Today I made the 360 mile round trip drive for my one month follow up post TT with the endocrinologist.
Immediately he was aggravated by the fact that my infant son came with me to the appointment. I have no one to watch him during the day, and on a long drive such as that, I wanted my husband along for moral support. So the appointment in general started off on the wrong foot.
He mentioned my calcium levels were low, but didn't discuss details, just jumped right into the RAI discussion.
This may sound silly to some, but I cannot swallow large pills. I have NEVER been able to. I don't know why, I just can't. So for me, it was important to know the size of the RAI capsule. To him, this was an irrelevant question. I tried to explain to him that I cannot even swallow a Tylenol without breaking it in half and that I didn't think I would be able to swallow the I131 capsule and instead would like the liquid form. I also attempted to mention that I had not fully weaned my son yet, and was completely brushed off.
He has already refused to refill my synthroid as he wants me to have RAI in 4-6 weeks at the most, as soon as I become hypo and do two weeks on LID. I know from my research, I need to be completely done breastfeeding for 6-8 weeks prior to RAI, but he ignored me.
When I re-iterated the fact that I can't swallow pills he acted fed up and told me he didn't know what he could do for me then, and that I needed to seek treatment elsewhere. He then said "you didn't have to drive all this way for this appointment, you could have just done a teleconference". That was just the icing on the cake, considering this was my 6th trip to Marquette in two months, they knew exactly how far I was driving and this has never been mentioned prior to now.
SO yes. I'm firing my endocrinologist.
I used to live near a large hospital that is world renowned for their cancer care. 8 months ago, I moved 350 miles away to a tiny island in Michigan's upper peninsula. The care up here..is lacking, to say the least. Honestly? I should have done more research, but my care options were pretty limited because I had a medicaid HMO. So rather than try to fight the insurance company, I saw the only ENT and Endocrinologist on the plan and had my thyroid removed immediately.
I feel a lot of distrust towards the world renowned hospital downstate, as they have monitored my thyroid nodules for 3 years, told me I was fine, even as recent as October of 2010. If I hadn't moved up here and if my new family pcp didn't want to take a closer look herself, I'd be none the wiser while the cancer continued to spread...
So although I distrust the particular clinic I was dealing with.. I've put in a request for a consultation with the cancer center.. because I'm hoping that I will receive better care there than what I am currently receiving.
I'm not sure how I'm going to swing the transportation costs, as the trip will double in length..but what can you do?...
Nothing can ever be simple..
Anyone have some synthroid I can borrow?
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