2 yrs.
So I'm supposed to pay a doctor to tell me, "sorry, can't tell you anything since you don't have your records. That'll be $100 please." Dammit. Having been through this annoying pain before, I know exactly what to do. I make a complete ass of myself. Oh, I get the phone, phonebook, pen and make the doctor wait. I'm on the phone cussing out the NC State folks, and I have the number to my prior doctor as a backup.
So now I'm talking to some twit in medical records. I politely ask her to send over my files. She's more worried about who messed up, than fixing the problem. Typical American. Then she's like, "which files?" "All of them" "Oh, but that's 20 pages". What, is the fucking fax machine going to break?
So then I ask her to just send over the upper GI results. "Oh, I'm not comfortable with this, I don't know if I'll get the correct records." WTF? You work in medical records, who else would know better?! Dammit. Luckily she transferred me to someone with a brain. So I go back to see the doc.
Now is when the day gets bad.
So he looks over everything, explain so basic history of my condition, asks a few more questions and simply says, "this is a chronic problem. You will be on the pills the rest of your life. You should cut out things like caffeine, fatty foods and eating before bed. Don't start drinking or smoking and try losing some weight."
Damn.
"I've noticed some progress. If I do all that and take more pills, will this ever go away?"
"No." And here, the man didn't pause. I didn't even finish the sentence before he answered. Could be worse I suppose.
Turns out. So he continues, "Since you've had the condition for awhile and have been on medication for awhile, we should probably check for scarring of the esophagus. It's a simple, painless procedure. If no damage - no change, continue on pills. If there's a lot of damage, it might be what we call Barrett's Esophagus. In which cause we'd have to go in surgically, pull part of your stomach up, wrap it around your esophagus and close. It would be uncomfortable and only 2/3 are completely successful. Any questions?"
WTF?!
After a few minutes of unfortunately visualizing what he just said, "Yeah, so what about the stuff we talked to previously (a side conversation not related to stomach)?"
"Yeah, you might have diabetes, you should probably get that checked."
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Here's hoping all your internal organs are working
like they're supposed to,
Clay