Downer Doctor

I just got back from an annual doctor's appointment that I've been dreading. I'm not typically nervous about my appointments with my endocrinologist.

In fact, I know exactly what the doctor will do each time I go: check my peripheral vision, listen to my heart, prod around the area near my neck and collar bone, push at my ankles to check for swelling, ask me some personal questions and write an order for blood to be drawn. Every few years, I get an MRI as well.

I don't want to air my whole medical history. I only bring all this up because I'm irritated.

I take a medication for this particular ailment and have for more than a decade. Earlier this year, for the first time in a very long time, I read the pamphlet included with the drug. The one that lists every conceivable side effect. A few statements concerned me, so I called the doctor.

I didn't actually talk to the doctor. No. Because that would be too much like trying to reach The President directly. I wrote a note and faxed it to the office for the doctor to read.

Basically, I wanted to get off the medication.

I'm very hands-on about my health. I don't rely on insurance companies, hospital staff, doctors or nurses to know everything about what's going on with my body.

If there's anything that being a mom has taught me about doctors, it's that they don't know everything. They're just people. Highly educated, but often very rushed, people.

To ask to get off this medicine wasn't some flighty decision. I prayed hard about it before I made the request and quite often ever since I quit taking it. (The doctor gave his okay grudgingly. After thinking I was nuts.)

Based on results from my medical tests in past years, I have been praying that this particular issue is no longer an issue. I would like just a little miracle for me, please, Jesus.

Today's appointment, with its blood test and possible follow-up MRI, was only causing me some stress because I would find out if I get my miracle or not. Either way, I'm going to be A-Okay, because I know God's got my back. I'd just like to stop taking this medicine because I'm not a pill popper in general. And this particular medicine is stinkin' expensive!

Plus, I want to quit seeing this doctor altogether. He's okay. But I only see him once every two years - every other year I see his nurse practitioner. It's very hard to get an appointment with him.

I'd like to just have my family doctor oversee my care. I can get an appointment with him usually the day I call... worst case, within the same week.

All that background to frame today's appointment.

The doctor told me that I didn't need to be concerned about my previous medication causing the problems I'd read about since those things were only listed on the pamphlet because the drug is in a class of drugs that causes those problems. My particular drug did not.

Fine. Whatever. I still don't want to take something if I don't need it anymore. And unless my blood shows something that my body isn't making clear to me with other symptoms, then I'd like to hold out hope for my miracle, thank you very much.

Then he said, "Well, we'll check your levels and see if you need to get back on your medicine. Which I expect you will."

How rude would it be to stick out your tongue and shoot a raspberry at a medical professional?



I might have considered that response more thoroughly had I not been wearing my Third Day t-shirt. I think the Lord smiled down on me for my restraint.

I just hate it when someone rains on my parade! I'm still waiting for my miracle.

God can tell me "no" if He wants to.

A doctor cannot.

"For I am the LORD who heals you."
Exodus 15:26